Carl Dahlhaus and the Aesthetics of the Experiment

Abstract

Although Carl Dahlhaus is among the most prolific and influential musicologists of the discipline, the English-language reception of his work has been relatively limited. The limitations concern both the writings examined—primarily two books, Die Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts and Grundlagen der Musikgeschichte—and the conclusions drawn about these writings. This article expands the study of Dahlhaus’s work by considering instead his essays on the history and aesthetics of postwar serial music. The study of Dahlhaus’s essays on music after 1945 is beneficial for several reasons: first, it shows a facet of the historian’s work that has received comparatively little attention; second, it provides examples that challenge central conclusions of the (American) English-language reception of Dahlhaus; and finally, it shows how Dahlhaus’s thinking reflects heretofore unexamined aspects of his cultural and historical context, such as postwar compositional theory, and it thereby enables a more complete and critical understanding of his work.