Abstract
<jats:p>This chapter develops a conceptual framework for evaluating musical practices that are often described as “conservative,” including the continued circulation of canonical repertories, the preservation of inherited pedagogies, resistance to changing evaluative standards, and programming habits that privilege a narrow set of works and composers. Rather than locating conservatism on a simple progressive–reactionary axis, the chapter distinguishes between two different levels of justification: the rationality of the means by which a practice operates and the rationality of the end that the practice serves. Drawing on Max Weber’s distinction between Zweckrationalität and Wertrationalität, I propose a two-plane vocabulary that separates instrumental rationality in action from value rationality of the goal. This distinction clarifies how a practice can be strategically effective while normatively weak, or normatively defensible while poorly implemented. The framework is then applied to two major sites in which musical conservatism emerges: institutions such as conservatories, orchestras, festivals, and archives, and platform-mediated music distribution, where recommendation systems and playlist curation can generate a form of invisible conservatism through popularity bias, retention metrics, and opaque selection procedures. The chapter concludes by defending “critical continuity” as a position that takes the epistemic and social functions of tradition seriously while refusing to exempt inherited practices from public justification, revision, and contestation.</jats:p>