Action and Agency

This chapter begins by stating the ‘problem’ of absolute music: what it is in or about absolute music that gives what appears, at least, to be the same kind of deep satisfaction that the other arts, the arts with content, give. The problem thus being stated, the unenlightened one would then be ready to hear that a proposed solution to the problem of absolute music, popular both in philosophical and music-theoretical circles, is to deny that absolute music does indeed want for literary content. But here the unenlightened one becomes puzzled. So how can the appeal of absolute music be explained...

This chapter begins by stating the ‘problem’ of absolute music: what it is in or about absolute music that gives what appears, at least, to be the same kind of deep satisfaction that the other arts, the arts with content, give. The problem thus being stated, the unenlightened one would then be ready to hear that a proposed solution to the problem of absolute music, popular both in philosophical and music-theoretical circles, is to deny that absolute music does indeed want for literary content. But here the unenlightened one becomes puzzled. So how can the appeal of absolute music be explained by appeal to its narrative content? If it has narrative content, then it isn't absolute music? The simplicity of this disguises an insight worth pursuing, which the chapter does.