2000 HSS/PSA Program 1 - History of Science Society

Anna␣ Sofie Christiansen University of Copenhagen
HSS Abstracts
Hermann Scherchen’s Gravesano Project:
Cultural Globalization through Scientific Verification of Western Art Music
In this proposed project I shall investigate the nature of the research carried
out and discussed during a series of symposia in Hermann Scherchen’s studio
in Gravesano, Switzerland in the years from 1954 to 1966. Till now, there has
been no comprehensive study of the activities in Scherchen’s Gravesano studio,
and their important role in the development of music technology with the
purpose to reveal the universal nature of music and music perception through
science. In connection with the conferences, Scherchen published articles,
reviews, etc. in the periodical Gravesaner Blätter, eine Vierteljahresschrift für
musikalische, elektroakustische und schallwissenschaftliche Grenzprobleme
(1955-66). The papers cover topics ranging from scientific papers on acoustics
and psycho-acoustics in the tradition of “Systematische Musikwissenschaft”
articles on sociology, music consumption, radio and recording technology and,
finally, studio reports. The ideological framework was based on Scherchen’s
vision of music technology as a means of fulfilling 19th-century notions of art
music as a universal language and, hence, a key to global understanding. The
Gravesano activities appear to have been rooted in an urge to develop
techniques to create a music culture of the future that was based on aesthetic
principles of the past. Their actual implementation through scientifically
founded research were based on the principles of information theory.
Institutional support was provided by UNESCO under the auspices of the
International Music Council, but Scherchen also collaborated with commercial
companies. This places the Gravesano Project in a much larger framework of
cultural institutionalization and industrialization. The “Tagungen” reveal an
underlying philosophy in which there is a belief that there exists one music
that, through its affinity with the laws of human perception, is superior to
others, and hence universal to humankind. However, the seemingly
inconclusive results of the “Tagungen” do indeed serve to raise the question
of whether music and science are incommensurate domains that obey rules or
conventions that cannot be translated from one to the other.
H
S
S
Juliette Chung Fairbank Center, Harvard University
Transnational Science:
The Japanese Establishment of Shanghai Natural Science Institute
and the Knowledge of Taxonomy in China, 1923-1945
The Japanese establishment of Shanghai Natural Science Institute in 1923
was a product of cultural exchange and international coalition for scientific
advancement such as endemic disease investigation, plague prevention and
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