Open Access‘Music is Life’ – The influence of transcendentalist philosophy on Ives’s Concord Sonata
Author(s) -
Waldo Wilhelm Weyer,
Bertha Spies
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
the journal for transdisciplinary research in southern africa
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2415-2005
pISSN - 1817-4434
DOI - 10.4102/td.v3i2.328
Subject(s) - musical , sonata form , piano sonata , musical analysis , transcendental number , sonata cycle , literature , philosophy of music , aesthetics , art , piano , philosophy , epistemology , music history , art history , symphony
Although the Concord Sonata is traditionally regarded as a sonata, it is atypical of the genre and is often considered as enigmatic. To understand this composition, a transdisciplinary approach is essential by, more specifically, incorporating knowledge of the philosophies of Transcendentalist authors Emerson, Hawthorne, the Alcotts andThoreau. Charles Ives set out the Transcendentalist ideas which influenced his conception of this piano sonata in his Essays before a sonata. His view of musical structure is based on the motto ‘Music is Life’, which he derived from their philosophy. The analysis of the first and last movements of this sonata also facilitates access to the ideas of Emerson and Thoreau. By linking the results of a musical analysis to extra-musical knowledge from literary art, this article demonstrates how abstract ideas of the Transcendental writers can be expressed through music. Interpretations arrived at in this manner help to promote a better understanding of the work as a whole. This essay shows how mediating between two different fields of knowledge and between knowledge and understanding as complementary concepts can enhance understanding and therefore appreciation of the music