Geoff Dyer is one of my favorite authors of fiction, near-fiction, and essays. He writes about backing into some of his literary projects - starting out to write a book about x in place z; going to place r and ending up writing about q instead. I've been attempting to re-read Stanley Cavell's "Music Discomposed" in order to finish my Raffman-Taruskin project, getting their completely wrong-headed critiques of Schoenberg, Babbitt, Boulez, and Martino out of my system. Instead of just dispatching Cavell, I've been enticed to read everyone but Cavell! Sir Donald Francis Tovey, Charles Rosen, Paul Griffiths, Bryan Simms, Anrdré Hodier, Andrew Porter ... and I'll find others to keep from re-reading Cavell! Also, my non-Cavellian reading has caused me to listen to a lot of music - this is listening in addition to verses listening instead of, i.e., listening to music instead of re-reading Cavell.
Now this malady that I suffer from - let's give my disease a name, "Anti-Music-Aesthetics", "AMA" - has plagued me for quite a while. It was first diagnosed by a philosopher of music aesthetics ("MA"); who has, since he diagnosed me, gotten out the MA business and gone back to metaphysics (not a retreat; an advance on his part). According to the philosopher, my disease was caused by my confusing music criticism with music aesthetics - let's give this confusion a name, "Big-Confusion" or "BC". Now I disagree with this diagnosis. But before I go off on this, let's get meta-theoretical, scientific for a moment.
What Music Aesthetics is supposed to be about are theories of what music is about - about theories about theories of organized sound (say); meta-theories along Tarskiean lines, theories of theories of music criticism, theories of theories of the properties of organized sounds, .... My first response was usually, Show me the first-order theory before going on about the philosophical need of further theories of theories. Let's read some Tovey, see if there are any first-order theories hiding in his writings, attend to his music examples, listen to some music; then theorize about what we find in Tovey. This is awfully naïve - I admit it! It would be quite interesting to use Tovey's Beethoven, Oxford University Press (1965) as a source for philosophical reflection on music. For example, I have in my hands Penelope Maddy's new book, Defending the Axioms: On the philosophical foundations of set theory, Oxford University Press (2011), the bibliography shows a preponderance maths' books and papers. Most books on music aesthetics will not show a preponderance of Tovey-type works. The preponderance is on the side of philosophy. In my view what is wrong with music aesthetics is the preponderance of philosophy - philosophers writing for philosophers; rather than philosophers trying to learn from Tovey et al.
So in the next weeks, before I dispence with Stanley Cavell, I'll try to convey what Sir Donald Tovey has to teach us and what data his work might provide for our theories of theories.
Well I'm off not to watch the Academy Awards TV Show. More music please!
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