Christian Stillings

Reading Reflection
Music Hist. & Lit.
October 16, 2014

What Beauty Hath Music?

The music critic Eduard Hanslick posed a distinctly challenging question in his work On
the Musically Beautiful: what kind of beauty is the beauty of a musical composition? Hanslick
argued, apparently contrary to some contemporary colleagues, that music itself has a beauty that
is self-contained and in no need of content from outside itself, that consists simply and solely of
tones and their artistic combination He subsequently characterizes the view which he
considers contrary to his own: [that] view [distinguishes] between beautiful music which
possesses ideal content [supplied from outside of the music itself] and beautiful music which
does not. In other words, he disagrees with the idea that music must be associated with content
outside of itself in order to be truly beautiful; he rejects the conviction that the absence of
external associative content inherently renders a musical work incompletely beautiful.
Hanslick depicts the view with which he disagrees as requiring certain faulty conceptual
categories: [that view] has a much too narrow conception of the beautiful in music, representing
both the elaborately constructed form and the ideal content with which the form is filled as selfsufficient. Consequently this view divides all compositions into two categories, the full and the
empty, like champagne bottles. I do not find this segment of Hanslicks prose (or at least this
rendition of it) particularly clear, and I am unsure whether I correctly understand his argument
here: what, exactly, has he referred to using the term self-sufficient? Does he mean that
proponents of the view with which he disagrees consider elaborately constructed forms and
ideal form-filling content as two distinct categories of self-sufficient entities? This seems
incredible: how could a proponent of that view consider an elaborately constructed form a

self-sufficient entity when he or she apparently considers ideal content necessary to any
essentially-complete musical work? Likewise, how could ideal form-filling content itself be a
self-sufficient entity apparently without being situated within a proper form?
I find it more plausible to interpret Hanslick as designating elaborately constructed
forms and ideal form-filling content as two complementary entity-categories which are,
according to the view with which he disagrees, entirely sufficient as a pair for describing the
essential facets of essentially-complete musical works. According to that view, no musical
composition is essentially-complete unless it corresponds to external ideal content; any
musical composition which is unable to correspond well with such content is thus inherently
defective.
I largely agree with Hanslicks rejection of such a view: I do not discern any reason why
the absence of external associative content must render a musical work less-than-essentiallybeautiful. Although Franz Liszts piece Un Sospiro is now identified by the name The Sigh, it
was not originally so designated, and I do not discern any reason why I must not have considered
it essentially-beautiful were I to have initially listened to it without hearing a designated name
for it (or knowing, say, its composer, its recording artist or live performer, or any other piece of
external information which actually corresponds to the music which I would have heard). I
simply do not believe that a musical work must associate with external content in order to be
essentially-complete and truly beautiful.
Although I generally agree with Hanslicks stated conviction, I do not share his seeming
optimism about the plausibility of truly experiencing music apart from some substantial
influence of external associative content. A person for examples sake, a man named Jack could certainly originally hear Franz Liszts piece Un Sospiro without knowing, say, its title or
composer; one might claim that Jack experienced it simply as a piece of music, apart from any
influence which wouldve come from knowing its composer or its designated title. Even so, a

great deal of contextual content almost certainly corresponded to his initial listening experience:
how did he come to be listening to Un Sospiro at all? Perhaps Jill, a friend of his who plays
piano, insisted that he sit quietly and listen to a recording of it; in that case, he necessarily
associates the music with the idea of music which Jill wants me to listen attentively to. Perhaps
he and Jill are romantically involved with one another when she insists that he attentively listen
to that recording; in that case, he necessarily further associates the music with various
dimensions of their romance. Perhaps he first hears the music at a restaurant to which Jill
recommended that he take her on a date; in that case, he necessarily associates the music with the
idea of a kind of restaurant atmosphere which Jill prefers.
And so on: my general point is that one can hardly be exposed to a piece of music in a
way which does not correspond to contextual content, whether content of interpersonal
relationship, of cultural setting, of both, or of any of various other possibilities. I find it
practically inevitable that any experience of beauty which any given person may have in any
given exposure to any given piece of music will be substantially informed by some contextual
content which he or she necessarily associates with his or her given listening experience. Perhaps
a piece of music could be experienced as truly beautiful apart from any substantial influence by
external content, but such seems an unlikely case.