Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Lewis Rowell
Copyright © 1983 by
The University of Massachusetts Press
All rights reserved
First paperback edition, 1984
For Unni
Contents
Preface
1
Introduction: terms and themes
2
Meditations on a menuet
3
Music as art and artifact
4
Dionysus and Apollo
5
The mythos of music
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6
The European tradition to 1800
7
The Romantic synthesis
8
Perception
9
Values
10
Comparative aesthetics: India and Japan
11
Clotho and Atropos
Notes
Bibliography
Index
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Page ix
Preface
This book is for readers who are insatiably curi-
ous about music"students of music" in the
broadest sense of the word. In this category I in-
clude those whose musical concerns are more
humanistic than technical, as well as those pre-
paring for careers in music. Thinking about
Music is not specifically addressed to musicolo-
gists or philosophers, although I would hope
that both may find something of value herein.
My only recommendation is that the reader be
armed with as diverse a set of musical experi-
ences as possible, whether acquired through a
lifetime of concert going, a record collection,
amateur performance, or professional training.
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1
Introduction: terms and themes
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Basic propositions
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2
Meditations on a menuet
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Questions of value
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3
Music as art and artifact
How is music likeand unlikethe other arts? This
chapter is an exercise in Aristotelian definition
(per genus et differentiam): first, by examining
various proposals for classifying the arts and
some common features that they display, we
reach a better understanding of music's proper
genus (ars); then, by means of an analysis of
certain of music's distinctive properties (time,
tone, role, objectification), we assemble a partial
list of the differentia that render music unique.
Differentia
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Tones are:
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4
Dionysus and Apollo
For all good poets, epic as well as lyric, compose their
beautiful poems not by art, but because they are in-
spired and possessed. . . falling under the power of
music and metre they are inspired and possessed. . . .
For the poet is a light and winged and holy thing, and
there is no invention in him until he has been inspired
and is out of his senses, and reason is no longer in
him.
[Plato] 1
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Harmony
The Pythagoreans, whom Plato follows in many
respects, call music the harmonization of oppos-
ites, the unification of disparate things, and the
con-
Page 41
Beauty
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Mimesis
Ethos
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5
The mythos of music
Much of our musical ideology lies half-buried.
Even in the preceding chapter, where we ex-
amined specific statements that Greek authors
made about music, it was clear that their use of
words revealed deeper attitudes on such things
as beauty and form. These subsurface meanings
contribute as much to their message as the more
explicit surface meaningswhat the authors con-
sciously intended to say. In this chapter we
probe an equally rich treasury of subsurface
ideas, those embedded in myth.
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new music
old music cold
warm artificial
natural based on reason
emotional calculating
inspiring sterile
fertile diseased
healthy demonic 20
divine
Power
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Leontes:
[Embracing her.] O! She's warm.
If this be magic, let it be an art
Lawful as eating.
Transience
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[Shelley]
(Bianca reads):
' ''Gamouth" I am, the ground of all accord,
"A re," to plead Hortensio's passion;
"B mi,'' Bianca, take him for thy lord,
"C fa ut," that loves with all affection;
"D sol re," one cliffe, two notes have I;
"E la mi," show pity or I die.'
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Music do I hear?
Ha, ha! Keep time. How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives,
And here have I the daintiness of ear
To check time broke in a disordered string,
But for the concord of my state and time
Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.
Harmony
Instruments
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6
The European tradition to 1800
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8 Art exists for its own sake, not for any higher
goal.
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7
The Romantic synthesis
There are times in the history of art when style,
values, and thought are so much in harmony
with one another that a real cultural synthesis
can be recognized; the nineteenth century
brought such a synthesis. But this cultural cli-
mate is easier to feel than to describe, because it
consists of a complex of ideas, attitudes, and
only half-articulate impulses. This chapter sorts
out these ideas, attitudes, and impulses as they
are reflected in Romantic music, criticism, and
formal philosophy.
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8
Perception
Music is directed, not to the senses, but through the
senses and to the mind.
[Leonard B. Meyer] 1
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Modes of perception
Detachment
Music, like all the other arts, requires its own in-
terpretation of the concept of distance. Literal
spatial distance is a valid point for discussion in
the case of music, since all ensemble music is
meant to be heard with a certain balance as fore-
seen by the composer. My own early experience
playing trombone and seated in the back row of
the orchestra directly behind the French horns
gave me an entirely distorted concept of orches-
tral sound. The relative projective capabilities of
the various instruments give music far more dir-
ectional force than is generally supposed, and it
will readily be agreed that a certain physical dis-
tance is necessary to obtain a gestalt of the en-
semble sound. But this is more a practical than
an aesthetic issue.
Meaning
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9
Values
De gustibus non disputandum.
