The Quest for Modalities of Musical Remembrance

Abstract

Most of the humanities and social sciences are involved in the contemporary “memory boom”; disciplines focused on music are, in this aspect, still behind the times. In the presented text, the author offers a theoretical model for the ethnomusicological investigation of musical remembrance, which is conceived here primarily as collective. Its starting points are (a) Assmann’s concept of the time dimension of connective structure (which is one of the building blocks of collective identity), (b) the understanding of remembrance as constructed and rooted in the present, (c) the basic ethnomusicological premise about music as a mirror, as well as a co-creator of social reality. Two research spheres are open to investigators interested in music remembrance: one in which music (as a sound phenomenon and performance practice) is the main subject of research, and the other in which music is understood´ (only) as a medium of remembrance and the main attention is focused on social reality. Existing research signalizes two basic modalities of collective remembrance: nationwide modalities, and modalities specific for different cultural cohorts. This finding corresponds (with certain exceptions) to the concepts of other authors (Turino, Assmann).