Music to Hear on Here: What an Music of the Idea Might Be

Thursday, February 3, 2011

What an Music of the Idea Might Be

Olivier Messiaen, "Louange à l'éternité de Jésus," Quatuor pour la Fin du Temps

"This particular thing, which in that stream was an infinitesimal part, becomes for art a representative of the whole, an equivalent of the infinitely many in space and time. It therefore pauses at this particular thing; it stops the wheel of time; for it the relations vanish; its object is only the essential, the Idea" ("Knowledge of the Idea," 87-88).

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Course Description

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture." Martin Mull (or Elvis Costello)

Thinking about the meaning and value, intellectual, affective and neurological experiences, and aesthetics of music has occupied an important position in modern and contemporary philosophical writings. Central to the philosophy of music is a questioning of what music is insofar as it is an art form and practice, akin to but different from other arts, such as drama, literature, painting, sculpture, to name but a few examples. Claims have been made, in fact, that music’s effect, when performed and listened to, surpasses those of the other arts because of its abstact purity, of its universality, and of its singular capacity to express, represent and incite emotions. This course will explore such issues in 19th-20th century philosophy. We will begin with introductory readings of what composes the field and discipline of the philosophy of music. We will read—among other philosophers, novelists, critics and musicologists—Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Barthes and Adorno’s writings on music. Finally, we will have the occasion to read about and listen to specific musicians, both high and low, and explore the contexts of their work, concentrating on the historical and political dimensions of the practice, performance and art of making music.