Ett förbisett pionjärarbete

Om Karl Valentins doktorsavhandling ”Studien über die schwedischen Volksmelodien”

Abstract

An Overlooked Pioneering Work. On Karl Valentin's PhD study

“Studien über die Schwedischen Volksmelodien”
This article is an examination of the first PhD thesis in musicology written by a Swedish scholar. The name of the author was Karl Valentin; the study was entitled Studien über die schwedischen Volksmelodien, and was the first scholarly study of Swedish music. It was defended at the German university of Leipzig in 1885. Furthermore, in an international perspective, it was also one of the earliest theses in the subdiscipline of “comparative musicology”, known today as “the ethnology of music”. My ambition in presenting this article was to examine Valentin’s dissertation in the light of research trends at German universities during the time in which he lived, and in musicology – particularly in the then emerging field of comparative musicology. I thereby focus on its points of departure in terms of the theory of science and the history of ideas. I also consider his discussion and conclusions sections in the light of twenty-first century views. Valentin’s dissertation took shape under the influence of both the historical view of the humanities prevailing at the times and the developing trends. We can see the strong influence of the positivism and empirical science that were making inroads into musicology at the time and that would later come to bring considerable influence to bear on comparative musicology. Valentin’s aim was to study Swedish folk melodies with a view to determining what musical elements distinguished them, on the basis of a belief that such unique elements could be determined in an objective manner. Thus his dissertation is largely quantitative, and consists of comparative analyses of various musical parameters, presented as tables. He also discusses the origins and paths of dissemination of Swedish folk music, but in an almost total absence of a sociocultural perspective. Valentin’s view of folk music diverges substantially from what came to be mainstream thinking in Sweden well into the twentieth century. For instance, his work contains almost no strains of nationalism, nor does it idealize the Swedish people or popular culture. His views are neither historically oriented nor devolutionist.