Peter Kivy
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199562800
- eISBN:
- 9780191721298
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199562800.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This book constitutes a defence of musical formalism against those who would put literary interpretations on the absolute music canon. In Part I, the historical origins of both the literary ...
More
This book constitutes a defence of musical formalism against those who would put literary interpretations on the absolute music canon. In Part I, the historical origins of both the literary interpretation of absolute music and musical formalism are laid out. In Part II, specific attempts to put literary interpretations on various works of the absolute music canon are examined and criticized. Finally, in Part III, the question is raised as to what the human significance of absolute music is, if it does not lie in its representational or narrative content. The answer is that, as yet, philosophy has no answer, and that the question should be considered an important one for philosophers of art to consider, and to try to answer without appeal to representational or narrative content.Less
This book constitutes a defence of musical formalism against those who would put literary interpretations on the absolute music canon. In Part I, the historical origins of both the literary interpretation of absolute music and musical formalism are laid out. In Part II, specific attempts to put literary interpretations on various works of the absolute music canon are examined and criticized. Finally, in Part III, the question is raised as to what the human significance of absolute music is, if it does not lie in its representational or narrative content. The answer is that, as yet, philosophy has no answer, and that the question should be considered an important one for philosophers of art to consider, and to try to answer without appeal to representational or narrative content.
Peter Kivy
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199562800
- eISBN:
- 9780191721298
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199562800.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Literary interpreters of the absolute music canon tend to fall into two distinct groups. Those who throw caution to the winds and impute to pure instrumental music narratives in startling detail, ...
More
Literary interpreters of the absolute music canon tend to fall into two distinct groups. Those who throw caution to the winds and impute to pure instrumental music narratives in startling detail, even to the extent of naming names; and those of a more circumspect disposition, who put narrations to the music that are vague or sketchy enough to slip by without striking the average music lover as wildly implausible or ‘off the wall’. The most popular and most frequently resorted to artifice, for those narrative interpreters of the more moderate stripe, to underwrite their readings of the absolute music canon, is a shadowy figure that has become known as the musical ‘persona’. This character is the subject of this chapter.Less
Literary interpreters of the absolute music canon tend to fall into two distinct groups. Those who throw caution to the winds and impute to pure instrumental music narratives in startling detail, even to the extent of naming names; and those of a more circumspect disposition, who put narrations to the music that are vague or sketchy enough to slip by without striking the average music lover as wildly implausible or ‘off the wall’. The most popular and most frequently resorted to artifice, for those narrative interpreters of the more moderate stripe, to underwrite their readings of the absolute music canon, is a shadowy figure that has become known as the musical ‘persona’. This character is the subject of this chapter.
