Music to Hear on Here

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

For the first essay question we've been given I chose to write on the first prompt, the dialogue about a musical work. The piece I chose is called Knee Play III (video above), and it's one of the interludes between the acts of the opera by Philip Glass called Einstein on the Beach.

I thought it would be interesting to consider a Schopenhauerian view of the opera which was not negative, but positive (or at the very least neutral). The second philospher I utilized is Jerrold Levinson considering his views in, "What a Musical Work is". Although I'm not sure I exactly tackled the Platonic dialogue, some of the main points I discussed were subject matter of the opera, a Schopenhauerian view on Levinson's "pure sound structures", the opera's use of solfege syllables, and it's relation to the mass as a "better" form of music.

Also as a sidenote, I think the video portion accompanying the piece is somewhat interesting, but not strictly related to the opera itself.

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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.