Globale Musikgeschichte – der lange Weg: Das Forschungsprojekt „Towards a Global History of Music“ (International Balzan Prize Foundation, Mailand)

The paper is an overview of the musicological research project „Towards a global history of music“, which was carried out between 2013 and 2017 on the basis of a Balzan Prize for Musicology (2012), with the assistance of international music research institutes and their specialists. A main outcome of the project are three collective volumes of papers, published in 2018, 2019 and 2021, respectively. The project has viewed the variety of musical experiences around the world as a historical unfolding, to be explored via a „long path“ through both geography and history. It has queried the enlightenment idea of a fundamental unity of all music (universalism), and the often fragile status of musical-cultural identities on the regional or national levels. It has sought to join methodologies of ethnomusicology and historical research, and has observed that the concepts of music and historiography themselves are less than universal. To the discourses of globalisation and modernisation, the project has added the alternative of transculturality, allowing for more neutral or participatory interpretations of cultural encounter. Summarising this research, tensions between nation and migration, regionalism and adaptation, ‚radial‘ and ‚imposed‘ globality are shown. The paper proposes to expand such studies into non-scientific practice and to find new institutional bases, which would benefit further global understanding and sharing.