Music and Philosophy: A Priori Romanticism

Locations

  • Texts

  • Article on concept of "The Sublime" involving Kant and Beethoven

    • 1. Discussion of what is beauty, absolute beauty and the prescribing to the sublime. Parallels and juxtaposes Beethovenís music and Kantís theories of beauty. Since, the concept of the ëabsoluteí itself is an unclearly defined, the author invokes another more formal approach to quantitatively analyzing beauty, the sublime.

  • What an Ideal Aesthetic Experience Meant to Kant

    2. Discusses an in-depth analysis of the meaning of an Aesthetic experience to Immanuel Kant. Includes explanation on judgment of tastes and intuitive appreciation. (Very interesting if read in the context of why certain music evokes particular processes on our cognition of the respective music.)

  • Height of Philosophical Enquiry in Western Classical Music- Beethoven's Ninth {For Music, see Audio below}

    3. Beethovenís 9th. Why did the composer choose to include the voice in the last movement? Is the voice more beautiful than instruments? The epitome of philosophical debate in music, the article includes dialectic analysis of Beethovenís compositional methods.

  • Cognitive Approach to Music (Beethoven) and Aesthetics: A Scientific Analysis(click on score to enlarge); {For Music, see Audio below}

    4. Scientific approach to the reason behind our cognition of music. After Kant and his revolutionary penning(s) on the concept of the aesthetic, cognition of the aesthetic with respect to the perception of the arts, theories suggest a particular notion of a gene as responsible for our aesthetics.

  • Kant's Aesthetics

    5. In depth analysis of Kantís Inquiry into Aesthetics. NB: Kantís delineation of an aesthetic experience (no.2) is quite different from his explanation behind ìthe aestheticî or aesthetics.

  • Nietzsche and Beethoven

    6. Analyzes the idea of the gifted individual, who on seeing his or her potential has a drive to look into themselves for artistic inspiration. Author of the article makes comparison to Beethoven and Nietzsche as such individuals. (Having read Thomas Mannís Dr. Faustus might prove helpful as it traces some of the same themes)

  • Article on Wagner's Influence on Nietzsche

    • 7. Nietzsche regarding Wagner as a foe, an intellectual foe. Article explains Nietzscheís ideas of weak and strong decadence and traces its pertinence to Wagnerís music as a comparison to the populous of Europe.

  • Nietzsche's Remarks on Wagner's "Parsifal"

    • 8. An account of Nietzscheís response after hearing Wagnerís Prelude to Parsifal. Quite personal and includes his musings about the piece to his sister.

  • Images

  • Audio files