Abstracts of issue 10-11 (1998)
Markos TsetsosProblems of Aesthetic Analysis of a Beethoven’s Late String Quartet (Op. 131, c sharp minor)
This article investigates problems concerning some of the main attempts of contemporary music analysis to discover technic criteria (tonal, motivic-thematic, structural) that can guarantee and justify the otherwise problematic unity of the
Beethoven’s late style form, and poses the question of the aesthetic validity of the results of such attempts, taking in consideration mainly the philosophical assumptions of Kantian criticism and
Adorno’s views on late Beethoven, based on the recently published fragments of his planned Beethoven-book. The author, closing, proposes the study of the
Κantian Τheory of the Aesthetic Idea (Aesthetische Idee) as a means of understanding and evaluation of the aesthetic significance of the paradoxical (in juxtaposition to the dominating form logic of the 19th century) late
Beethoven’s style, form, and tonal structures.