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Tonal values
Textural values
Dynamic values
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Temporal values
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Structural values
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Value clusters
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Pervading values
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Valuation
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excellent if
1 it invites perception as a unified, coherent structu
4 it is hierarchical
5 it is focused, typically by some tonal means, so th
is thereby directed through the work's distinctive st
6 it is perceptibly thematic
7 it imparts a sense of motion, continuity, and dyna
10
Comparative aesthetics: India and Japan
We worship that divine Sound, the life of conscious-
ness in all beings and the supreme bliss, manifested in
the form of the universe. By the adoration of sound,
the gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva are truly wor-
shipped, for they are the embodiment of sound.
[Sarngadeva] 1
Preliminary observations
Cultural preferences
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2 constraint
9 heterogeneous timbres
Rem
Impediment
1 inability to perceive the meaning, lack of emp
verisimilitude
2 subjective limitations of time and place stag
3 objective limitations of time and place stag
4 influence of personal joys and sorrows self
5 insufficient stimulus acti
6 subordination of the principal idea emp
7 dubiousness of presentation the
ent
11
Clotho and Atropos
And there were three others who sat round at equal in-
tervals, each one on her throne, the Fates, daughters
of Necessity, clad in white vestments . . . Lachesis, and
Clotho, and Atropos, who sang in unison with the mu-
sic of the Sirens, Lachesis singing the things that were,
Clotho the things that are, and Atropos the things that
are to be.
[Plato] 1
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Interchange of roles.
Material
Organization
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and
Notes
2 Meditations on a menuet
2 Metaphysics D.2.
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3 Ibid., p. 460.
17 Confessions 11.14.
19 Ibid., p. 181.
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28 See chap. 5.
2 Poetics 6.1450a.
14 Gen. 4: 21.
22 Ibid., p. 680.
26 See n. 9.
17 De musica 6.12.35-36.
19 De musica 6.14.47.
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20 Confessions 11.28.38.
4 Ibid., p. 226.
8 Perception
9 Ibid., p. 405.
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9 Values
4 See chap. 7.
30 Meditations 4.20.
31 Discourses 2.18.
6 Ibid., p. 70.
8 See chap. 6.
19 Sangita-ratnakara 1.3:3-6.
11 See chap. 3.
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21 Ibid.
22 See chap. 5.
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24 See n. 16.
58 See chap. 3.
Bibliography
Adorno, Theodor W. Philosophy of Modern
Music. Translated by Anne G. Mitchell and
Wesley V. Blomster. New York: Seabury Press,
1973.
Sarngadeva. "Sangita-ratnakara" of
Sarngadeva. Translated by R. K. Shringy. Vol.
1. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978.
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Index
Acoustics:
of motion, 170;
of timbre, 154-56
Aesthetic assumptions:
1016/1132
of Greeks, 39-40;
Aesthetics:
aesthetic object, 5;
Asian, 191;
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defined, 3-4.
Ambiguity:
Amphion, 70
Angus, Sylvia, 4
A priori, the:
defined, 103;
in phenomenology, 142-43;
in rationalism, 107
Art:
in Baroque, 112-13;
Arts:
composite, 23;
in concerto, 183;
Baroque:
as a term, 110;
Basho, 199
Beauty:
as objectified, 34-36;
in phenomenology, 141-44;
as transmitted, 33-34.
Berenson, Bernard, 5
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Bergson, Henri, 30
Bonaventure, St., 93
Browning, Robert, 74
Callistics, 3, 45-48.
Cantus firmus:
defined, 95;
Catharsis:
defined, 49;
Cecilia, St., 66
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 66
Chesterton, G. K., 39
Clement of Alexandria, 63
Collage, 237
Complexity in music:
defined, 158-59;
Concerto:
in Baroque, 111;
Counterpoint:
defined, 26;
as interplay, 161;
Creativity:
Criticism:
archetypal, 57;
1034/1132
Cronus, 98
D
1035/1132
Dance of Death, 67
Dessoir, Max, 22
Donne, John, 80
ambiguity, 166-67;
athleticism, 165-66;
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climax, 162-63;
defined, 162;
growth/decay, 165;
tension/release, 164-65;
Ellington, Duke, 81
in Affektenlehre, 112;
Enlightenment, 102-10.
Epictetus, 187
Epistemology, 3, 7.
