French Literature Reviews - 2026
Schütz, Ecrits sur la musique
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas
Alfred Schütz, Ecrits sur la musique
Editions MF, - 220 pages - 16 euros - isbn: 978-2-9157-9415-4
Translation, introduction, notes, and afterwords by Laurent Perreau and Bastien Gallet.
Though still relatively unknown in France, Alfred Schütz (1899–1959) is nevertheless recognized in Anglo-Saxon countries and Germany as one of the great classics of sociology. Indeed, throughout his life, while maintaining a dual career as a legal adviser and an intellectual, Schütz consistently developed an original body of thought situated at the crossroads of philosophy and sociology.
Schütz's first major work was published in 1932 under the title Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt. In it, Schütz undertook to provide a philosophical foundation for "interpretive" sociology (sociologie compréhensive), the fundamental methodology of which Max Weber had recently set forth in the first volume of Economy and Society. Drawing simultaneously upon Husserl's phenomenology and Bergson's philosophy of duration, Schütz sought to "trace the roots of social science problems back to the fundamental facts of conscious life." Ultimately, this original approach was intended, according to Schütz, to clarify the fundamental concepts of interpretive sociology, such as comprehension, interpretation, meaning, etc. From the outset, Schütz's work thus took the form of a dual inquiry into the nature of social reality, on the one hand, and the philosophical foundations of sociological method, on the other. As the only book by Schütz published during his lifetime, the Aufbau remains his most systematic text; it allows us both to resituate his initial positions regarding Bergson, Husserl, and Weber, and to discover the seeds of his later reflections on the phenomenological theory of the social world, the epistemology of the social sciences, and the anthropology of the everyday world.
Toward the late 1930s, Schütz left Austria into exile in the United States, where, starting in 1943, he taught regularly at the New School for Social Research in New York—a renowned institution that welcomed many German intellectuals in exile. From then on, Schütz's reflections were expressed most often in the form of articles and short essays, which are now gathered in the four volumes of his Collected Papers. During this period, Schütz considerably broadened the scope of his reflections and readings, familiarizing himself with the theories of W. James, C. H. Cooley, G. H. Mead, and J. Dewey. He discovered American sociology, notably the Chicago School and the current of symbolic interactionism. On the question of the rationality of the social world, Schütz engaged in a remarkable critical confrontation with T. Parsons. Finally, Schütz never ceased to cultivate a critical allegiance to the phenomenological tradition (primarily Husserl and Scheler).
Thus, his initial effort to re-establish interpretive sociology on philosophical foundations gradually transformed into an original social theory that defends a pragmatic conception of the everyday world—a world whose primary reality unfolds within the play of social interactions and intersubjective typifications that give it meaning. This reference to pragmatism goes hand in hand with a phenomenology of the natural attitude, that is, the attitude through which we relate directly, spontaneously, and naively to the world around us. Thus, toward the end of his life, Schütz defined his project as an effort to describe the structures of the lifeworld, approached from the perspective of the natural attitude by which we relate to it. His final works sought to promote a philosophical anthropology centered on an ontology of the lifeworld, as evidenced by the ultimate presentation of his work—left unfinished, but brought to completion by Thomas Luckmann under the title Die Strukturen der Lebenswelt.
*
Music, whether played, listened to, or discussed, seemingly always held a place of major importance in the life of Alfred Schütz. According to H. R. Wagner, who was Schütz's student, friend, and biographer, the latter spent an adolescence in Vienna "passionate about literature and music." We also know that before deciding to pursue legal studies—crowned in 1921 with a Doctor Juris degree—Schütz had briefly nurtured the ambition of becoming a conductor. Throughout his life, Schütz was not only a knowledgeable music lover but also an amateur musician who regularly played the piano. His existence was thus not merely divided between his job as a legal adviser in a major banking institution and his philosophical-sociological intellectual activities; it also left a vast space for the practice of music. In this regard, Ilse Schütz, his wife, once confided to his biographer: "You misunderstand my husband if you believe he came home from the office only to devote himself to his academic work. He would often sit down at the piano to play and sing for hours before doing anything else."
This "passionate" practice of music, however, was coupled with a genuine theoretical interest, and Schütz strove to reflect upon the nature of musical experience—a gesture quite similar to that which led him to analyze his experience of exile in the essay titled The Stranger. Evidently, as attested by the numerous and varied references in the texts of this collection, Schütz already harbored a definite interest in musicological works, general theories on the essence of music, and studies dedicated to the work of specific composers. Yet Schütz's originality lay in developing a philosophy of music that serves as a concrete figure for some of the most salient themes of his overall work, often revealing them in an entirely new light. Musical experience thus discloses the specific temporality of subjective consciousness, the role of passive syntheses, reserves of experience, and typification. It also points to a specific form of sociality uncovered by examining the interactions binding together agents who "make music together." From this perspective, music appears as a form of intersubjective coordination of streams of consciousness and fundamentally requires a "tuning-in relationship," which, according to Schütz, constitutes the pre-communicative foundation of all social relationships.
