Music as Heritage
摘要
Seeing music as a cultural heritage within the UNESCO Conventions on World Heritage (1972) and on Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003) has been a challenge for the understanding of both the musicological approach to music within this framework and the concept of ICH as such. While the material properties of music (musical scores etc.), do not fall under the World Heritage concept, but are rather elements of the Memory of the World (MoW) Programme (documents and archives), the research on music as ICH has revealed that at least 60% of the inscribed elements in the UNESCO Representative List of the ICH are specifically music-related (musical instruments) or clearly music-based (rituals, dances etc.). The aim of this essay is to give an insight into the multifaceted role and properties of music that become especially evident and raise questions regarding the UNESCO ICH Convention.