Inês Morais
Reviewing involves significant selection, simplification, and inevitable omission. Reviewing a book with 1134 pages requires (when one finally writes) considerable abstraction from the actual essays, theses, and arguments the book presents. I make mostly general comments, with the recommendation that the Handbook is read and used to inform teaching in these areas. I’ve learnt plenty.
More often than not, philosophy and the teaching about art, including about music, is, alas, left to the less rigorous of philosophers. Serious philosophical work on the arts constantly needs to address this handicap. This volume is excellent news—it is surely a positive adding to the literature. Textbooks, reference books in this area, are needed to guide teaching, and this is one such good book.
The Handbook is meant to be (and is) suitable for informing teaching at an advanced level, being broad in scope and thorough, but it is also accessible to an interested, keen general public. The volume is composed of extensive lectures. It does what should be done in philosophy: philosophy writing, at its best, is more like extended dictionary or encyclopaedia entries, reference works for those interested in the most general aspects of the parts of reality that are worthy of more attention.
Several disciplines concur to make up this book, and they are clearly introduced and presented. Here is a school-teacher description of them: music theory attempts to see ‘how musical works cohere’ (p. 27); ethnomusicology studies ‘music in human social and cultural life’, using recording, transcription, and analysis as tools (p. 45); history informs us about past philosophies, musicologies, and prominent figures that may contribute to our understanding of music; and philosophical traditions, disciplines, and practices address some key topics, concepts, and methods which can offer a more structured, principled thinking about ‘the most embodied and humanly engaging sonic art form’ (p. 1).
The book aims ‘not only to summarize debates, but also to move them forward’ (ibid.), doing this well, in six parts. Part I, ‘Mapping the Field’, includes five essays comprising three main subfields of music studies (Historical Musicology, Music Theory, and Ethnomusicology) and the two main, often disaggregate and disputing, orientations of philosophy in the Western world (Analytic Philosophy and Continental Philosophy), taking ‘a self-conscious and critical approach to each tradition’ (p. 2). Part II, ‘History’, charts the history of music and philosophy, trying to highlight their ‘key meeting points’ through time. Part III is about ‘Philosophical Traditions and Practices’. Part IV is about ‘Musical Traditions and Practices’, with essays on musical process and experience, on some main genres or approaches to the making of music. Part V is the largest and most diverse, titled ‘Key Concepts’. Part VI, ‘Collisions and Collaborations’, is ‘intended as a kind of dialogue’ (p. 4) setting alongside one another essays from different traditions.
The editors warn the reader that the Handbook, comprising 54 essays by 62 authors with expertise mainly in the musics and philosophies of the so-called Western tradition, has a controversial focus: that the term ‘Western’ is relative. The editors refer to Kwame Anthony Appiah’s 2018 book The Lies that Bind to say that ‘the now-predominant conception of the West first emerged in the early years of the Cold War, in the form of a “Plato-to-NATO” narrative of Western culture’, presented as ‘individualistic and democratic and liberty-minded and tolerant and progressive and rational and scientific’ (Appiah 2018, 201), when these features are neither exclusive to nor always present within ‘the West’. So, the editors caution us, the term ‘Western’ is used, but ‘with reluctance’ (p. 5). I think the term (and the project) is fine. Referring to ‘Western’ music should be as contentious as referring to ‘continental breakfast’. Surely there are places that aren’t so western where ‘Western’ music is predominant, but one shouldn’t have to apologise for (or change) that. And just like continental breakfast is a choice of many outside continental Europe, many will hopefully enjoy Western music, as well as benefit from good thought about it.
All chapters were worth reading but let me select three to address here—somewhat because of my own topic interests, which should be central interests. The best I can do is, perhaps, to quote from them.
Chapter 27, by Theodore Gracyk, is on popular music, the ‘musical lingua franca of modern life’ (p. 533), and yet ‘marginalised’ in the philosophy of music. Gracyk’s explanation for this state of affairs is that ‘so-called art music was assumed to be intrinsically better and so worthier of study. Yet, until recently, the philosophy of music remained myopically focused on Western art music’ (p. 533). Gracyk further explains this neglect with the fact that ‘modern aesthetics arose as a theory of fine art’ (ibid.) and proposes that ‘the primary referent of popular music is a socially created category that can only be understood in contrast to music as a fine art.’ (ibid.). His goal in the essay is to identify ‘the major characteristics that have been used to demarcate a body of music as popular’ (p. 534).
