Gebrauchsmusik is a German term, essentially meaning “utility music,” for music that exists not only for its own sake, but which was composed for some specific, identifiable purpose. This purpose can be a particular historical event, like a political rally or a military ceremony, or it can be more general, as with music written to accompany dance, or music written for amateurs or students to perform. Wikibooks Wikiversity has more about this subject: School of Music Look up Music in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Wikicities has a wiki about Music: Music Music City : a collaborative music database All Music Guide: includes a comprehensive and flexible Genre and Style system MusicWiki: A Collaborative Music-related encyclopedia Science... Musical composition has three meanings in music: an original piece of music the musical structure of a musical piece the process of creating a new piece of music A musical composition A piece of music exists in the form of a written composition in musical notation or as a single...

While composer Paul Hindemith is probably the figure most identified with this expression, it seems to have been coined within the realm of musicology rather than composition. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the modern academic discipline of musicology was formulated by a mainly German group of scholars who were interested not only in formal development and biographical data, but also to an extent in the sociopolitical position of music throughout history, and the relationship of music and musicians to society at large. Perhaps the first such musicologist to use the word Gebrauchsmusik was Paul Nettl, writing in 1921 (‘Beiträge zur Geschichte der Tanzmusik im 17. Jahrhundert’, Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft, iv [1921–2], 257–65) , who employed it in reference to half of his perceived binarism between that 17th-century dance music which was in fact danced to, and that which was written in dance forms but was actually abstract music intended only for listening (By extension, this duality applied to the dichotomy between any music for a specific purpose, Gebrauchsmusik, and that for none but the pleasure or edification of listening, Vortragsmusik). Nettl arrived at this dual-development view of dance music through his observation that such pieces began, as the century progressed, to use stylistic and formal devices that were farther from the province of simple utility and more aligned with some anticipation of a listening audience paying full attention. The period's emerging binary dance form featured such characteristics as an increasing tonicization of foreign keys, an increasingly explicit and emphasized dominant-tonic tonal axis, and a refined delicacy of ornamentation, all of which would seem superfluous in application to a music intended only as the rhythmic accompaniment to physical activity. In addition to these developments in the individual movements, they were organized into ever more extended and stylized suites, which greatly resembled other instrumental forms of the day. Indeed, the mature sonata da camera is virtually indistinguishable from the dance suite of the time. Nettl saw in this situation a clear distinction between music that was intended mainly to be in the service of dancers, and that which was mainly intended to service the ideals of art. Paul Hindemith (November 16, 1895 – December 28, 1963) was a German classical composer, violist, teacher, theorist and conductor. ... For the album by Prince, see Musicology (album). ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 17th century was that century which lasted from 1601-1700. ... In music, a suite is an organized set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed at a single sitting. ...

In articulating this distinction, however, Nettl did not imply that utility music was unimportant artistically. Instead, he pointed out the importance of social need or desire as a catalyst for artistic development. Two years later, also discussing the 17th-century suite (in Beiträge zur Stilgeschichte der deutschen Suite im 17. Jahrhundert, his dissertation of 1923), Heinrich Besseler went a step further, to imply that such utility music was socially superior, if not artistically so. For Besseler, “aesthetic access” (Zugangsweise) to the dance music was gained through participation, be it playing, dancing, or even singing along, rather than mere listening. He further expounded this thesis in a 1925 article on motets of the Medieval period, in which he proposed that such works had not been designed for the enjoyment of listeners, but with only their devotional purpose in mind; this purpose would only be fulfilled through participation, whether performance or prayer. In making this point, Besseler sought to divide all music into two distinct categories, continuing to use the word Gebrauchsmusik for one, and likening this to vernacular language, while replacing Nettl's word for the other with eigenständige Musik—alone-standing, or autonomous music. Besseler had studied philosophy with Martin Heidegger, and thought that this musical duality reflected Heidegger's between “thing” and “equipment,” for the autonomous and the specific-purposed, respectively. A musician plays the vielle in a 14th century medieval manuscript. ... Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) was a German philosopher. ...

