Music and the Ineffable

by Jankelevitch, Vladimir

• ISBN13: 9780691090474
• ISBN10: 0691090475
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-07-08
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Vladimir Jankélévitch left behind a remarkable oeuvre steeped as much in philosophy as in music. His writings on moral quandaries reflect a lifelong devotion to music and performance, and, as a counterpoint, he wrote on music aesthetics and on modernist composers such as Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel.Music and the Ineffablebrings together these two threads, the philosophical and the musical, as an extraordinary quintessence of his thought. Jankélévitch deals with classical issues in the philosophy of music, including metaphysics and ontology. These are a point of departure for a sustained examination and dismantling of the idea of musical hermeneutics in its conventional sense. Music, Jankélévitch argues, is not a hieroglyph, not a language or sign system; nor does it express emotions, depict landscapes or cultures, or narrate. On the other hand, music cannot be imprisoned within the icy, morbid notion of pure structure or autonomous discourse. Yet if musical works are not a cipher awaiting the decoder, music is nonetheless entwined with human experience, and with the physical, material reality of music in performance. Music is "ineffable," as Jankélévitch puts it, because it cannot be pinned down, and has a capacity to engender limitless resonance in several domains. Jankélévitch's singular work on music was central to such figures as Roland Barthes and Catherine Clément, and the complex textures and rhythms of his lyrical prose sound a unique note, until recently seldom heard outside the francophone world.

Author Biography

Vladimir Jankelevitch (1903-1985), a critical figure in twentieth-century French philosophy, held the Chair in Moral Philosophy at the Sorbonne from 1951 to 1978. He was the author of more than twenty books on philosophy, as well as a number of books on music Carolyn Abbate is Professor of Music at Princeton University

Table of Contents

The Charme of Jankelevitch	vii
Arnold I. Davidson
Jankelevitch's Singularity	xiii
Carolyn Abbate
Preface Music and the Ineffable	xxi
The ``Ethics'' and the ``Metaphysics'' of Music	1	(15)
Orpheus or the Sirens?	3	(4)
Bearing a Grudge against Music	7	(2)
Music and Ontology	9	(7)
The Inexpressive ``Espressivo''	16	(61)
The Mirage of Development. The Reprise	16	(9)
The Illusion of Expression	25	(4)
Impressionism	29	(3)
The Inexpressive and Objectivity	32	(7)
Violence	39	(3)
Expressing Nothing Whatsoever. Affected Indifference	42	(4)
The Opposite, Something Else, Less. Humor Allusion, and Understatement	46	(5)
To Describe, to Evoke, to Recount along Rough Lines	51	(8)
To Suggest in Retrospect	59	(3)
To Express the Inexpressible into Infinity	62	(2)
Serious and Frivolous, Deep and Superficial. Musical Ambiguity	64	(7)
The Ineffable and the Untellable. The Meaning of Meaning	71	(6)
The Charm and the Alibi	77	(53)
The Poetic Operation	77	(7)
Fevroniya, or Innocence	84	(6)
The Spatial Mirage	90	(3)
Temporality and the Nocturne	93	(5)
Divine Inconsistency. The Invisible City of Kitezh	98	(6)
The Bergamasque Charm. Melody and Harmony	104	(7)
Allegretto Bergamasque. Pianissimo Sonore, Forte con Sordina	111	(8)
Wisdom and Music	119	(6)
``Laetitiae Comes''	125	(5)
Music and Silence	130	(27)
Notes	157	(12)
Index of Names	169