Music as Thought: Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven

by Mark Evan Bonds

Before the nineteenth century, instrumental music was considered inferior to vocal music. Kant described wordless music as "more pleasure than culture," and Rousseau dismissed it for its inability to convey concepts. But by the early 1800s, a dramatic shift was under way. Purely instrumental music was now being hailed as a means to knowledge and embraced precisely because of its independence from the limits of language. What had once been perceived as entertainment was heard increasingly as a vehicle of thought. Listening had become a way of knowing. Music as Thought traces the roots of this fundamental shift in attitudes toward listening in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Focusing on responses to the symphony in the age of Beethoven, Mark Evan Bonds draws on contemporary accounts and a range of sources--philosophical, literary, political, and musical--to reveal how this music was experienced by those who heard it first. Music as Thought is a fascinating reinterpretation of the causes and effects of a revolution in listening.

Genres: Music, History, Art, Philosophy, Nonfiction

192 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Yuri Huanca]

Este lúcido ensayo ofrece una perspectiva rigurosa para comprender la conformación de la identidad alemana desde una dimensión musical. A través de una línea temporal que abarca décadas, el autor examina la dicotomía entre la visión cosmopolita y la nacionalista, deteniéndose en la recepción, interpretación y significación del fenómeno musical. Asimismo, destaca el análisis sobre la instrumentalización política de Beethoven y el estrecho vínculo de su obra con el pensamiento filosófico.

[aldmskrnnd]

it was a good book, but my head just feels a great fog in front of me while i read it, is not THAT difficult but it just not for me, a great book btw, just that for now im not ready to read something so academic and profound

[D]

4+

[Manuel Sotomayor]

Es un libro que discute el contexto de las ideas estéticas y en general filosóficas desde Kant hasta Wagner, teniendo como protagonista (aunque en ausencia) a Beethoven. Me encantó en la medidas que no había leído nunca un texto de este tipo en que convergen música, filosofía e historia. Claro, que si bien es muy valioso para entender las diferentes escuelas de interpretación filosóficas de las sinfonías beethovianas siempre queda esta fantasía de, ¿y por qué no le preguntamos a Beethoven?