This thesis evaluates Lydia Goehr’s claim that the musical work-concept did not regulate musical practice before the watershed date of 1800. In the first chapter, I evaluate Goehr’s arguments for this claim from historical musicology. I appeal both to recent secondary research sources in musicology, and to philosophical analysis.
The second and third chapters focus on philosophical aspects of Goehr’s watershed claim. In the second chapter, I focus on understanding Goehr’s claim that a regulative shift occurred during the watershed date—that is, a change in the norms of musical practice. I argue that this shift is properly understood as a shift in unconscious, rather than conscious, concepts about musical practice. In the third chapter, I consider the ontological implications of Goehr’s view; Goehr adopts a view according to which musical works do not exist. I show that the argument for this view is unsound.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:MWU.1993/4107 |
| Date | 08 September 2010 |
| Creators | Dyck, John |
| Contributors | Matheson, Carl (Philosophy), Tillman, Chris (Philosophy) Burleson, Richard (Music) |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
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