ALEXEI LOSEV’S APPROACH TO THE MEANING AND LANGUAGE OF MUSIC
Keywords:
musical content, form, essence, energy, name, language, eidos, number, timeAbstract
The article considers a problem of musical sense and meaning in their relationship to musical language. Specific character of music is in that fact: the musical essence does not include images of the real world. At the same time music as a rule correlates with reality. The problem is: what concept can embrace extra-musical reality, symbolized in music, if it is not the content (as in literature, painting, etc.)? To decide this problem Russian thinker Alexei Losev was based on ancient and medieval epistemology and used correlative concepts: essence and energy, or name as the fullness of energies of essence. The name is manifestation of the essence in the external sphere, but the name is not the component of the essence. So, a programme reflects the musical essence in not musical images. According to Losev, the essence of music is life of numbers in time, expressed in sounds – musical eidos is sounding number. This Pythagorean conception is very usable in modern musical practice, science and philosophy.
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