Philosophy of Music: Fundamentals
Code
711021069
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Ciências Musicais
Credits
6
Teacher in charge
Maria Manuela Toscano
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
a) To acquire skills for critical argumentation and for the relating and deepening of problems in a clear and fundamented discourse;
b) To recognize fundamental questions and values of the Philosophy of Music, questioning them from the stand-point of an existential and historic-cultural horizon;
c) To contextualize philosophic/aesthetical concepts and values without losing sight of their matrices, mutations in time and intertextualities;
d) To understand creative relations between the composer, the compositional materials and their temporal shaping, in the horizon of ethical, aesthetical and specific poetic values;
e) To be aware of some historic representations of Philosophy of Music that precede the creation of Aesthetics by Baumgarten, and of the great landmarks regarding the changes of Philosophy until the 20th century;
f) To enrich aesthetical experience and artistic sensibility through thought and commented audition and visualization of musical and pictorial works.
Prerequisites
Precedent attendance of the seminar Philosophy of Music: Fundaments is recommended. Knowledge of English and French is also recommended.
Subject matter
1. Introduction to Aesthetics: problems of its definition, strengths and limits of a conceptual approach to the world of aesthetic experience, some study issues and associated questions.
2. History of the Philosophy of Music: relevant representations preceding the creation of Aesthetics by Baumgarten, deepening the thought of Plato and Aristotle. Crossroads of the Philosophy of Culture with the Baroque Doctrine of Affections and the Aesthetics of Sentiment (18th and 19th centuries). Its rootedness in the thought of Antiquity. Bridges between Music Theory, musical work and performance. Philosophical projections at the level of formal conception, relationship of the composer with the compositional materials, temporality, rhetorical organization, style, and aesthetical categories. Schiller and Gluck: the myth of Orpheus revisited; metaphysics of instrumental music; the \"new poetic age\".
Bibliography
Bowman, W. (1998). Philosophical Perspectives on Music. Oxford: OUP.
Cantagrel, G. (1998). Le Moulin et la rivière. Air et variations sur Bach. Paris: Fayard.
Chrétien, J-L. (1987). L´effroi du beau. Paris: Éditions du Cerf.
Dahlhus, C. (1989). The Idea o Absolute Music. Chicago: CUP.
Dubois, C-G. (1993). Le Baroque. Profondeurs de lapparence. Bordeaux: PUB.
Férry, L. (2002). Le sens du beau. Aux origines de la culture contemporaine. Paris: Le Livre de Poche.
Givone, S. (2003). Prima Lezione di estetica. Roma: Laterza.
Le Hurey, P. & Day, J. (1981). Music and Aesthetics in the Eighteenth and Early-Nineteenth Centuries. Cambridge: CUP.
Palisca, C. (1994). Ut oratoria musica: the Rhetorical Basis of Musical Mannerism. Studies in the History of Italian Music and Music Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 282-311.
Platão (s. d.). O banquete. Mem Martins: Publicações Europa-América.
Teaching method
Exposition of contents allowing for active and critical participation of students. The questions stimulate the relationship between concepts and values apart in time, to capture transformations and continuities of the elements. Analysis of texts. Commentaries of auditions, poems and paintings.
Presentations of art books. The intention is that the student does not lose the direct relationship with the book, which dynamises personal discoveries, in the respect with the own rythm of this intimate dialogue with art. Graphic presentations are used to highlight the relations between ideas and phenomena, due to the visual character of some of the topics presented.
Evaluation method
A written test, unfolded in two dates, stipulated in the first class (50%).Individual written essay or oral presentation (30%). Commentaries in seminars ( 20%).