Classic instrumental music and the aesthetics of Hume and Mattheson

Abstract

A commonly-cited problem in eighteenth-century aesthetics is a supposed discrepancy between theory and practice: the period's aesthetic literature devalued instrumental music, providing no basis for the evaluation and aesthetic appreciation of the Classic-era instrumental masterworks of Mozart and Haydn. In this paper, I argue both that the problem is overstated, and that a solution is in the offing if we look at the period's writings on the aesthetic experience. These writings provide criteria for value judgments of musical works with the intrinsic aesthetic qualities characteristic of Classic-era instrumental music. I then sketch a formalist view of the musical aesthetic experience, from the writings of philosopher David Hume and theorist/composer Johann Mattheson, positing formal and stylistic characteristics that elicit a positive aesthetic judgment upon their apprehension by a listener. This eighteenth-century empiricist aesthetic is an aesthetic for instrumental music, not an aesthetic of, or exclusive to, instrumental music. There is, on my account, no compelling reason for holding that an adequate aesthetic for instrumental music must provide evaluative criteria exclusive to that art form, as critics have maintained; this notion is a vestige of the romantic ideal of musical autonomy. Lastly, I illustrate the theory's relationship with practice by examining the first movement of Haydn's Symphony Number 95 in C Minor.