For Gracyk, ‘the primary function for music qua art is to deliver aesthetic pleasure as a reward of focused, attentive listening. In contrast, popular music is not primarily so intended, and instead is intended to be functional and, frequently, multifunctional’ (p. 534).
Gracyk claims that ‘musical complexity reduces popularity’ (p. 536) and criticises Kant’s ‘unfortunate elitism’: in §43 of his Critique of the Power of Judgement (1790), Kant puts forward ‘a model of fine art that might legitimize the inferiority of simple, popular music.’ (pp. 536-537). And he notes that ‘[t]he specialized Western domain of “fine” or “high” art is the art world that emphasizes the importance of intrinsically valuable, functionless art.’ (p. 543). Following Nicholas Wolterstorff (2015, 85), Gracyk grants that ‘both popular music and art music possess aesthetic value’ (p. 544), but that ‘the two realms of music assign different priorities to the aesthetic’ (ibid.): ‘in popular music, aesthetic value is reduced to one among several instrumental values’ (ibid.).
This very honest chapter brings to the surface crucial, puzzling issues: if popular music contains also non-musical, instrumental aspects and values that serve other (non-musical) purposes and functions, then it is not appreciated only for the music, but also for those other purposes and functions. So it is not surprising that those concerned with the study of music consider primarily what is musical in music (whatever that is), and perhaps also what works are most musical, although the combined, less pure forms of music should also be seen as important for their ubiquity (and impact). In fact, high music can be popular too: Gracyk mentions that ‘some of Beethoven’s music is perennially popular. Hence, the categories of art and popular entertainment are not mutually exclusive and art music can be popular music.’ This claim is telling: here music (both art and popular) is seen as entertainment, and the distinction between ‘art’ and ‘popular’ (musical) entertainment seems to be mainly one of degree: art music is higher entertainment, the popular music addressed in this chapter (except Beethoven’s) being lower entertainment. Hence the limited attention by those concerned with the fine arts (and fine or art music). For those concerned with fine or art music, only the ‘perennially popular’ art music like that of Beethoven (or other great composers) would be worthy of philosophical attention in the philosophy of music (this is the problem diagnosed in the chapter as “elitism” and associated with Kant’s and more Kantian aesthetics). The criticism is, however, one of topic: Gracyk seems to want that the philosophy of music change its subject matter somehow (and I am not criticising that)—the thought is that it could well address more often the less complex, lower, more massified forms of music that serve purposes other than the aesthetic. Gracyk is here not doing philosophy of music simpliciter, but (among other things) politics as well, suggesting that the less rarefied musics are no less worthy of attention by the philosophy of music. This is an interesting suggestion, one targeting philosophies that wish to remain a separate forum for higher-art specialists, who are never many. But, to my mind, other solutions are possible, that do not require watering-down the discipline of aesthetics (or the music). First, since composers such as Beethoven managed to create “perennially popular” music of the highest calibre, we can expect that a few more contemporary musicians attain this or a close standard, and surely that this or something like it should be our standard. Our theories benefit from being hopeful about the capacities of artists, and for being demanding (and not just generous) towards composers and other musicians, thereby suggesting to them that they can, and perhaps should, do better. And since our theories shape reality, we should be careful about what kind of reality we are trying to shape. Even to accommodate the good concerns of a majority of lower-level, multifunctional entertainment producers and consumers, we should concentrate on raising standards of what is popular, and focus, perhaps, on developing art forms that don’t eschew the aesthetic. As Beethoven has shown (and so has Gracyk), even perennially popular music need not be lower art.
