RE:Re: [microsound] a new primitivism?

[Kurt Hoffman <supine@xxxxxxxx>]

thanks for your interesting post. my doubtless naive questions and protests:


> it is exactly the physicality
> of music with renders it as the lowest
> among the arts for Kant, and thereby
> for the romanticist

in what way is music more physical than dance, sculpture, 
architecture or painting? music consists of soundwaves, which are 
fleeting and immaterial. just curious; i know you're saying this is 
Kant's idea not yours. maybe he had a tin ear.

it is surprising to learn that the romanticists did not regard music 
highly, considering romanticism's dominating influence on 19th 
century European art music.

>  and also up to our
> days this is still evident in the
> demands for exact notation (cf
> Stockhausen).  Music is, according to
> this (and Kant), always in need of a
> supplement - the musical text. That
> is why timbre is seen as always
> suspect and compromising the
> musical content,


"always" suspected by who? academic harmony theorists?


>  at least when it acts
> without such supplements.

supplements such as notation?

even notation seems to have developed specifically to facilitate 
complicated polyphony. and polyphony is, at its essence, an effort to 
expand the timbral range of music. it was notation that fueled the 
progression from medieval chant to 19th century orchestration, which 
saw increased attention to timbre every step of the way.

In terms of music being "always" in need of "the musical text", one 
wonders what Kant and others made of the vast quantities of 
non-notated music in the world including many sophisticated art music 
traditions.

i think you overstate the case. while melody, harmony and rhythm have 
superceded timbre in importance in classical music, timbre has long 
been an accepted and defining element.

k