Music as life-affirmation

During the last two decades life-philosophy [Lebensphilosophie] has attracted keen interest in philosophical discussions. And yet, its music aesthetics still remain an unexamined area. The project Music as life-affirmation. The value of music in life-philosophy aims to fill this gap by investigating the music aesthetics of life-philosophy as a distinct movement in the history of philosophy, covering a period from the end of the 18th until the middle of the 20th century. The project proposes and will examine the hypothesis that life-philosophy is pervaded by a notion of music as life-paradigm, based on an isomorphism between instrumental music and life. This isomorphism leads to the assumption that music functions as life-affirmation. hus, it is important to reconstruct the music aesthetics of life-philosophy by (a) examining the view of exemplary life-philosophers on music and extracting the life-philosophical element out of them, and (b) relating music to the philosophical category of life. To achieve this goal, the methodological focus will be set on the issue of musical expressiveness and life-philosophys contemporaneous paradigm of pure instrumental, so- called absolute music, which has been the bone of contention between romantic or literary aesthetics of music and musical formalism since the 19th century. In a further strand of inquiry, we will examine the meaning of music as life-affirmation and see how this notion corresponds to compositions and programs of 19th and 20th century music by taking as examples three compositions: Wagners Tristan, Nielsens 4th Symphony and Delius Mass of Life. For this purpose, (a) contemporary notions of affirmation and (b) the focus on life as an aesthetic idea of music will be used as a guide. Ultimately, the project will try to reassess the status of the category of absolute music and, hence, contribute to the current discussion about the future of classical music.

The project investigated the music aesthetics of life-philosophy as a distinct movement in the th th history of philosophy covering a period from the end of the 18 until the middle of the 20 century, i.e. from Early Romanticism to Philosophical Anthropology. The projects claim was that we are entitled to speak of a life-philosophical aesthetics of music, based on the hypothesis that all life-philosophers share two notions: a) an isomorphism between purely instrumental, so called absolute music and life, and b) the function of music as affirmation of life. The project demonstrated how the representatives of life-philosophy come to the isomorphism of music and life by synthesizing, both by critique and appropriation, formalist and expressive perspectives on music, and take life to be the most inclusive aesthetic idea of music. Purely instrumental music resembles the inner form of emotion, and thus, is the art closest to life, which is perceived as relational nexus primarily appearing as emotion. The project analyzed how life-philosophers invert negative features of both instrumental music and emotion such as ineffability, surplus and incommensurability, to gain a positive analogy between music and life. Moreover, the project examined how these philosophers take distance from the aesthetic discourse of the Beautiful and associate absolute music with both variations of the Sublime, the Dynamic and the Mathematical. The practical consequence of the isomorphism of music and life is that music functions as life-affirmation. For life-philosophy, affirmation seems to be the alternative word for expression. Whereas the notion of expression is descriptive, the notion of affirmation has a proactive character. Therefore, the project tried to identify notions of affirmation in the representatives of life-philosophy by applying David Pugmires distinction between five forms of affirmation: 1) identification, 2) consolidation, 3) reorientation, 4) initiation and 5) transfiguration. The project found that in every life-philosopher we encounter at least one of these forms of affirmation, concluding that for life-philosophy the value of music lies in its ability to affirm life.