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11 - Meaning and Value in Romantic Musical Aesthetics

from Part III - Aesthetics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2021

By
Alexander Wilfing
Edited by
Benedict Taylor
Benedict Taylor
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
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Summary

In the first half of the nineteenth century, changes in philosophy and aesthetics as well as the increasing prominence of ‘pure’ instrumental music brought to a head questions over the meaning and value of music. While the merit of most of the fine arts (literature, painting, sculpture) was beyond serious doubt, instrumental music’s supposed lack of content posed a peculiar problem to writers. This chapter presents four main Romantic strategies used to argue for music’s meaning, including the use of programmes as well as the rethinking of the relations between music and feeling, music and words, and between content and form. Covering the first half of the nineteenth century, it encompasses the view of philosophers and composers as well as writers and critics, from Schopenhauer, Hoffmann, and Tieck to Mendelssohn, Schumann, Wagner, Brendel, and Hanslick.

Keywords

music and languagewordsrepresentationcontentmeaningvalueprogramme music
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Music and Romanticism , pp. 183 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Bowie, Andrew. Music, Philosophy, and Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Bent, Ian (ed.). Music Theory in the Age of Romanticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Bonds, Mark Evan. Absolute Music: The History of an Idea (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).Google Scholar
Chapple, Gerald, Hall, Frederick, and Schulte, Hans (eds.). German Literature and Music in the Nineteenth Century (Lanham: University Press of America, 1992).Google Scholar
Chua, Daniel K. L. Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Dahlhaus, Carl. The Idea of Absolute Music, trans. Lustig, Roger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989).Google Scholar
Daverio, John. Nineteenth-Century Music and the German Romantic Ideology (New York: Schirmer, 1993).Google Scholar
Donovan, Siobhán and Elliott, Robin (eds.). Music and Literature in German Romanticism (Rochester, NY and Woodbridge: Camden House, 2004).Google Scholar
Fubini, Enrico. The History of Music Aesthetics, trans. Hatwell, Michael (London: Macmillan, 1990).Google Scholar
Garratt, James. Music, Culture, and Social Reform in the Age of Wagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).Google Scholar
Pederson, Sanna. Enlightened and Romantic German Music Criticism, 1800–1850 (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1995).Google Scholar
Ruiter, Jacob de. Der Charakterbegriff in der Musik: Studien zur deutschen Ästhetik der Instrumentalmusik, 1740–1850 (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1989).Google Scholar
Samson, Jim (ed.). The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Sorgner, Stefan Lorenz, and Fürbeth, Oliver (eds.). Music in German Philosophy: An Introduction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).Google Scholar
Stegbauer, Hanna. Die Akustik der Seele: Zum Einfluss der Literatur auf die Entstehung der romantischen Instrumentalmusik und ihrer Semantik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006).Google Scholar
Tadday, Ulrich. Das schöne Unendliche: Ästhetik, Kritik, Geschichte der romantischen Musikanschauung (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1999).Google Scholar

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