Publicaciones

The French musicologist Albert Lavignac (1846–1916) conceived the Encyclopédie de la musique et dictionnaire du Conservatoire as a monumental encyclopedic undertaking with monograph-length studies by reputable French scholars. After Lavignac’s death, Lionel de La Laurencie (1861–1931) continued the project, but with his passing in 1933 the Encyclopédie was abandoned. The work as its stands consists of two parts. The first (comprising five volumes, first published between 1913 and 1922) concerns the history of music, with specific sections on periods (antiquity to Middle Ages) and on selected countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The number of entries allocated to non-European music is especially noteworthy. Joanny Grosset’s major article on India may be counted the beginning of modern interest in Indian music in the French-speaking world. Similarly notable is Maurice Courant’s Essai sur la musique classique des Chinois. The second part (comprising six volumes, published between 1925 and 1931) focuses on aesthetics and theory, instruments and performance, religious music and venues. La Laurencie’s expertise in French music from Lully to Gluck led to well-balanced contributions in that subject area. The Encyclopédie is a work of universal musicology written from the French perspective after the fin-de-siècle. It has enjoyed considerable reputation among historical musicologists and ethnomusicologist alike [see Robert Lachmann’s review in Music & letters 4, no. 3 (1923): 290–291] and is indispensable for historiographic research.