<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">To All,<div><br><div>In the "Vermischtes" of Tonwille 5, Schenker includes a section entitled "German Form." Too lengthy to quote here, Schenker's exposition might be summed up as: </div><div><br></div><div>(1) Goethe wrote brilliantly about all other arts;</div><div>(2) He possessed neither musical capacity nor capable instructors on music, and therefore was incapable of profound understanding or clarity in writing about music;</div><div>(3) His writings on the arts in general can be applied successfully to music, by one who has the capacity to understand music as deeply as Goethe understood other arts;</div><div>(4) (implicitly) that person is Schenker.</div><div><br></div><div>To really get at Schenker's meaning, the whole passage should be read. It runs from the end of p. 213 to the beginning of 216 in volume 1 of the English translation, and pp. 46-48 in the original German of Tonwille 5.</div><div><br></div><div>Joseph Lubben</div><div><br></div><div><div style="font-size: 12px; ">Associate Professor of Music Theory</div><div style="font-size: 12px; ">Oberlin Conservatory</div><div style="font-size: 12px; ">440-775-8239</div><div style="font-size: 12px; "><a href="mailto:jlubben@oberlin.edu">jlubben@oberlin.edu</a></div></div><div><br></div><div> <br><div><div>On May 19, 2013, at 4:02 PM, Nicolas Meeùs wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">
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<font face="Calibri">Michael (and all),<br>
<br>
I have followed this (short) thread with some puzzlement about
what your opinion could be about Goethe, about music theory, about
positivism, etc.<br>
<br>
Do you believe, with Helmholtz, that Goethe was but a poet
speaking of science and that science should be reserved to
scientists, music theory to theorists, or on the contrary that we
should admit some level of poetry, of intuitive musicianship? Is
your question whether music theory may be a matter of talent, of
innate capacity, or one of science, of reflexion, of education?<br>
<br>
Helmholtz obviously could but oppose Goethe's "scientific" point
of view. He described is as "poetry", but should perhaps have
termed it "intuition". But Helmholtz himself was convinced of the
value of scientific induction, and at first (i.e. in his talk <i>Über
Goethe's naturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten</i></font><font face="Calibri"> of 1853) wrote rather despisingly of Goethe's
approach to <i>Naturwissenschaften</i>, those we would today
describe as "exact sciences". In his second paper, however, <i>Goethe's
Vorahnungen...</i> of 1892, he was forced to recognize the value
of Goethe's hypothetico-deductive approach, even if he still
considered the approach (and especially its hypotheses) poetic of
artistic. The fact is that, in between, Darwin had given some
truly scientific validation of Goethe's idea of the organic
evolution from <i>Urphänomenen</i>. But this may not be the core
of your point.<br>
<br>
The influence of Goethe's ideas in the 19th century could hardly
be overestimated. It probably remains quite more vivid today than
what many of use imagine. The idea that a work of art (any work of
art) arises from an overall plan, rather than as a mere
concatenation of formal units; that a painting is not painted from
left to right and from up to down, but rather as the elaboration
of an overall sketch; or that a piece of tonal music is not a mere
concatenation of harmonic "functions" (as Ildar Khannanov would
describe them), but as the elaboration of a tonal plan, of a <i>Grundgestalt</i>,
as Schoenberg viewed it; etc., etc.; all that stems from Goethe's
organic conception.<br>
<br>
Schenker obviously was deeply influenced by Goethe. Schoenberg
perhaps less obviously, but probably as deeply. I would think that
Helmholtz was too much biased to allow us to consider Goethe
merely as a poet, or music theory merely a matter of innate
talent. If music theory was influenced by Goethe (and it certainly
was and remains), it is not a matter of influence from poetic
theory, rhetoric, sociology, or the like, but rather from one of
the most powerful philosophical thinking of the late 18th- and
early 19th-century.<br>
<br>
Your message, if I understand it correctly, appears to indicate
that 20th-century music theory on the North-American Continent was
much more "positivist" than I ever figured; but even if that were
true, it would concern, say, the 1970's and 1980's, I'd say.<br>
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Nicolas Meeùs<br>
Université Paris-Sorbonne<br>
<br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Le 18/05/2013 16:26, Michael Morse a
écrit :<br>
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<div dir="ltr">Dear One & All,
<div><br>
</div>
<div> Warm thanks for the references on Goethe. It strikes me
that music theorists in the last century or so may be slow to
acknowledge either the validity and pertinence of
non-theorists' thoughts about music, and their actual
influence in particular. If there is any substance to this
suggestion, it may be because we were in the positivist
century, in which the capacity of a discourse for
non-pollution from outside influence was proof of the
independence that qualified a science, or at least a rigorous,
objective discussion. Of course ideas from mathematics and
sometimes systematic linguistics were welcome; that's, uh,
different. But an approach to music theory influenced
by poetic theory, rhetoric, or sociology was--is?--infra dig,
not so much intrinsically worthless as subject to instant
reclassification as music history, musicology, or criticism.
(Perhaps the only thing even faintly sympathetic about Susan
McClary's musical Lysenkoism is her plaint that she was hoist
on this particular petard.)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div> These may be merely partisan prejudices, however. The
core question of who should speak about music how fascinates
me, however. "Who" in that statement means what kind of
person, informed by what kinds of experiences. What, for
example, constitutes talent in music theory? Have any of you
ever taught someone who was very keen on music theory, perhaps
even wanted to become a theorist, but simply didn't have "the
right stuff"? What *is* "the right stuff"? And, back to the
Sage of Weimar®: who outside the circles of those trained in
music theory is in a position to contribute to it
intellectually?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Michael W. Morse</div>
<div>Trent University</div>
<div>Peterborough, Oshawa</div>
</div>
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