It is instructive to see the above chapter alongside Sarah Collins’s chapter on ‘absolute music’, an idea that she conceded is ‘both a promise and a threat’ (p. 633). In its narrowest sense, ‘the term absolute Musik gained prominence within a particular Austro-German critical discourse on music in the mid-nineteenth century’ (p. 634). In its broader sense, it is associated with the aesthetic itself, that in music yields a kind of knowledge that is irreducible to philosophy, science or other forms of knowledge.
Reading this chapter helps one understand a cluster of topics and ideas about music and its philosophy that go together and that underpin certain philosophical directions or perspectives. Collins mentions the aesthetic, beauty, aesthetic autonomy, and the sacred. Although these are not all always (necessarily) grouped, they can be seen in the same neighbourhood and our thinking of them brings about philosophies that also involve mixed, paradoxical feelings. Collins mentions ‘an essentially anti-intellectual discourse in the sense of being hostile to scepticism or critique, and preaching a kind of faith’ (p. 644), but also the thought that ‘[c]laims for musical autonomy have been used both to resist autocratic or authoritarian rule and to shape revolutionary visions […]’ (p. 647).
Collins’ conclusion on the topic of absolute music in this chapter is that ‘while we should certainly be wary of politics masking itself behind a supposedly neutral aesthetics, the aesthetic also offers the capacity to shape experience in a way that is fundamentally different from other structuring forces’ (p. 648, emphasis added).
Chapter 46, ‘Beauty’, by Nick Zangwill and Stephen Hinton, addresses musical beauty, from a philosophical perspective and from a musicological perspective. Zangwill begins by explaining that in the Platonic tradition beauty is connected to pleasure and his question in the chapter is ‘whether, and to what extent, music should be understood in terms of beauty’ (p. 941). Addressing the beauty-centred view of music by Eduard Hanslick (On the Musically Beautiful, 1854), Zangwill claims that ‘aeshetic pleasure in music arises from a confrontation with a value—namely, beauty—that is there in the music’ (p. 943). Zangwill then distinguishes between ‘wide’ and ‘narrow’ senses of beauty: ‘[i]n the wide sense, the notion of beauty coincides with the notion of aesthetic value’ (ibid.). Jerrold Levinson, in the essay ‘Musical Beauty’, addresses beauty in the narrow sense, when it is ‘a “thick” or “substantive” aesthetic notion, like daintiness, dumpiness, and elegance’ (p. 943).
Zangwill’s view is that ‘most music is concerned with musical beauty’ (p. 945) understood in the wide sense, and he adds that ‘[p]hilosophers are usually concerned with the general, more than the particular, but that generality need not be absolute generality’ (ibid.). As for what many philosophers call ‘the sublime’, Zangwill says that ‘sublimity is a kind of beauty’, a ‘way of being beautiful’ (ibid.). I agree with Zangwill’s view and hope to see more said on this along these lines, since the category of the sublime is a modern category and what is usually said of it is often confusing and unconvincing.
Stephen Hinton’s response is also very interesting and congenial, with ample references to works worth reading (one will want to read the entire chapter). Let me just quote from Hinton quoting Eggebrecht (1997, 56): music ‘is ontologically play, a play with tones that is at once a play with time. […] And playing is beautiful.’ Following also Hanslick, Hinton claims that musical ‘purity’ and ‘innovation’ are, or so it seems, closely related and it is because of this novelty that musical beauty escapes systematization, ‘allowing us to feel at the same time the infinite in the work of human talent’ (p. 957); ‘so does one find anew in music the entire universe’ (ibid.).
This Handbook is an excellent reference book for teaching in the philosophy of music; it does teach: there is plenty of knowledge in it, and I continue to think—and this should go without saying—that those who know better should try to teach. I would just make the book (the essays) even more like a textbook. The project—words for music—is unquestionably worthwhile.
References
Hanslick, Eduard. The Beautiful in Music. Translated by Gustav Cohen. London: Novello, 1891.
Levinson, Jerrold. ‘Musical Beauty’. In Musical Concerns: Essays in the Philosophy of Music, 58-66. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Wolterstorff, Nicholas. Art Rethought: The Social Practices of Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
REFERÊNCIA:
McAuley, Tomás, Nanette Nielsen and Jerrold Levinson (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Western Music and Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.