1042/1132
Ficino, Marsilio, 71
Forgery, 12-13
Form:
Formalism:
Genres, musical:
in Baroque, 111;
in Renaissance, 101;
Grosseteste, Robert, 93
Harmony:
defined, 28;
in Renaissance, 100;
Hierarchy:
Hippocrates, 5, 251 n. 5
Horace, 24-25
of stasis, 177;
Implication in music:
described, 195-94;
In illo tempore, 77
Instruments:
historic, 17;
Intersense modalities, 12
Irrational:
Jakobson, Roman, 15
described, 192-93;
Jazz, 54, 69
Joshua, 70
Jubal Cain, 64
clichés, 186-87;
Keats, John, 74
Kenko, 195
Kirk, G. S., 59
Knowledge, musical:
musical experience as a
Page 278
form of knowledge, 7;
in phenomenology, 141-44;
Krieger, Murray, 33
Le Corbusier, 241
Listening, 129-31;
Longinus, 86-87
Lorelei, 67
Meaning, 14-25;
defined, 145;
in music, 144-49;
image-evocation, 147;
referential, 147;
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Melody, 177-78;
Memory in music:
ambiguity, 166-67;
Metaphors:
Metaphors (cont.)
secular song, 97
Mimesis:
Motion:
in fugue, 182;
retrograde, 171;
Augustine's, 91;
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Boethius's, 45;
Isidore's, 61;
as an idea, 248-49;
Weiss's, 22-23.
Music history:
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creation, 78-79;
harmony, 77-80;
instruments, 80-82;
notation, 75-76;
as source of philosophy, 8;
transience, 73-77.
N
1077/1132
defined, 211;
material, 221-30;
Newton, Isaac, 29
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 37
Page 280
Noise:
defined, 31;
Notation, musical:
Noumena/phenomena, 141
Objectification of music:
Ontology, 3, 7.
Organicism:
Orthodoxy in music:
1082/1132
Paganini, Niccolò, 67
Palindrome, 231-32
Pattern:
Perception:
Permanence, 9-11;
Phenomenology, 141-44
Philodemus, 85-86
Philosophy:
defined, 1-2;
four requisites, 2;
sources of, 8;
medieval, 88-99;
Renaissance, 99-103;
Romanticism, 123-28;
Scholastic, 92-94
Picasso, Pablo, 6
Plato, 14, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 45, 47-48, 50-52,
71, 87, 88, 89, 211, 212-13
Plotinus, 87-88
Politics:
as a domain of philosophy, 3;
Plato on
Page 281
Politics (cont.)
Pseudo-Dionysius, 93
Psychopomps, 67
Pythagoras, 38, 40, 41, 61, 64, 70, 89, 98, 231,
240
Q
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Quintilian, 21
Rasa:
Repetition:
defined, 27;
in melody, 178;
melogenic/logogenic, 169;
Role:
amateur/professional, 39;
Romanticism, 116-28;
defined, 116-17;
in music, 117-23;
in philosophy, 123-28
Schnitzler, Arthur, 68
Serialism:
Shotetsu, 199-200
as value, 152-53;
Simplicity:
transcendental, 166;
Solmization:
as theme in literature, 76
Sonata-allegro form:
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Song:
in Renaissance, 99
Spitzer, Leo, 81
Stevens, Wallace, 75
melody, 177-78;
theme, 177;
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variation, 178-79.
in Baroque, 111;
in Renaissance, 100;
in Baroque, 111;
Swan song, 72
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Syncopation, 172
Technology:
destruc-
Page 283
Technology (cont.)
Tempo, 168-69
Tempo giusto:
defined, 168
free/strict, 169-70;
hierarchy, 169;
logogenic/melogenic, 169;
motion/stasis, 170-72;
rate, 168-69.
1109/1132
Tertullian, 88
economy/saturation, 160;
figuration, 161-62;
focus/interplay, 161;
orientation, 160-61;
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simple/complex, 158-59;
smooth/rough, 159;
tangle, 161;
thin/dense, 159-60.
Texture:
defined, 158;
of fugue, 181;
as value, 188-89;
values, 158-62
Theon of Smyrna, 41
Theophrastus, 55
Timbre:
defined, 31;
Time:
as a hierarchy, 168;
primordial/mythical, 77;
free/strict, 169-70;
in fugue, 182;
as illusion, 144;
in variations, 181;
Timelessness, 30-31;
Ton'a, 195
Page 284
Tonality:
as causal, 226-27;
defined, 179;
as illusion, 144;
silence, 152-53;
timbre, 154-56;
1119/1132
tone, 153-54;
Transcendental particularism:
defined, 245;
Trivium, 21
Tubal Cain, 61
Ulrich of Strassburg, 93
Updike, John, 75
Valuation, 185-89;
analyzed, 185;
Value clusters:
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Values:
defined, 150-51;
dynamic, 162-67;
pervading, 183-85;
structural, 173-79;
temporal, 167-73;
textural, 158-62;
tonal, 152-58;
Variation:
Vigeland, Gustav, 23
Virgil, 62
1125/1132
Vivas, Eliseo, 33
Voltaire, 186
Zen influence: