Genology is positioned in philology as the most important research field and academic discipline. The term was introduced by Paul van Tieghem in the late 1930s. Genology developed rapidly after World War II. Subsequently, a relatively new material—mass literature and journalism, as well as cinema — was involved in the development of genological problems; an important area is the study of speech genres.
Musicology in the 20th century has developed its own theory of genres, which, on the one hand, had deep roots in the history of music studies, and on the other hand, in its modern formation was strongly influenced by literary studies. But parallels with genology did not emerge until the end of the century (Jiří Fukač, 1993).
Today, the very question of musical genology becomes relevant. In last decades, the field of genre in music studies has expanded significantly, especially in the direction of applied researches and developments, including in contact with digital technologies. These processes often lead to spontaneous differentiation in the increasingly complex structure of cognition. It seems that the research experience of genology and the concept itself have a productive potential for music science. We are talking about the possibility of comprehension at a new level of existing data and developments, which would contribute to the consolidation and further systematization of the body of knowledge and research in the genre field of music. This will allow us to more accurately define the boundaries and specifics of the musical genres theory as such.
In this article, two aspects of the genological problematics are considered: 1) the spectrum of contemporary directions of study, and 2) some problem areas of theory.
1. Alshvang, Arnold A. 1938. “Opernye zhanry ‘Karmen’ [Opera Genres of ‘Carmen’].” Sovetskaya muzyka [Soviet Music], no. 12, 27–41. (In Russian).
2. Brunetière, Ferdinand. 1987. “Literaturnaya kritika [Literary Criticism].” In Zarubezhnaya estetika i teoriya literatury 19–20 vv.: Traktaty, stat’i, esse [Foreign Aesthetics and Theory of Literature of the 19th and 20th Centuries: Treatises, Articles, Essays], compiled and edited by Georgy K. Kosikov, 95–107. Moscow: MGU. (In Russian).
3. Zemtsovskiy, Izaliy I. 1983. “K teorii zhanra v fol’klore [To the Theory of Genre in Folklore].” Sovetskaya muzyka [Soviet Music], no. 4, 61–65. (In Russian).
4. Croce, Benedetto. 2000. Estetika kak nauka o vyrazhenii i kak obshchaya lingvistika [The Aesthetic as the Science of Expression and of the Linguistic in General]. Moscow: Intrada. (In Russian).
5. Leiderman, Naum L. 1979. “Sovremennoe zarubezhnoe literaturovedenie ob istorii zhanrovoy problematiki [Modern Foreign Literary Criticism on the History of Genre Issues].” In Problemy zhanra v zarubezhnoy literature [Problems of Genre in Foreign Literature], 117–25. Sverdlovsk: UGPI. (In Russian).
6. Nazaykinskiy, Evgeniy V. 1972. O psikhologii muzykal’nogo vospriyatiya [On the Psychology of Musical Perception]. Moscow: Muzyka. (In Russian).
7. Nazaykinskiy, Evgeniy V. 2003. Stil’ i zhanr v muzyke [Style and Genre in Music]. Moscow: VLADOS. (In Russian).
8. Pospelov, Gennadiy N. 1972. Problemy istoricheskogo razvitiya literatury [Problems of Historical Development of Literature]. Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1972. (In Russian).
9. Skrebkov, Sergey S. 1965. “Khudozhestvennye printsipy muzykal’nykh stiley (Vvedenie v issledovanie) [Artistic Principles of Musical Styles (Introduction to the Study)].” In Muzyka i sovremennost’ [Music and Contemporary], issue 3, 3–31. Moscow: Muzyka. (In Russian).
10. Sokolov, Oleg V. 1977. “K probleme tipologii muzykal’nykh zhanrov [On the Problem of Musical Genres Typology].” In Problemy muzyki 20 veka [The Problems of 20th Century Music], 12–58. Gorky: Volgo-Vyatskoe knizh. izd-vo. (In Russian).
11. Sokolov, Oleg V. 1994. Morfologicheskaya sistema muzyki i ee khudozhestvennye zhanry [Morphological System of Music and Its Artistic Genres]. Nizhny Novgorod: NNGU. (In Russian).
