Philosophy of Music Flashcards
When was the Enlightenment?
17-18th Century (1685-1789)
What were the 4 main factors of the Enlightenment?
Science and Reason
Optimism
Anti-Authority
Humanism
When was Newtons’ Principia Mathematica published?
1687
When was the first Encyclopedia published?
1751
Name 4 Enlightenment Philosophers.
Matheson
Rameau
Rousseau
Kant
What was Matheson’s philosophy?
Humanism: what seems natural
What was Rameau’s philosophy?
Scientific orientation of music (sonata form and key relationships)
What was Rousseau’s philosophy?
Nature/state of nature
What was Kant’s philosophy?
critique of pure reason
What are the 4 main pillars of German Philosophy?
Introspection
Sensibility
Sense
Individualism
What was German Philosophy a reaction to?
population growth
urbanization
nationalism
Name 5 Key German Philosophers.
Kant (noumenal/phenomenal world)
Herder
Goethe (Sturm und Drang)
Schiller
Richter
What is the German term for “total artwork” (used by Wagner)?
Gesamtkunstwerk
What is Schopenhauer’s philosophy (as admired by Wagner?
Striving and Pessimism
Who was in the Conservative group in the Music of the Future Debate?
Brahms
Joachim
Schumann
Who was in the New German School?
Berlioz
Wagner
Liszt
When was Wagner’s first Music drama?
1841
When was Hanslick’s book written and what was it called?
On the Musically Beautiful 1854
Absolute music: music is not inherently expressive
What did On the Musically Beautiful assert?
- Music does not express emotion
- Understanding leads to appreciation (intellectual approach to music
When and where was the Belle Epoque?
Paris
Late 19th Century, Early 20th Century
Symbolism: What did Baudelaire’s poem say?
the landscape is born of the imagined
Name 4 Symbolist thinkers.
Baudelaire
Villiers
Maeterlinck
Mallarme
What famous play by Mallarme did Debussy turn into a symbolist ballet with the Ballet Russe? (Nijinksi)
L’apres-midi d’un faune
What did Stravinsky strive for (Hanslickian philosophy)?
“strive towards a greater abstraction”
What did the Expressionist movement assert?
anxiety, sordidness, disorder
Name two Expressionist groups and two Expressionist painters.
Die Brucke
Der Blaue Reiter
Van Gogh (Starry night)
Edward Munch (the Scream)
Name three Expressionist pieces by Mahler, Strauss, and Bartok respectively
Symphony no.6: Mahler
Elektra 1909: Strauss
Bluebeard’s Castle 1911: Bartok
Which two movements did Schoenberg prescribe to?
Expressionism
Neoclassicism
What did Descartes say in regards to Enlightenment thinking?
“I think, therefore I am”
What were the characteristics of Enlightenment Science?
observation, empirical testing
What were the characteristics of Enlightenment optimism?
Optimism in human capacity and power
expecting progress
attempts to cover all human knowledge (encyclopedia)
What were the two focuses of Enlightenment Anti-authority?
Church
State
What is Humanism? (Enlightenment thought)
Humans choose to behave in a certain way for the good of humanity
Social contract that dictates order (a taste of democracy in a monarchy)
How were sonata forms related to Enlightenment thinking?
Key relationships: rationality
2 key centres (Dominant and tonic)
Note hierarchies
What is patronage?
wealthy aristocrats/barons paid musicians to compose and perform music
What is Pietism?
From Lutheran traditions
suffering, introspection
Noumenal world
What is true
Phenomenal world
what we percieve the world to be
Individualism
communication as expression
personal emotions
actions over reason
symbolism
nostalgia/yearning
What is the purpose of Lieder?
Poetry to song
Outer world reflects inner state of performer
What is an Aphorism (Schumann)?
pithy quote asserting truth/belief
“Talent labours, genius creates”
What is Nationalism in reference to Romantic music?
A sense of identification
ruling self
power to the people
Who coined the term “The Sublime”?
Burke 1729-1797
What is the Sublime?
Terror to excite
parallel of horror and thrill
Name two Romantic paintings that use The Sublime
Tiger Hunt 1854
Vesuvius from Portici
Name two of Wagner’s operas that employ Gesamtkunstwerk
Parsifal
Tristan and Isolde
What is the difference between Apollian and Dyonesian philosophy? Who coined the terms?
Apollian: logic
Dyonesian: feeling
Nietzche
What is striving (the Sublime)?
A quest for resolution
highly pessimistic
disillusionment and self-destruction must be used to find the world
What did the Formalist school believe?
Music should continue in Beethoven’s wake (the Symphony)
What did the New German school believe?
Programmatic forms, nationalism, and breaking bonds were the way of progress
What is impressionism?
Looseness of style, capturing what is seen, not replicating
Who were the Bourgeoisie?
high society in the Belle Epoque
clearly established rules and behaviours
What is Symbolism?
overlap of the arts
reaction the Theory of Art
Mystery
Deep and profound art
Mystical, idealistic
What is Primitivism?
emphasis on archaic forms
Picasso’s abstraction, exploring psyche
What are the roots of Expressionism? (1905-1930)
Failure of optimism
freudian psychoanalysis
pessimism (Schopenhauer, Wagner)
Socialism
Fauvism
Cubism (art)
Beethoven said: “I hasten with….
joy towards my death”
Beethoven said: “Genius proclaims itself…
not in the unusual and the fantastic, but in the beautiful and the sublime”
Schumann said: “The laws…
of morality are also that of art”
Rousseau said: “We are…
born free and live in chains”
Wagner said: “It is not the…
individual mind … but the collective”
Stravinsky said: “Sublime…
“greater…
uprising”
abstraction”
Schoenberg said: “concision…
and brevity”
Schoenberg said: “maximum…
spiritual excitement”
