Musi 331 – Assignment 2 – Draft of Research Proposal – P Crane

Question 1. What key developments in the first half of the 19th

century resulted in a new

aesthetic status for instrumental music?

‘The new aesthetics of instrumental music reflected fundamental transformations in

contemporary philosophy and general aesthetics that were unrelated to the music of the time.’1

The times in question, the late 18th

century and on, were turbulent. European explorers

were founding new continents and science and its sibling, technology, were expanding practical

knowledge in a way that traditional theologically based paradigms could not contain.

Sociological progress, exemplified by the 1789 French Revolution, saw the modern ideals of

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity underpinned, paradoxically, by the guillotine. European

thought, the domain of philosophy, was charged with the responsibility of encompassing this

dynamic.

Philosophy, the subject that teaches logic, ethics, right thinking, practical thinking and

efficient thinking among other things, had taken its opportunity to participate in the new

debate. Kant and others had indicated the coming need for philosophic input as science began

its march across the traditional territories of old knowledge. Developments in the mechanics of

self-awareness were a good fit for new theories in linguistics which further loosened traditional

models by demonstrating the ability of language to posit the abstract. Rules, it would seem,

were made to be broken. Certainties were subject to scrutiny and the viewpoint of the post-

feudal individual began to assume form and weight.

1 Mark Evans Bonds, “Idealism and Aesthetics of Instrumental Music at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century,”

Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 50, No. 2/3 (Summer-Autumn, 1997), 389.

Romantic theories had held that if instrumental music could communicate then it had

linguistic capability. Taking the line further it was said that good romantic music had the

capacity to express what words could not. Taking the argument even further romantics said

that by reaching for the inexpressible and sometimes attaining it, a transcendence could occur

that had music and art generally, on the plane previously the preserve of religion. Romantic

theorists then turned their attention to philosophy and in particular, science. When Schlegel

posed the model that before Creation, the void was the result of available energy existing in a

state of non-rhythm, music had entered the grand dialogue, as rhythm was unequivocally the

preserve of music.2

Prior to the 19th

century, instrumental music had no such pretensions. Kant saw

instrumental music as a lesser art, certainly in relation to his own field. Music was perennially

viewed as a social grace, a viable occupation for the gifted, a product for stated occasions or as

a means of entertainment. What happened when music theorists entered the debate on the

modern, as it was then, and acquitted themselves well, was that music ensured its survival by

being a subject for serious study.

An examination of the personalities involved in the dialogue of the time, the

philosophers, the musicians, and pertinent political figures should reveal a pattern of

developments that were reflected in instrumental music in 19th

century Europe and what is

generally referred to as the Romantic movement. It is a time when the issue of the modern as

underpinned by the scientific was brought out definitively and music was part of the debate.

2 Jim Samson, The Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001),

35.

Significantly for music, it is arguable that this good showing guaranteed music’s strong position

going forward.

Bibliography:

Dupre, Ben. 50 Philosophy Ideas (you really need to know). London: Quercus, 2007.

Longyear, Rey. Nineteenth Century Romanticism in Music, 2nd

ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-

Hall, 1973.

Rosen, Charles. The Romantic Generation, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.

Chantler, Abigail. E.T.A. Hoffman’s Musical Aesthetics. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

Hoffman, E.T.A., E.T.A. Hoffman’s Musical Writings. Edited by David Charlton. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Bowie, Andrew. “Philosophy of Music III: Aesthetics, 1750 – 2000,” New Grove Dictionary of

Music and Musicians, 2nd

edition, online version, 2001. Accessed 23.09.2009.

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/subscriber/article/grove/music/52965

pg3

Samson, Jim. The Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Music. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2001.