Outlines of a Historical Sociology of Church Music

Reflections on Configurations of Musical Worlds

Abstract

Summary: The article undertakes a historical-sociological analysis of church music. From the early beginnings to the present, church music developments are examined in their processes of rationalization and differentiation. The central analytical instrument is that of configuration. Configurations are regarded as elementary phenomena of social reality. They are formed around the mechanisms in which actions are coordinated and include the constitutive and normative rules in which such mechanisms of action can be realised. In this way, it is possible to identify the central aspects with regard to the forms of church music: The difference between music and language on the one hand, the difference between communities or parishes and clergy on the other. In addition, it can be shown that church music does not conform to the conventional, widespread music sociological distinction between ›functional‹ and ›autonomous music‹, but must be assigned to a third configuration that is constituted by the economy of giving.