Young Adler: Early Sources of his Systematic Orientation

Guido Adler (1855–1941), the first director of the Department of Musicology at the University of Vienna (founded 1898) is also one of the founding fathers of the discipline. Adler has profoundly influenced the discipline’s profile. His 1885 article The scope, method and aim of musicology is central for the dualism of historical and systematical research that Adler initiated. The integration of a non-historical, systematic approach leads to an organization of the discipline and its leading research questions that differs from the academic discipline of Art History, institutionalized earlier (first full professorship at the University of Vienna 1863, second professorship 1879). The longer tradition of art-historical scholarship, particularly in Germany, creates a context with a dominant role for historicism, idealism and nationalism. For Adler, however, and from the perspective of 1885, the natural sciences already played a much bigger role, historicism had lost importance, and in multi-ethnic Austria, nationalism was much less of a topic than in German culture.  Against this background, Adler was able to shape the discipline’s profile in a way that is still relevant today.

The project deals with two possible sources of Adler’s systematic orientation that date back to his educational background: (a) Adler’s high school education in “philosophical propaedeutics”, and (b) Adler’s legal studies. Both sources of influence lead to a specific intellectual outlook that stresses systematic aspects and limits the role of history.