Historiography is the writing of history; historiography of music, the writing of music history, involves many layers of complicated issues. History writing has existed throughout the time, as seen in the writing of mythology, government, poetry, science, etc. Music history writing first began around late eighteenth century. First issue of historiography arises when different history writers apply different perspectives of writing history. Older history writing shows lists of works, and the selections reveals whom was considered great composers. Progress can be another approach in history writing; searching for a constant progress in the thread of history leads the writer’s selection of historical materials. Dahlhaus emphasized the autonomy of works, while Kermann insists the importance of the cultural and social context. For this issue, Leo Treitler took a middle stand and warns the danger of being extreme. Each perspectives offer different advantages but also create shortcomings. The limitation of writing history is that the abundant historical events are simply too much; therefore, the author has to be selective and one’s selection of materials creates interpretations. Indeed, the narratives of history cannon encompass everything in history, and the final product only reveals the author’s version of story.
The current historiography of music demonstrates two more issues: periodization and canon. In the eighteenth century people started being interested in periodization, which can apply general history, the immanent musical works, and the cultural-historical approach. Ambros, Kiesewetter, and Forkel all made their attempts for ways of periodization. Despite the problematic concept that the continuous history can be sectionalized into periods and musical styles can be distinguished from period to period, the idea of periodization is still largely applied in music history books nowadays. Although periodization is against the actual development of styles, thoughts, and ideas in history, it is a convenient way of organizing history and the choices of dates do have reasons. Before a better way of organizing history can be found, periodization, in my opinion, can be in use with caution—as long as we continue to be aware of the limitation and problems of periodization.
The last issue of historiography is the canon of the Western music history. The canonical composers and works have been under the spotlight of music history and musicological research, and the formation of such a canon is not without problem. The canon reflects a power structure in the writing of music history (or any history); whoever gets to write history owns power. Therefore most of the canonic composers were European, Caucasian composers; few women composers or male composers from other races and countries finally made it into the history in recent decades. Their works are still not considered the core of the canon. The political factor and power, although not always visible, are strongly underlying and influencing historiography. In short, historiography of music should be viewed with caution with the writer’s perspective, the issues of periodization and canon, and the power underlying history writing.
