Writing assignment - Essay Example

We agree that absolute music can convey emotions, recall events, even ‘paint picture’. But can absolute music express complete thought or detailed these? Is there really a musical language? Why or why not? In the third section, Hanslick claims that a “specifically musical kind of beauty” is what the beauty of a musical composition embodies for which he adds “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.

” Beauty, as it appears hence based on this statement, is in itself a complete thought delivered through that which is purely musical by being comprised of an animating principle or “rhythm” within an entire system of tones were adjustments in melody, harmony, and rhythmic patterns diversely vary throughout a composer’s material. Essentially, this implies that absolute music serves more than the purpose of having special circumstances drawn to recollection or of obtaining brief yet poignant residence in feelings for music, as perceived in the wholeness of power and beauty that fills it, satisfies such perception completely in full measure.

“Der Ring des Nibelungen” by Richard Wagner is one such wonderful instance that attests to the objective of an idea or concept completely expressed via music in absolute form. As the cycle of Wagner’s four epic dramas is designed according to Norse sagas, the creation may then be proposed to have attained to the level of “auditory imagination” that is separate from the mere sense of pleased hearing. On this ground, one may argue as well that there exists a ‘musical language’ that not only speaks to feelings but even bears the capacity to communicate a story despite the absence of words or related elements of direct speech.

To further support this argument, Hanslick exemplifies by considering parallels between pure music and “arabesque” – a branch of ornamentation in the visual arts by which he persuades to understanding how music, like the art that reflects after the “sounding shapes” or the “self-constructing tones”, can naturally occur in continuous self-formation and thus generate into a language of its own. Work CitedHanslick, E. and G. Payzant (1986). On the Musically Beautiful: A Contribution Towards the Revision of the Aesthetics of Music.

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