What it is? A question on the derivation of musical meaning

Abstract

The article begins by looking at the general context in which the concept of meaning has been presented as residing traditionally within the notions of reference, symbol and representation and specifically whether such implicitly ontological distinctions apply to music. The Viennese revolt against this as expressed in the writings and compositions of Schoenberg, as well as the philosophical writings of Wittgenstein, indicate a possible derivation of musical meaning. Schoenberg replies to Kolisch’s analysis of the Third String Quartet by suggesting that musicological analysis may help with technical indications but cannot help people see what the composition is. The question is: how does music have the effect which it has on us? The author suggests that a mere empirical analysis, musicological or scientific, will result in failure as it considers the composition merely as an object with properties. Music is, rather, an active meaning-giving operation in which temporality, as a result of the imagination, brings the composition into a unity. The imagination, the ‘‘I-Thinking art concealed in the depths of the human soul’’ infuses apprehension such that the ‘‘I’’ adopts an affective disposition to the world in terms of mood and intransitive feeling. Schoenberg’s Third String Quartet expresses this precisely.

Keywords: philosophy of music; Schoenberg; Wittgenstein; time consciousness

(Published: 24 June 2010)

Citation: Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, Vol. 2, 2010 DOI: 10.3402/jac.v2i0.4638