Music(s) and world(s)
Résumé
The relationship between the notions of “music” and “world” can be considered in terms of the history of ideas. While music has always been linked to one or more worlds, it is also important to ask which music and which worlds we mean here. Between antiquity and the nineteenth century, there was a shift away from the single vision of “music of the world”—a functional music reflecting the harmony of the spheres—toward a more pluralistic conception. This newer conception can be neatly summed up using the expression “there are as many musics as there are worlds.” The emphatic conception of the works and composers of the nineteenth century stood in stark opposition to the harmony of the spheres. Since then, these worlds and musics have continually been diversified by globalization.