The "attentively silent" presence of Jaap Kunst in the Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis

This article contributes to the history of musicology by addressing the involvement of ethnomusicologist Jaap Kunst (1891-1960) in the world’s earliest musicological society, the Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis (VNM), founded in 1868. Kunst was elected to the Society’s Board in 1951. His commitment to the VNM provides insight into the fields of interest, priorities and disciplinary allegiances of mid-twentieth-century music scholars in The Netherlands. It also offers leads to rethink the dichotomy between historical musicology and ethnomusicology that currently features academic institutes, societies and periodicals worldwide. Kunst’s activities within the VNM – however modest – indicate that both the VNM’s editorial work and Kunst’s notion of ethnomusicology moved away from a comparative framework based on a singular set of aesthetic criteria towards a more inclusive understanding of musical activity, even if objectification remained the primary goal of music research of the time.