Weber/Simmel/Du Bois

Abstract

Three classics of sociology are discussed for how they treat music as a social symptom of modernity's rationalization process, as a conceptual model of modern sociality, and as a generic resource for sociological writing. Where parts of Max Weber's The Rational and Social Foundations of Music focus on the distinctive `ethos' of creative composition within the rise of modern music, passages in Georg Simmel's Schopenhauer and Nietzsche address the specific `logos' of modern performance as an autonomous expression of metaphysical will, and the final chapters of W.E.B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk are concerned with the `pathos' of listening as a potential way of transcending social divisions. The social contexts, cultural contents, and personal motivations of these proto-sociologies of music are shown to articulate a contrapuntal or `lyrical' sociology which is attentive to the production, distribution, and consumption of cultural forms along with the harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic aspects of social life itself.