The music aesthetics of "Energy School"

A new musical aesthetics emerged in Europe around the 1930s, represented by E. Coote and H. Mersmann (1891-1971). Music aesthetics school, some people call it "energy school" music aesthetics. This school of thought is closely related to Halm's Autonomy, which advocates getting rid of the emotional world of composers and listeners and studying the musical works themselves independently, but the difference is that it shows a tendency to try to overcome the weaknesses of Autonomy itself in explaining the nature of music. . Coote believes that the essence of music is not the sound form, but a certain will tendency in music. This will tendency is inseparably and closely linked with musical materials and various factors that constitute music, and is reflected through the energy form existing within the sound phenomenon. The tone tendencies that make up the melody are called dynamic energy, and the tone tendencies that make up the chords are called potential energy. In his "Applied Musical Aesthetics" (1926), Mersmann made a detailed so-called purely objective investigation of the regularity of acoustic material materials based on the theory of energy. This tendency to attempt to get rid of the constraints of the philosophical worldview and discuss music based on music reflects some of the influence of the "New Objectivity" literary and artistic trend that emerged in Germany in the 1930s. After this, a new school emerged, namely the school of phenomenal music aesthetics based on the phenomenal philosophy of E. Husserl (1859-1938). The important representative is R. Ingarden. Ingarden believes that music belongs to the intentional world that is parallel to the real world, and regards music as a "pure intentional object". As a purely intentional object, music has no essential connection with the real world. On the premise that there is no identity between the musical work and the conscious feelings of the composer and the listener, and between the musical work and the score of the work, Ingarden raised the issue of the special way of existence of the musical work (" Musical works and their identity issues"). After the Second World War, phenomenological aesthetics influenced the music aesthetic thoughts of N. Hartmann, S. Lange and others to a certain extent. Inspired by Ingarten's theory, Hartmann proposed the hierarchical theory of musical works. He decomposes musical works into a real layer as a sound entity (i.e., the front layer) and an illusory layer as the content and meaning (i.e., the back layer). The front layer exists independently of the consciousness of the appreciator, while the back layer is related to the consciousness of the appreciator who has artistic sensibility. In a sense, this theory is an attempt to reconcile the contradictory opposition between heteronomy and self-discipline regarding the content and form of music (Aesthetics, 1953). Although Lange's musical aesthetics was also influenced by phenomenological aesthetics to a certain extent, he mainly explained the essence of music from the concept of symbols. In Langer's view, music, like other arts, is a pure form of emotional expression composed of unique artistic symbols that are much more complex than language symbols. This form is actually just a virtual image. In explaining the relationship between musical form and emotion, Lange relied on the isomorphic correspondence theory of Gestalt psychology ("Emotion and Form", 1953). But whether it is Hartmann or Lange, when they regard music as an intentional object or some illusory entity, they always isolate it from the real world to a certain extent and examine it. In the 1950s and 1960s, attempts were made to resolve the opposition between autonomic heteronomy and form and content in music from the perspective of psychological research. The theory of A. Wellek (1904~) who proposed a comprehensive form-expression aesthetics based on Gestalt psychology is an example.

A component of social ideology

After the Second World War, especially from the 1950s, the Marxist epistemology-reflection theory and the philosophy of historical materialism were the starting points. Research on musical aesthetics began to develop in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries. The main works that appeared in this regard include B.B. Vanslov's "On the Reflection of Reality in Music" (1950), □. А. Kremlev's "Introduction to the Problems of Musical Aesthetics" (1953), Z. Lisa's "Problems of Musical Aesthetics" and "On the Particularity of Music" (1953), etc. They regard music as a constituent factor of social ideology, point out that it is ultimately the product of the reflection of social reality in people's spiritual world, examine it in connection with the socio-economic foundation, and on this basis, analyze music The special nature that distinguishes it from other types of art is explored. In the 1960s and 1970s, this school underwent further changes and development.

To varying degrees, they absorbed certain results from Western music aesthetics research. Sometimes some influence of modern semantics and semiotics can be seen in some of their works (such as Lisa's "New Essays on Musical Aesthetics", 1975), and some even have phenomenology, etc. Some imprints of theory.

The influence of information theory, cybernetics, and systems theory

Since the 1970s, the development of information theory, cybernetics, and systems theory began to have an impact on the study of music aesthetics, and some developments in this area have emerged 's treatises. Although it is still in the initial stage of exploration, this direction will undoubtedly have broad development prospects and may have far-reaching significance for the development of future music aesthetics.