Music is created by many people working together: those who compose music, those who publish and perform it, but also those who promote it, listen to it, think about it, judge it and write about it... Reflecting on this diversity of activities associated with music is the aim of a cultural-historical perspective on music. It also raises awareness of the fact that composers are part of this interaction, that they are in constant dialogue with the cultural, political, social and gender-specific forces of their time and the past. Finally, the cultural history of music also integrates questions about musical spaces, references to other arts, everyday (music-cultural) life and more.

This diversity of perspectives entails a diversity of methodological approaches that also take up ideas from other disciplines. Bringing these methods into a meaningful dialogue and placing them in a music-cultural context promotes what Italo Calvino called "lightness", the flexibility of thought. It is obvious that this does not result in a hermetically sealed building of music history. Rather, it is about a "non-unity of history" (Karin Hausen), which allows for constant rethinking and discovery as well as the diversity of perspectives on music history.