The Origin of Music and Its Specific Characteristics (the Historical-Ontological Aspect)

The etymology of the word “music” (Isidore of Seville, the Li Ki). The importance of music in the formation of personality (Plato). The relationship between music and numbers (Pythagoras, G. W. Leibniz, A. Schopenhauer, V. Sesemann). St Augustine’s definition of music as the ability to modulate well (scientia bene modulandi). Primeval speech as primeval song (R. Steiner). The primacy of music over the text in two traditional Lithuanian harvest songs: Bėk, barali (“Run, little row of rye”) and Vai tu, rugeli (“O, you little rye”) (links to recordings, sung by the author). Music as an art of motion detected in intonations: relation of this definition of B. Asaf’ev to ideas of movement expressed by authors of different epochs (Heraclitus; St Augustine, who describes music as the science of moving well (scientia bene movendi); A. Losev, who considers continuous change is the main characteristic of music). Comparison of the expression of music with reading, which H. Gadamer defines as a constant hermeneutic movement guided by anticipation of the whole. Without expression, a piece of music is only the potential repository of intonations and a question in suspense awaiting an answer (and this answer is an expression which fulfils the idea of the work).