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Hanslick: On Musical Beauty 1 1854– 10 1902

negative thesis music’s beauty lies not in its expressiveness. positive thesis it lies in the musical materials themselves— their form Formalism: music’s content and object are tonally moving forms (cf. Schelling (1802): “architecture is frozen music ”).

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Hanslick: On Musical Beauty 1 1854– 10 1902

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  1. negative thesis music’s beauty lies not in its expressiveness positive thesis it lies in the musical materials themselves—their form Formalism:music’s content and object are tonally moving forms (cf. Schelling (1802): “architecture is frozenmusic”) Hanslick: On Musical Beauty11854–101902

  2. Hanslick’s Negative Thesis • music alone (absolute music, without text or program), cannot in any artistically relevant way arouse, or represent, the “garden-variety emotions” (basis emotions: joy, anger, fear, love…) • although music can of course arouse the garden-variety emotions in artistically irrelevant ways • through the listeners’ state of mind (hypersensitivity) • by listeners’ own personal associations

  3. Hanslick’s 3 Metaphors • Arabesque • form without emotion • Kaleidoscope • form in motion • Language • form with sense, but no translatable meaning

  4. Hanslick’s Metaphor 1: Arabesque • The term ‘arabesque’ is a European, not an Arabic, word dating perhaps to the 15th or 16th century, when Renaissance artists used Islamic ornaments for book ornament and decorative bookbindings. • To the Romantic composers the arabesque is a piece in which one aims at a decorative rather than emotional effect.

  5. Schumann, Arabeske, op. 18

  6. Debussy, Deux arabesques, no. 1

  7. Hanslick’s Metaphor 2: Kaleidoscope • from the Greek words kalos ("beautiful"), eïdos ("form"), and skopeïn ("to view") • an optical toy invented in 1816 • arabesque (static) vs. kaleidoscope (in motion) • but music in motiononly metaphorical–unless played by a marching band!) • “midnight game”

  8. Hanslick’s Metaphor 3: Language • kaleidoscope (random) vs. language (a sense of “sense,” logic, order) • though an untranslatable language • but not untranscribable • neumes: 922–25 (under), 930 (upper), C12th (staff)

  9. St. Gallen Neumes • written 922–925 • “Cantatorium,” St. Gallen Abbey Library, Cod. 359

  10. Hanslick’s Metaphors: Language • a language with: • phonetics • syntax • but without semantics • e.g. as logo

  11. “Club” Portrait & Composition 1746 • Canon triplex á6 v

  12. “Enigma” Canon • Solution: (cd1, cd2)

  13. BWV 1080 Die Kunst der FugeArt of Fugue

  14. “The form (the musical structure) is the real substance (subject) of music―in fact, is the music itself, in antithesis to the feeling, its alleged subject, which can be called neither its subject nor its form, but simply the effect produced.” From On Musical Beauty

  15. “In like manner, that which is regarded as purely material, as the transmitting medium, is the product of a thinking mind, whereas that which is presumed to be the subject—the emotional effect— belongs to the physical properties of sound, the greater part of which is govered by physiological laws.” From On Musical Beauty

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