ABSTRACT
In analyzing modernity all roads start from and lead to Max Weber. Weber wrote his seminal essay, The Rational and Social Foundations of Music, in 1911. It was published a decade later. A formal reading might easily give one the misleading impression that in The Rational and Social Foundations of Music, Weber reached the zenith of his action theory. Occidental music emerged from an historical battleground on which purposively rational and traditionally rational actions had been contending for centuries. The philosophical implications of a strictly sociological theory are already apparent. Indeed, it is almost impossible to miss Weber’s un-stated polemic against The Birth of Tragedy. The focal point and main message of Weber’s analysis is to call attention to the sharp contrast between modern and premodern music, that is, between rationalized and far less rationalized types of composing music. The latter term, Weber emphasizes, is not totally arbitrary.
