Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2008
The position of music history, traditionally regarded as a central element of the music curriculum in higher education as well as in secondary schools, has seemed to be challenged both by recent changes in the curriculum content and by reappraisals of the philosophy and practice of advanced musical study. This article, an expanded version of a paper given in the session on Curriculum Developments in Higher Education at the first British Music Educators' Conference in Huddersfield in July 1989, assesses the impact of these changes and relates them to changing attitudes within the discipline of musicology as well as within other historically based areas of enquiry.