“对音乐这个概念的解释从‘音乐是有组织的声音(organized sound)’开始。然后,人们觉得这个定义太过宽泛,因为有很多有组织的声音并不是音乐,例如人类的言说、非人类的动物或机器发出的一些声音等等。”[1]事实上,有很多种不同的方式定义音乐的元素(英语:Aspect of music),而不仅仅是所谓“声音”:例如,很多人认为像旋律(连续不断出现的音高)、和声(分了组的音调,不一定在同一时间发出声音,形成和弦)、节奏、节拍和音色(也被美称音乐的“颜色”)就是音乐的元素。
其他浪漫主义哲学家支持绝对音乐的,比如约翰·沃尔夫冈·冯·歌德,看到音乐不仅仅是人类主观的“语言”,而是一个进入属于秩序和美的更高领域的,绝对的、超越的(transcendent)方式。在阿图尔·叔本华的主要作品第四部分,《作为意志和表象的世界》(1819),他说:“音乐是生活这个秘密的答案。所有艺术中最有洞见的,即音乐,表达了生活最深奥的思想。”克尔凯郭尔在他的《The Immediate Stages of the Erotic, or Musical Erotic》,《非此即彼》(1843)的其中一章,他审视了莫扎特音乐的洞见性和《唐·喬望尼》的感觉本质。
在前-近现代传统中,音乐底美学(esthetics of music),或称音乐的美学(musical aesthetics)在数学和宇宙论的维度探索音乐的节奏和和声组成形式。18世纪,关注点则转移到了听音乐时(hearing music)的经验,因此提出这样的问题:音乐的美和人类对音乐的享受有什么关系?从前者转移到后者,有时归功于亚历山大·戈特利布·鲍姆加登与康德。[來源請求]透过他们的著作,原先的术语“美学”,指涉感官的感知( meaning sensory perception),变成了今天现在的这个意思。不过近几十年来,哲学家们又开始强调美的享受背后的问题,例如,音乐表达情感的能力问题。
^How The Light Gets In, 2013. Music's Mystery. The Institute of Art and Ideas. [19 November 2013]. (原始内容存档于2020-11-11).
^Nicholas Cook, Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Cambridge Music Handbooks), Cambridge University Press (24 June 1993). ISBN9780521399241. "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is acknowledged as one of the supreme masterpieces of the Western tradition. More than any other musical work it has become an international symbol of unity and affirmation."
参考资料
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进一步阅读
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Adorno, Theodor W. 1992. Quasi una Fantasia: Essays on Modern Music, translated by Rodney Livingstone. Verso Classics. London and New York: Verso. ISBN0860913600 (cloth); ISBN0860916138 (pbk) ; ISBN1859841597 (pbk).
Adorno, Theodor W. 1998. Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music: Fragments and Texts, edited by Rolf Tiedemann; translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN0804735158.
Adorno, Theodor W. 1999. Sound Figures, translated by Rodney Livingstone. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN0804735573 (cloth); ISBN0804735581 (pbk).
Adorno, Theodor W. 2001. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, edited and with an introduction by J. M. Bernstein. Routledge Classics. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN0415255341 (cloth); ISBN0415253802 (pbk).
Adorno, Theodor W. 2002. Essays on Music, selected, with introduction, commentary, and notes by Richard Leppert; new translations by Susan H. Gillespie. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN0520231597.
Adorno, Theodor W. 2006. Philosophy of New Music, translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN0816636664.
Adorno, Theodor W. 2009. Night Music: Essays on Music 1928–1962, edited by Rolf Tiedemann; translated by Wieland Hoban. London and New York: Seagull Books. ISBN1906497214.
Arena, Leonardo V., La durata infinita del non suono, Mimesis, Milan 2013. ISBN978-88-575-1138-2
Barzun, Jacques. 1982. Critical Questions on Music and Letters, Culture and Biography, 1940–1980, selected, edited, and introduced by Bea Friedland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN0-226-03863-7.
Beardsley, Monroe C. 1958. Aesthetics: Problems in the Philosophy of Criticism. New York, Harcourt, Brace.
Beardsley, Monroe C., and Herbert M. Schueller (eds.). 1967. Aesthetic Inquiry: Essays on Art Criticism and the Philosophy of Art. Belmont, Calif.: Dickenson Pub. Co.
Bloch, Ernst. 1985. Essays on the Philosophy of Music, translated by Peter Palmer, with an introduction by David Drew. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0521248736ISBN0521312132 (pbk).
Bonds, Mark Evan. 2014. Absolute Music: The History of an Idea. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-934363-8.
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Budd, Malcolm. "Music and the Expression of Emotion", Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 19–29.
Chadwick, Henry. 1981. Boethius, the Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology, and Philosophy. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN019826447X (cloth); ISBN0198265492 (pbk.)
Clifton, Thomas. 1983. Music as Heard: A Study in Applied Phenomenology. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN0300020910.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1980. A Thousand Plateaus. London / Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Goehr, Lydia. 'The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works. An Essay in the Philosophy of Music' Oxford, 1992/2007.
Kivy, P. Introduction to the Philosophy of Music, Hackett Publishing, 1989.
Langer, Susanne K. 1957. Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art, third edition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN0674665031.
Lippman, Edward A. 1992. A History of Western Musical Aesthetics. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN0803228635 (cloth); ISBN0803279515 (pbk).
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1967. The Birth of Tragedy, and The Case of Wagner, translated, with commentary, by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN0394703693 (pbk).
Rowell, Lewis Eugene. 1983. Thinking about Music: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN0870233866.
罗杰·斯克鲁顿. The Aesthetics of Music, Oxford University Press, 1997.