Original scientific paper

Donald Francis Tovey, Aesthetic Realism, and the Need for a Philosophic Musicology

Edward Green ; Manhattan School of Music, New York, U.S.A.

Abstract

The writings of Donald Francis Tovey and Eli Siegel both point to the need for a philosophic musicology. Throughout his career, Tovey wrote about art in terms of the reconciliation of opposites, and believed music, in microcosm, expressed the nature of reality. Tovey never coordinated these two concepts. Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism, did-and explained: "The world, art, and self explain each other: each is the aesthetic oneness of opposite". This principle provides a conceptual bridge unifying every aspect of musicology. As illustration, we investigate Tovey's description of Haydn's "The Representation of Chaos" from the Essays in Musical Analysis, and conclude with the presentation of a new analytic paradigm for late Haydn. Surprisingly, Haydn, in his late sacred music, employs a distinctly "dodecaphonic" technique, delineating musical structures on the basis of completing the "total chromatic". Here, Haydn anticipates by over a century the procedures of early Webern.

Keywords

Haydn; Siegel; Tovey; Musicology; Dodecaphonic

Hrčak ID:

43613

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/43613

Publication date:

1.9.2005.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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