*
The book gathers four texts written by Schütz between 1928 and 1955.
The first text is entitled The Meaning of an Art Form (Music) (Sinn einer Kunstform (Musik)). It is part of a series of manuscripts written between 1924 and 1928, at a time when Schütz frequented Viennese intellectual circles. These manuscripts, in which Bergsonian inspiration is decisive, were edited by Ilja Srubar under the title Theorie der Lebensformen (Frühe Manuskripte aus der Bergson-Periode) (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981). The Meaning of an Art Form (Music) endeavors to account for the formal characteristics of opera, notably through a discussion of Wagner's conceptions. The main themes of Schütz's philosophy of music—those of the specific temporality and sociality of musical experience—appear here through the question of duration (Dauer) and its representation, on the one hand, and through the "problem of the Thou" (Duproblem), on the other.
The second text presented in this collection, under the title Fragments for a Phenomenology of Music, was written in Lake Placid during the summer of 1944. It was an initial version that Schütz planned to revise and complete. The unfinished nature of the text is indeed patent, as Schütz announces at the end considerations regarding rhythm that were never developed. The manuscript was first edited by Fred Kersten and appeared in a collection of essays edited by F. J. Smith, In Search of Musical Method (London, New York, Paris: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1976, pp. 5–72). Fragments for a Phenomenology of Music is now presented, in a revised edition, as an appendix to Collected Papers IV (Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1996, pp. 243–275). Here, Schütz strives to apply the method of phenomenological analysis to music, examining more specifically the singular temporality of musical experience.
In 1947, Schütz turned his attention to the strictly social dimension of musical communication. His reflections on the activity of Making Music Together thus serve as a study on the social relationship. The text was first presented to the members of the New School for Social Research, and subsequently published in the journal Social Research (vol. 18, no. 1, March 1951, pp. 76–97). It is now counted among those "studies in applied theory" that make up the second part of Collected Papers II: Studies in Social Theory (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1976, pp. 159–178). Blending in an original way the contributions of phenomenology and pragmatism with a persistent Bergsonian inspiration, Schütz analyzes the foundations of the social relationship linking the various actors in the musical process. Taking a stance notably against the sociologist M. Halbwachs, Schütz analyzes the modes of memorization and recognition of the typical forms of a musical work. He demonstrates the intersubjective coordination of the flows of consciousness brought about by music, thereby making the "mutual tuning-in relationship" the primary, fundamental form of all social communication.
Finally, in 1955, Schütz wrote a final text devoted to music in general and particularly to that of Mozart. Mozart and the Philosophers met the same fate as the preceding text: it was presented at the New School for Social Research before being published for the first time in the journal Social Research (vol. 23, no. 2, Summer 1956, pp. 219–242), and later republished in Collected Papers II (op. cit., pp. 179–200). In it, Schütz discusses the philosophical interpretations put forward by H. Cohen, S. Kierkegaard, and W. Dilthey regarding Mozart's operas, as well as musicological interpretations of his work, before returning to the profound humanity of the music itself, which makes Mozart "one of the greatest philosophical minds that ever lived."
Thus, Schütz's conceptions successively explored the realms of historical and philosophical study of opera as a genre, phenomenologically inspired musicology, a social theory of music, and finally, the critical interpretation of a chosen oeuvre, that of Mozart.
Alfred Schütz stands among the notable figures of twentieth-century sociology and philosophy, recognized for his contributions to interpretive sociology and the phenomenology of the social world. His intellectual trajectory bridges European philosophical traditions, particularly the phenomenology of Husserl and the philosophy of duration developed by Bergson, with the sociological methodology articulated by Max Weber. Later in his life, following his emigration to the United States, his thought engaged constructively with American pragmatism and symbolic interactionism. Readers interested in the intersections between philosophy, sociology, and the arts may find this volume relevant to understanding his broader intellectual development.
Within this collection, the texts assembled by the editors bring attention to a lesser-known dimension of Schütz's intellectual output: his sustained theoretical engagement with music. Throughout his life, Schütz maintained an active interest in musical practice and musicological discourse, which provided a concrete domain for examining themes such as temporal consciousness, intersubjective communication, and shared social experience. The writings gathered here reflect his efforts to analyze musical performance and listening as forms of social interaction, offering insight into how aesthetic experience relates to the foundational structures of the lifeworld.