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This essay holds that music is the art of tones, while rejecting the view that music is the universal art of sound; it recognises an emergent non-musical sound art which takes non-tonal sounds as its material. To allow that any sounds can be incorporated into music is not to say that any sounds can constitute music – thus room is left for the conclusion that music makes predominant use of tonal sounds, and increasingly co-exists with a non-musical sound art. This broadly tonal conception of music rests on what I term the objectivity of tone, which several contributors to the present volume seem to question. The article argues that whether a particular sound is musical or tonal is partly an objective matter, independent of how it is experienced by any particular individual. This claim should be understood humanistically and not scientistically – that is, it rests on a humanistic concept of music, and not on an abstract, scientistic standpoint.

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Die Frage, wie Inhalte des Faches Musiktheorie auf hohem kreativem Niveau zu vermitteln sind, steht im Mittelpunkt dieses Buches. Die hier herausgegebenen Aufsätze, die für den VI. Internationalen Kongress der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie in Weimar entstanden, vermitteln Erfahrungen und Fachwissen, bieten Lehrenden und Lernenden viele neue Anregungen und stellen didaktische Konzepte vor. Mit Beiträgen über das gregorianische Repertoire bis hin zu György Ligetis Klavierkonzert wird aufgezeigt, über welch große Bandbreite die Fächer Musiktheorie und Hörerziehung heute verfügen können. Zudem wird nicht nur über ästhetische Implikationen der Satzlehre nachgedacht, sondern es werden auch zahlreiche Beispiele für eine zeitgemäße Werk- und Höranalyse vorgestellt. So wird deutlich, wie lebendig und interessant Musiktheorie sein kann und wie in diesem Fach anregend in Tönen gedacht und über Töne nachgedacht und gesprochen werden kann.

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In his satire The Banishment of the Jesuits from China (published in 1785 in Constantinople), Johann Rauthenstrauch unsparingly attacks the self-satisfied aberrations of the European missionary societies and blames Europe for cultural colonisation. From the beginning of Jesuit mission in China in the late 16th century, the Jesuits not only gained high proficiency in the Chinese language, but also studied Chinese rites and customs in detail. After a period of tolerance towards the Jesuits (under emperor Kangxi, who died in 1722), the Jesuit mission was severely restricted under his successors. The activities of Jesuit scholars like Jean-Joseph Amiot were limited to the area of the Forbidden City and concentrated mainly on science, astronomy and music theory – disciplines which were looked on benevolently by the emperors. Amiot’s approach towards Chinese music was not primarily ethnomusicological, rather his ambition was to uncover the roots of ancient music in living traditions of Chinese music. Although his main area of study was ancient music theory, he also paid much attention to problems of intercultural dialogue as well as to the contemporary situation of music in China. His tolerant and open-minded attitude towards Chinese music resulted in a large collection of contemporary Chinese melodies which he collected systematically and transcribed into European notation. The musical activities of the Jesuits, in the Forbidden City as well as in the services, were characterised by a balance of European and Chinese traits, avoiding any European claim for cultural superiority. An important facet of Amiot’s biography is his life-long intensive process of learning and a deep respect for the genuine cultural and spiritual traditions of China.

Intercultural encounters often have been determined by the misleading tendency to interpret different traits of another culture almost automatically as deficient. Examples from history and philosophy are discussed and analysed: namely colonialism, Leibniz, Herder, Hegel and race theories of the 19th and 20th century. Three possible valuations of one’s own culture are discussed which can be seen as being exclusively valuable, equal to all others, or complimentary to others. Describing the latter as the most adequate interpretation, the author argues for dialogical or rather polylogical interactions in the field of philosophy. This does not, however, exclude centristic tendencies. Therefore, finally four different types of centrism are proposed as influential patterns in intercultural encounters: expansive, integrative, separative, and tentative centrism. This concluding discussion of centrisms hopes to establish fruitful models of intercultural interactions in philosophy and related fields.

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Characteristics of Helmut Lachenmann’s music are approached through the author’s own music and musical thinking, intertwining portrait and self-portrait. Lachenmann’s music reflects problems of a recent history of composition and asks key questions about music’s relation to society. It challenges, for example, the position of composers/writers towards collective standards, but also reflects what critical thinking can mean in a society that consumes criticism and makes it part of its own system. Polyvalent structural relationships within Lachenmann’s music reflect his insistent method of observing and perceiving, of re-working, re-shaping traditional modes of listening. Whereas the terms »revolutionary« and »novelty« (not only in contemporary music) have become commodities or matters of fast changing trends, Helmut Lachenmann can be characterized as a »homo differentialis« whose work substantiates an existential necessity to bring music to the ear of the listener.

This article tries to approach Helmut Lachenmann’s music from the perspective of the cognitive sciences. The first part examines important theoretical concepts developed in Lachenmann’s own writings such as »polyphony of allocations« (Polyphonie von Anordnungen), »structure sound« (Strukturklang), »family« (Familie), »screening process« (Abtast-Prozess), modes of listening (»(Hin-)Hören« vs. »Zu-Hören«) and points at their cognitive implications. The second part discusses interrelations between Lachenmann’s and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s concepts of »family«. These concepts share an anti-essentialist perspective and argue that »families« might assemble highly heterogeneous mixtures of components. Theories of cognitive categorization based on Wittgenstein’s notion of »family resemblance« include Irene Deliège’s concept of »cue-abstraction«, based on the identification of salient features in musical contexts and their similarity, and Adam Ockelford’s »zygonic model« that criticizes this emphasis on similarity-relations; according to Ockelford, members of a category (or family) do not necessarily share a single property (or essence), but might be connected by association or contiguity. In the third part, two analytical examples related to Lachenmann’s concept of a »musique concrète instrumentale«, Pression (1969/70) and Allegro Sostenuto (1986/88), exemplify the composer’s intuitive use of cognitive principles, based mainly on Gestalt laws. The consistency of cognitive features in Pression for solo violoncello provides counter evidence against Hans-Peter Jahn’s thesis that the order of sections in this piece is arbitrary. Allegro Sostenuto demonstrates Lachenmann’s inventive play with Gestalt principles that serve as tools for categorical transformation: reference pitches, for example, provide clear levels of listening orientation for sounds that metaphorically »extinguish« or »mask« each other. The conclusion argues that Lachenmann’s theoretical ideas and theories of cognitive categorization tend to converge and might be transformed into a theory of musical context that is crucial for an adequate understanding of Lachenmann’s works.