12. Sochor, Arnold N. 1971. “Teoriya muzykal’nykh zhanrov: zadachi i perspektivy [Theory of Musical Genres: Tasks And Perspectives].” In Teoreticheskie problemy muzykal’nykh form i zhanrov [Theoretical Problems of Musical Forms and Genres], 292–309. Moscow: Muzyka. (In Russian).
13. Kholopova, Valentina N. 1999. Formy muzykal’nykh proizvedeniy [Forms of Musical Works]. St. Petersburg: Lan’. (In Russian).
14. Zuckermann, Viktor A. 1964. Muzykal’nye zhanry i osnovy muzykal’nykh form [Musical Genres and Foundations of Musical Forms]. Moscow: Muzyka. (In Russian).
15. Chernets, Liliya V. 1982. Literaturnye zhanry (problemy` tipologii i poetiki) [Literary Genres (Problems of Typology and Poetics)]. Moscow: MGU. (In Russian).
16. Esalnek, Asiya Ya. 1985. Vnutrizhanrovaia tipologiia i puti eyo izucheniia [Intra-Genre Typology and Ways of Studying It]. Moscow: MGU. (In Russian).
17. Association for Computing Machinery. n.d. ACM Digital Library. https://dl.acm.org/.
18. Dahlhaus, Carl. 1974. “Was ist eine musikalische Gattung?” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, no. 10 (October), 620–25.
19. Dahlhaus, Carl, and Günter Mayer. 1982. “Zur Theorie der musikalischen Gattungen.” In Neues Handbuch der Musikwissenschaft, vol. 10: Systematische Musikwissenschaft, edited by Carl Dahlhaus, Helga de la Motte-Haber, 109–24. Wiesbaden: Athenaion Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft; Laaber: Laaber-Verlag.
20. Danuser, Hermann. 2003. “Gattung.” In Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, in 26 vols., Sachteil 3, edited by Ludwig Finscher, 1042–69. 2nd ed. Kassel; Basel: Bärenreiter.
21. Denizeau, Gérard. 1997. Les genres musicaux, vers une nouvelle histoire de la musique. Paris: Larousse.
22. Fukač, Jiří. 1993. “Sushchestvuet li muzykal’naya genologiya? [Is there a Musical Genology?].” In Genologické studie. II, K poctě profesora Franka Wollmana, 91–95. Brno: Masarykova univerzita. (In Russian).
23. Oliveira, Gabriel P., Anisio Lacerda, and Mirella M. Moro. 2020. “Musical Genre Analysis Over Dynamic Success-Based Networks.” In Proceedings of the 35th Brazilian Symposium on Databases, SBBD 2020, Online, September 28 – October 1, 2020, 9–15. Available at: https://sbbd.org.br/2020/wp-content/uploads/sites/13/2020/09/209322-Musical-Genre-Analysis-Over-Dynamic.pdf (accessed January 30, 2024).
24. Arlt, Wulf, Ernst Lichtenhahn, and Hans Oesch, eds. 1973. Gattungen der Musik in Einzeldarstellungen: Gedenkschrift Leo Schrade, issue 1. Bern; München: Francke.
25. Iskandar, Jeremy. 2008. Aspekte des Gattungsbegriffes im musikwissenschaftlichen Diskurs. München: GRIN. Available at: https://www.grin.com/document/124465 (accessed January 12, 2024).
26. Pattanaik, Sai Siddhant, Prakhar Jain, Puneet Sharma, Siddharth Rathore, and Abhijit Kumar. 2023. “Comparative Analysis of Music Genre Classification Framework Based on Deep Learning.” In Machine Intelligence and Data Science Applications. MIDAS 2022. Algorithms for Intelligent Systems, 377–90. Singapore: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-1620-7_30.
27. Samson, Jim. 2001. “Genre.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, in 29 vols., edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, vol. 9, 657–59. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan.
28. Šidák, Pavel. 2013. Úvod do studia genologie. Teorie literárního žánru a žánrová krajina. Praha: Akropolis.
29. Skwarczyńska, Stefania. 1965. Wstęp do nauki o literaturze, vol. 3. Warszawa: Pax.
30. Sochor, Arnold N. 1970. “Die Theorie der musikalischen Genres: Aufgaben und Perspektiven.” Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 12, no. 2: 109–20.