Musikpsychologie: An autobiographical historical perspective.

Abstract

(TRANSLATED BY BRUNO H. REPP) ABSTRACT-As the historical birthplace of psychology, musicology, and music psychology, Germany has been an important center for the development of our field. In this article the author traces the development of all three disciplines in Germany and Austria from the 1940s to the present. She discusses the difficulties of being a woman in academia, especially during her early years as a student and faculty member, and includes fascinating personal experiences with important founding fathers of music psychology (such as Albert Wellek) and musicology (such as Carl Dahlhaus). She also describes the formation of the national journal, Jahrbuch Musikpsychologie, and the German Society for Music Psychology, as well as the publication of many monographs and articles. Her contributions to the establishment of the field of systematic musicology are also discussed, including the editing of the Handbuch der systematischen Musikwissenschaft [Handbook of Systematic Musicology] (2004-2007). The Handbuch includes an extensive volume on Musikpsychologie. Memory actively processes information by selecting, categorizing, and creating associations. An autobiographical document is therefore limited as a historical source; rather, it is a document of impression management behind which intimations of a self are hidden. It seems certain to me that I am a typical example of a German woman born in 1938. This type is usually quite flexible because the conditions of war during childhood caused frequent changes of domicile; such women are also able to adapt to unfamiliar situations and are at the same time - despite urban influences - somewhat provincial because they have grown up with few external contacts and have had little access to educational institutions. Typically, these women were educated by their mothers to be prepared for possible independence in a profession, but at the same time the traditional image of the homemaker was transmitted to them. This had the consequence that they were rather unemancipated as adults but nevertheless were able to assert themselves professionally, even though (in West Germany at least) the traditional sex role stereotypes had been increasingly re-established by that time: When I received the page proofs of first publication, in which I had not yet used appended maiden name (Haber), first name (Helga) was crossed out and replaced with that of husband (Diether). YEARS OF STUDY In 1957 I began to study psychology at the University of Mainz, a medium-sized town in southwestern Germany. The Professorial chair for psychology in Mainz had been occupied since 1946 by Albert Wellek (1904-1972). He was a representative of holistic psychology (Ganzheitspsychologie) of the Leipzig school, which shared with Gestalt theory of the Berlin school a focus on holistic organizational processes. The Leipzig school's emphasis was on experience and emotions. It attempted to explain the impression of a Gestalt as arising from an incremental construction during stimulus processing, the so-called Aktualgenese. One way in which this was investigated experimentally was through brief tachistoscopic presentations. The concept of Aktualgenese has disappeared; however, research on the interaction of data-driven bottom-up processes and knowledge-driven top-down processes is still important today. The founder of holistic psychology was Felix Krueger, the successor of Wilhelm Wundt. Wellek, who was born in Vienna and had studied composition, musicology, and psychology, became Krueger's assistant in 1933, perhaps because Krueger, who himself had conducted research on musical consonance, was interested in investigating the psychology of music further. Krueger was dismissed from his post in 1936 and died soon afterwards. In view of their brief collaboration it is remarkable that Wellek never mentioned Krueger's name without adding my revered teacher. Some of his colleagues ridiculed him because of this. …