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Athens Concert Hall, 4-6 November 2003
In order to understand itself, musical analysis must reconsider some issues concerning the nature of its object, namely of music and the musical work of art. The task of this communication is to examine whether the directive representations and the technical terms of musical analysis have not merely a descriptive, but also a normative character. Notions such as “unity”, “diversity”, “similarity”, “difference”, “contrast”, “complementarity” etc, but also technical terms such as “monophony”, “polyphony”, “homophony”, “melody”, “harmony”, “consonance”, “dissonance” etc, do not possibly express only an “is”, but also an “ought”, both for music creation and for musical analysis. For the music creation, as a manifestation of human freedom, this probably means that in order to be constituted and its products, the musical works, to have meaning, it is oriented towards these notions as values. For the musical analysis this probably means that it takes these notions as criteria, in order its products, the descriptive propositions, to have validity and normative value. Thus, musical practice is not a practice according to nature, but a practice according to value, the musical work is not a natural thing, but a cultural good, and musical analysis is not merely a description, but already an understanding.
© Musicology