The Phenomenological Approach to Musical Expression

Phenomenology inquires into the essences inherent in phenomena (M. Heidegger, V. Sesemann). A fact is something which is explained by something else, while a phenomenon is understood from itself. Beauty is born when the essence of the structures of the work is revealed by appropriate means: sounds must fulfil the obligations of the eidos (the artistic idea). E. Husserl envisioned phenomenology as a science of essences or eidetic science (D. Stewart, A. Mickunas): the interpretation of music is the grasping of the essence and its expression. The phenomenon of music expresses aesthetic feelings; this is served by its processual nature: it is close to the dynamics of change in the human emotional condition. The truth is the state in which the being of the phenomenon of transcendence is opened up: musical truth is equal to musical being. Intersubjectivity: the “Other” is the basis for the emergence of the “I” (E. Husserl). Art is dialogue: all music calls to an ear not the musician’s own (M. Buber). The author summarises the principles of the phenomenological approach: (1) the phenomenon of music must be analysed on the basis of eidetics and not according to the habit of the interpreter; (2) the eidetic meaning cannot be detached from the specifics of the work, its musical characteristics, however, a phenomenological action requires reduction, i.e., a narrowing of attention to what is essential; (3) musical reduction happens through a transformation (metanoia) of the thinking of the person-perceiver: a leap from “how it seems to me” to “how it really is”; (4) the art of music exists not only in the space of consciousness, but also in the space of culture; (5) a musical phenomenon opens up what makes it specific and precludes one from explaining it by use of clichés. A work of musical art becomes such exclusively through perception (M. Dufrenne). The Swiss conductor E. Ansermet states that music is “the time that has been experienced” and associates an affective experience with culture: in the realm of culture, the act of transcendence inherent in all musical experience happens by itself.