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Summary
In this paper, I argue for an implicit version of 'enhanced formalism' in Eduard Hanslick's aesthetics, usually misread as 'extreme' formalism devoid of any positive account of emotion and music. I outline 'enhanced formalism' in its contemporary incarnations (Davies, Kivy), explore certain common features with Hanslick's approach, and finally explain why Hanslick ultimately abandoned the concept of expressive properties as intrinsic properties of musical structure as the basis of objective aesthetics.
Keywords: Eduard Hanslick, Peter Kivy, musical aesthetics, enhanced formalism, music and emotion
Streszczenie
W artykule staram się pokazać, że w estetyce Eduarda Hanslicka, zwykle błędnie odczytywanej jako skrajny formalizm pozbawiony jakiegokolwiek pozytywnego opisu emocji w muzyce, implicite zawarty jest „ulepszony formalizm". Przedstawiam „ulepszony formalizm" w jego dzisiejszych wersjach (Davies, Kivy), badam jego wspólne cechy z podejściem Hanslicka i na koniec wyjaśniam, dlaczego koncepcja własności ekspresywnych jako inherentnych własności struktury muzycznej została przez Hanslicka ostatecznie porzucona.
Słowa kluczowe: Eduard Hanslick, Peter Kivy, estetyka muzyczna, ulepszony formalizm, muzyka i emocje
1.Introduction - Eduard Hanslick and Analytical Aesthetics
Eduard Hanslick's aesthetic treatise Vom Musikalisch-Schönen ('On the Musically Beautiful', Weigel, Leipzig 1854)1 still forms an essential component of musical discourse in various academic fields such as music history and music theory, or in current debates on vital terms such as 'work', 'structure', or 'autonomy'. Apart from musicological considerations, Hanslick's reflections have been most creatively employed by modern analytical philosophy in order to clarify the emotional expression, content, and impact of 'pure' music.2 Hanslick's sceptical attitude towards theories of emotional 'expression' and affective 'arousal' of music alone is practically omnipresent in recent debates on this very topic.3 Thus, Philip Alperson correctly remarks that "the shadow that Hanslick casts over contemporary philosophical discussions of music is so long that his views can be fairly regarded as a template against which contemporary views of music can be situated".4 Alperson's assertion was recently seconded by David Huron, who explicitly maintains that Hanslick's treatise has "defined the principal parameters in debates concerning musical aesthetics" and that "all major philosophers in the aesthetics of music have start- ed by engaging with Hanslick's ideas".5 Hanslick's compelling description of emotion, strikingly reminiscent of modern cognitive emotion concepts (OMB, p. 9; VMS, p. 43-45), as well as his emphasis on the dynamic aspects of emotive...