Why did a tradition of learned instrumental polyphony emerge in Europe and not, for example, in Mesoamerica? Similarly, why has the music of Bach earned a status unrivalled within the context of global musical cultures while, for example, Aboriginal and other indigenous musical traditions worldwide face the possibility of extinction?1 Kindred questions were central to academic musical thought around the turn of the twentieth century, yet the kinds of answers proffered, emerging from the evolutionary-historicist framework of the time and advancing a social Darwinist perspective, are not ones which we might countenance today.2 Such thinking was simple enough in its reasoning: European music, of which that of Bach is exemplary, evolved to ever more complex and sophisticated levels, while the music of native populations evolved little, if at all – a fact attributable perhaps to a stubborn or congenital primitivism on the part of the latter. While no musicologist would today profess such an opinion publicly, the problem of how to address such questions remains, and indeed it must be assumed that the perspectives of a century ago still operate in the background, akin to regulative ‘ghost theories’. Indeed, it is unlikely that they do not so operate, given the tacit basis of musicology in evolutionary historicism.3 Such questions are at the core of Jared Diamond’s popular and influential 1997 book Guns, Germs and Steel, the central preoccupation of which can be framed in the form of a question analogous to the ones I have posed above: why, for example, did Europeans sail the Atlantic and discover the Americas and not the other way round? ‘Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents?’ Diamond asks.4

中文翻译：

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人类进化史中的音乐

为什么学习器乐复调的传统会出现在欧洲，而不是，例如，在中美洲？同样，为什么巴赫的音乐在全球音乐文化背景下获得了无与伦比的地位，而例如，世界各地的原住民和其他土著音乐传统面临灭绝的可能性？1 相关问题是围绕着世纪之交的学术音乐思想的核心问题。 20 世纪，然而从当时的进化历史主义框架中出现并推进社会达尔文主义观点所提供的那种答案，并不是我们今天可能会接受的。 2 这种想法的推理非常简单：欧洲音乐，其中巴赫的音乐堪称典范，进化到越来越复杂和复杂的水平，而土著居民的音乐几乎没有进化，如果有的话——这一事实可能归因于后者的顽固或先天的原始主义。虽然今天没有音乐学家会公开承认这样的观点，但如何解决这些问题的问题仍然存在，而且确实必须假设一个世纪前的观点仍然在背景中运作，类似于规范的“鬼理论”。事实上，鉴于进化历史主义中音乐学的隐性基础，它们不太可能如此运作。 3 这些问题是贾里德·戴蒙德 1997 年流行且有影响力的书《枪炮、病菌和钢铁》的核心，其核心关注点可能是以类似于我上面提出的问题的形式提出：为什么，例如，欧洲人航行大西洋并发现美洲，而不是相反？“为什么人类发展在不同大陆以如此不同的速度进行？” 钻石ask.4