Sense and Sensibility in Eighteenth-Century Musical Thought

1984 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georgia J. Cowart
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
Sense And Sensibility

scholarly journals Idealism and the Aesthetics of Instrumental Music at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

1997 ◽  
Vol 50 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 387-420 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Evan Bonds
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
Absolute Music ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Aesthetic Principle

The growing aesthetic prestige of instrumental music in the last decades of the eighteenth century was driven not so much by changes in the musical repertory as by the resurgence of idealism as an aesthetic principle applicable to all the arts. This new outlook, as articulated by such writers as Winckelmann, Moritz, Kant, Schiller, Herder, Fichte, and Schelling, posited the work of art as a reflection of an abstract ideal, rather than as a means by which a beholder could be moved. Through idealism, the work of art became a vehicle by which to sense the realm of the spiritual and the infinite, and the inherently abstract nature of instrumental music allowed this art to offer a particularly powerful glimpse of that realm. Idealism thus provided the essential framework for the revaluation of instrumental music in the writings of Wackenroder, Tieck, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and others around the turn of the century. While this new approach to instrumental music has certain points of similarity with the later concept of "absolute" music, it is significant that Eduard Hanslick expunged several key passages advocating idealist thought when he revised both the first and second editions of his treatise Vom Musikalisch-Schönen. The concept of "absolute" music, although real enough in the mid-nineteenth century, is fundamentally anachronistic when applied to the musical thought and works of the decades around 1800.

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 283-288
Author(s):  
Harry White
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Understanding ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
Musical Discourse ◽  
Work Concept ◽  
Late Works

The conclusion to this book revisits the work-concept in the light of the arguments represented here in relation to servitude and autonomy as underlying agents in a continuous axis of musical thought. It is this axis that conjoins Fux, Bach, and Handel. The servility of Fux’s musical discourse consequently gains in historical understanding and significance, and so too does the imaginative autonomy discerned in the late works of Bach and Handel. The nature of the European musical imagination in the first half of the eighteenth century is thereby more sharply defined

ALTERITY AND UNIVERSALISM IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY MUSICAL THOUGHT UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, 30 MAY–1 JUNE 2014

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-138
Author(s):  
MATTHEW GELBART
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Global History ◽  
Common Humanity ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
National University ◽  
History Of ◽  
Music Faculty

In every aspect of cultural theory, considering both the apparently universal aspects of our common humanity and the manifold differences between cultures and individuals is such a huge and fraught undertaking that no one conference can hope to do more than chip away at the edges of the questions raised. This is true even if the purview is limited to the historical study of eighteenth-century musical approaches to these questions. Nevertheless, chipping away at those edges is productive and stimulating, and in this spirit we converged at Oxford – part of the time at the music faculty at St Aldate’s, and part of the time at Wadham College – to discuss ‘Alterity and Universalism in Eighteenth-Century Musical Thought’. The conference was organized by David R. M. Irving (Australian National University) and Estelle Joubert (Dalhousie University) under the auspices of Reinhard Strohm's Balzan prize. Strohm is only the second musicologist (the other was Ludwig Finscher) to have received the Balzan award. He will pursue his ambitious project called ‘Towards a Global History of Music’ over the coming three years.

‘La vittima è Idamante’: Did Mozart have a motive?

1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Julian Rushton
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Critical Points ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
Opera Seria

The literature on Mozart's Idomeneo contains many references to short motives, initially presented in the overture and recurring at critical points during the opera itself. While this practice has not been shown to be widespread in eighteenth-century opera seria, earlier instances may be found in operas known to Mozart and from whose example he clearly profited, notably Gluck's Alceste and Iphigénie en Aulide. The tendency to orchestrate most or all of the recitative and to elide aria cadences contributes to increasing continuity of musical thought in all these works; the denouements of both Gluck's Iphigénie operas become nearly symphonic.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "unité de mélodie"

2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Waeber
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
Musical Thought ◽  
Musical Notation ◽  
French Music ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seminal Contribution ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Scant Attention

Introduced by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Letter on French music (1753), "unité de mélodie" has commonly been understood as a technical rule asserting the primacy of melody over all the other musical parameters. It is the key concept of Rousseau's musical thought. Yet studies on eighteenth-century formulations of musical unity have paid only scant attention to Rousseau's discussions of it, explaining its presence in his œœuvre as a symptom of the growing influence of the style galant in France. Drawing on Rousseau's autobiographical and theoretical writings, this essay investigates the genesis of the "unité de mélodie," beginning with its rhetorical roots and the influence of Friedrich-Melchior Grimm's notion of the musical "contresens." But Rousseau's own autobiography is also key to understanding his intellectual approach to music. I argue that the "unité de mélodie" originated well before the years 1752–53, and that it is inextricably linked with Rousseau's preoccupation with writing and musical notation, a preoccupation motivated by his search for musical texts that would allow for direct comprehension, whether through listening or through score reading. Finally, in the concept of "unité de mélodie," we can see how Rousseau made a seminal contribution to late eighteenth-century French theoretical discourses on musical periodicity and on the importance of melody in establishing form.

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