It was Besseler's notion of this concept which took hold in German musical culture of the 1920s and '30s, becoming something of a controversy within that sphere, and even spilling into political ideology. Such a distinction had always existed in music, and that some works had always been composed for specific occasions and others not (at least since the Renaissance, in all probability), is attested to by the work of Besseler and Nettl, who based their concepts on studies of the historical situation. Even so, the musicologicaly conceived term Gebrauchsmusik somehow came to be construed as a concept of modern political administration. Some composers and government officials identified a need for community music, to be played by amateurs and young people at large festivals; the long German tradition of community singing benefited greatly from this impulse. Hindemith, Kurt Weill, and many others contributed works with such intentions in mind as the fledgling Weimar Republic tried to stave off collapse. The cultural, rather than solely political, nature of this movement will be seen, however, from the observation that Hindemith was for the most part a political agnostic, while Weill was an avowed leftist. Composers, regardless of their political views, were largely in favor of the Gebrauchsmusik concept at its outset because a recognized need and desire for occasion-tailored works would lead to a constant call for them. All combatants in the political arena saw in community music-making a potential glue with which to unite the German people behind their respective agendas; rather than expend the often wasted effort of regaling them with rhetoric, left and right alike could simply awe the public with spectacle and envelop them in the ecstasy of art. The right wing took Gebrauchsmusik as a tool when it began its ascendancy, which is probably the main reason for its increased discredit and abandonment as the decade progressed, and the most important German artists and thinkers departed for more hospitable locales. Sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or primarily in North America as the Roaring Twenties. Events and trends Technology John T. Thompson invents Thompson submachine gun, also known as Tommy gun John Logie Baird invents the first working television system (1925) Charles Lindbergh becomes the first person to fly... Events and trends The 1930s were spent struggling for a solution to the global depression. ... By Region: Italian Renaissance Northern Renaissance -French Renaissance -German Renaissance -English Renaissance The Renaissance was an influential cultural movement which brought about a period of scientific revolution and artistic transformation, at the dawn of modern European history. ... Kurt Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950), born in Dessau, Germany and died in New York, was a German composer active from the 1920s until his death. ... The period of German history from 1919 to 1933 is known as the Weimar Republic (Pronounced Vye-Mar, and in German it is known as the Weimarer Republik). It is named after the city of Weimar, where a national assembly convened to produce a new constitution after the German monarchy...

A second reason, though, for this discredit was the occurrence to certain composers and their followers that composing music for large-scale public use would lead to a need for them to pander as well to large-scale public taste. Such a concept was anathematic to the art-for-art's-sake ideal which followed alongside that of community music in Germany since the days of Beethoven, who had ushered in the era of the well-regarded and financially successful free-lance composer. Schoenberg wrote to the effect that Gebrauchsmusik would hardly out-live its present-day application, while that composed for art and no other purpose would have the only chance at immortality. Schoenberg also noted that there had been less and less call for such utility music since the end of the Republic anyway, and certainly since the conclusion of the war. As a result of this, Gebrauchsmusik's most ardent promoters had again become “ideal artists.” (Schoenberg, Style and Idea, 1950). Earlier (articles of 1924 and 1932), the critic Theodor Adorno had called the work of Hindemith and other Gebrauchsmusiker symptomatic of “false [social] consciousness,” and condemned it as being not truly useful at all, due to what he considered its lack of emotional content. By the late 1950s, Gebrauchsmusik had become almost universally a term of insult, especially among composers. No less than Hindemith attempted, somewhat, to back away from it, when in a lecture at Harvard in 1950, he said that “[...]quite obviously music for which no use can be found, that is to say, useless music, is not entitled to public consideration anyway and consequently the Gebrauch is taken for granted,” and also that “[u]p to this day it has been impossible to kill the silly term and the unscrupulous classification that goes with it.” (quoting himself in A Composer's World, 1952) Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized December 17, 1770; died March 26, 1827) was a German composer of classical music, who predominantly lived in Vienna, Austria. ... Arnold Schoenberg, Los Angeles, 1948 For the American music critic and journalist, see Harold Charles Schonberg. ... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969) was a German sociologist, philosopher, musicologist and composer. ... Millennia: 1st millennium - 2nd millennium - 3rd millennium Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the... Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ...

Adorno had included Stravinsky among the targets of his anti-Gebrauchsmusik diatribes, and though the terminology and classification-system under present consideration is clearly and primarily German, the impulse of composers to write and officials to commission music for specific or ceremonial use is quite obviously universal. Stravinsky is perhaps not the best example of a non-German composer in such a vein who was active in the '20s and '30s, but he did make his name largely with a series of ballets. Along with these, it will be well-remembered that immortal and beloved works of Orff, Kodály, Bartók, Copland, and many others were written under the impulse of Gebrauchsmusik. As the 21st century dawns, and the blinding political travails of times past recede into the fog of history, modern commentators have began to consider that, while Gebrauchsmusik may compromise the composer in some respects, many of the greatest works of not only the 20th century but the 19th and earlier (witness the French tradition of vast, ceremonial works from that period) were composed with public and popular usage in mind. As Kurt Weill wrote in 1929, the use for which a composition was intended and its artistic value are matters for separate consideration. Indeed, they always have been, and continue to be now; to this attests the continued success of the above-considered composers and their works long after their original “utility” has subsided. Carl Orff Carl Orff (July 10, 1895 – March 29, 1982) was a German composer born in Munich. ... Zoltán Kodály Zoltán Kodály (December 16, 1882 – March 6, 1967) was a Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, educator, linguist and philosopher. ... Aaron Copland (born Aaron Cohen) (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer of modern tonal music as well as film music. ... (20th century - 21st century - 22nd century - other centuries) Decades: 2000s 2010s 2020s 2030s 2040s 2050s 2060s 2070s 2080s 2090s In calendars based on the Christian Era or Common Era, such as the Gregorian calendar, the 21st century is the current century, as of this writing. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999 in the... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...

References and additional reading

• Paul Hindemith, A Composer's World, Horizons and Limitations, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952.
• Stephen Hinton, 'Gebrauchsmusik,' New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Online, ed. L. Macy, accessed 10 June, 2005. http://www.grovemusic.com
• Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea, New York: Philosophical Library, 1950.