In den bald drei Jahrzehnten seines Bestehens hat sich der International Folk Music Council weit ausgebreitet: über Europa und Amerika, über Länder der anderen Erdteile von Israel und Libanon bis Japan, vom Norden bis zum Süden Afrikas und in die Ferne bis Hawaii, Australien und Neuseeland. Diese Entwicklung setzt sich fort. Wie in ähnlichen Verbänden führt sie dazu, auf einem Sektor der Kultur die Menschheit im ganzen zu umspannen.

Our International Folk Music Council that includes so many nations is spreading further and further throughout the world. At the same time the subject with which it is concerned is extending to include music of all mankind. In these and other aspects, (such as the consideration of music in the context of life), its development leads to the topic “Musica humana.” Thus we are dealing beyond the history of an ancient idea with a basic problem of the present day. I.

I. The classical conception of Musica humana

In an age-old view of the world, which originated in antiquity and remained alive well into modem times, the term Musica humana meant the harmony of the psychophysical organism which seemed to be related to the harmony of the cosmos as well as to the harmony of sonorous music (musica mundana et sonora). This provided an explanation for the fact that pulsating rhythms and harmonious interrelations of sound had such agreeable and vivid effects and that, on the other hand, dull and melancholy persons lacking inner harmony could not be reached by music (Shakespeare: “The man that hath no music in himself …”). — In an extended sense of the term, “musica humana”: is said to be innate in man's nature. There is nothing more characteristic of humanity than finding delight and stimulation in music. Thus, everywhere in the world laymen and children sing and dance. Since barbarians, however, are not human in the full sense of the word, music is said to contribute to a higher degree of humanity and to promote the “humanization of mankind.” — Such ideas had extremely practical significance, before and since the Renaissance. They became leading ideas in several movements of musical composition, musical societies and education, especially in philanthropy and Viennese classicism.

II. The withdrawal from Musica humana in more recent times

The conception of musica humana did not dominate exclusively in any period. It was confronted since an early stage with the reproduction in sound of beings outside humankind, desensualization, tendencies in spiritualist religion, and with a higher degree of artificialization; the contempt of laymen reached to the accordance of equal status to layman and animal (“… diffinitur bestia”). In the age of industrialization many activities previously carried out by human beings are now carried out by apparatus. Music is withdrawing from the context of life and becoming autonomous. Making music oneself, creating proper styles and folk traditions have all decreased in significance. Thus music plays a part in the alienation of man from himself. New humanist movements, however, such as the revival of folk song, took music as a human counterbalance to industrialization, but in recent decades influential currents have turned away radically from musica humana, thinking its ideas trivial, amateurish or discredited by having been used for political purposes. It was denied that music had any power or any claim to form human character, and it was said that at school it should primarily contribute to the development of powers of rational analysis and reflection. Some types of composition strove to reach highly sophisticated structures and to express pain and shock. What was once thought to be innate (“musica nobis innata”) now seemed to have been proved to be a mere listening habit, replaceable by other listening habits. This relativism in production corresponds to historicism in the world of learning and to the ethnomusicological supposition predominant since Ellis that there are not universal human qualities in the musical system or in rhythm and that the former belief was based on an illusory generalization of occidental norms.

III. About recent conditions and towards new goals.

Both a belief in those ancient ideas and a radical rejection of them are dogmatic. We may follow neither the authority of Adorno, nor that of Boethius. A critical anthropology of music, which goes beyond the limits of ethnology, should examine to what extent these ideas are correct. In general anthropology, in ethnology, in humanistic psychology, the assumption that everything in man, from culture to culture, from epoch to epoch, is different, is now considered obsolete. Man is less fixed than are other species of animals, but can vary only within the range of the relatively stable structure of his fundamental qualities.

The International Folk Music Council is in a special position for participating in scholarly and practical tasks. A number of considerations in this line are discussed: 1) In contrast to other institutions, the Council does not regard the term “music” narrowly, but includes song, with its words, and dance. 2) The more folk music research develops its anthropological orientation, the more it will devote itself not only to the musical product but also to the study of man and his activities as they relate to music. 3) Mankind has not remained the same since its beginnings; and thus the proper approach to understanding mankind is a combination of systematic with historical investigation between extreme universalism and extreme relativism. 4) The subject of folk music research encompasses the social (and correspondingly psychological) bases of humanity.5) Herder wished not only to collect the voices of peoples, but rather, to speak to the concept of humanity within which cultures differ; and he wished to struggle in behalf of the dignity and against the suppression of the world's peoples.