La antropología musical: informe sobre sus objetivos y trabajos de investigación

Abstract

Since 1951, when the German philosopher Hans Plessner published his paper about «Anthropology of Music», some people in different scholarly disciplines tried to find out, how man and music are fundamentally interlaced. Viktor Zuckerkandl's «Sound and Symbol» (1956) and «Man the Musician» (1973), Alan B. Merriams «Anthropology of Music» (1964), John Blackings «How Musical is Man?» (1973), Wolfgang Suppans «Der musizierende Mensch. Eine Anthropologie der Musik» (1984) and «Música humana» (1986) are the most important steps into a new and interdisciplinary science of music. But thinking on the need of music for man and society starts in old Chinese and Greek philosophy. Our research report and bibliographical survey about the development of anthropological studies in music pays also attention to the Spanish Jesuit P. Antonio Eximeno y Pujades, who published in the 18th century in his nearly unknown books important ideas on our topic.