Customer Reviews

The Aesthetics of Music

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That some readers (and reviewers) will object to Scruton's cultural critique is to be expected; after all, he doesn't shrink from the cultural, political, idealogical and moral implications of his carefully-argued aesthetic. Though you don't have to agree, you'll find his arguments engrossing and his knowledge of music formidable. The journey through his encyclopedic knowledge alone is worth the read. The basic idea that music powerfully both reflects and influences the soul and thus society is certainly not new (it's part of ancient wisdom). Scruton's contribution is to look at the processes, reasons and effects in the light of modern philosophy. Mercifully, he writes in an accessible prose. Though not essential to following his argument, a basic knowledge of music theory and ability to parse musical notation will add considerably to the enjoyment of this important book.

Having read other Scruton titles I was initially rather discouraged when I realised that this was going to be a much tougher job of work than I had been looking for. I was hoping for a gentle introduction to aesthetics, a general survey or bluffer's guide, but instead I found it to be an earnest work of philosophy, including carefully developed arguments and theories of his own, in a field that would seem to have few, if any final answers. What I had also not anticipated was that Scruton's musical erudition would be on a par with his philosophical acuity, as the numerous examples and the penetrating analyses that accompany them, which he uses to illustrate his arguments attest. To be honest, I think I understood about 60% of the book, but have had my ears opened to new levels of musical understanding that have made the struggle eminently worthwhile. I have every intention of reading this book again one day, but want first to brush up on a bit more harmonic theory before I do, in order to get even more out of it the next time around. Mercifully, each chapter tends to examine a different aspect of the musical puzzle, so even when one chapter left me puzzled or confused, I could retain some hope of maybe better understanding the next. In fact, this is a rare example of a book that gets (a little bit) easier as it progresses.

Aside from pointing the way to a level of aesthetic apprehension I had not even glimpsed before, there are several aspects of music which Scruton has caused me to reconsider, there being two broad areas I can articulate with relative ease. Firstly, at the basic metaphysical level, my respect for the ineffability of our experience of music has been refreshed. That our cognitive faculties endow us with the capacity to find such depths of meaning and communicative intent in patterns of sound turns out to be one of those human intangibles that, like language or consciousness, becomes more mysterious the more closely we examine it.

Secondly, in more 'practical' aesthetic terms, I have been obliged to radically reappraise my concepts regarding tonality and atonality. I have a renewed understanding of what they are, what they each bring to the table, and what is lacking in the latter that must be made up for in 'less musical' ways, like extreme dynamics or timbre, if it is to be able to project form and structure. I had always held what I see now as a naive view, that tonality was there to be transcended. That one could train oneself through `sufficient' listening to 'comprehend' ever more extreme departures from the world of tonality. I'm still considering Scruton's arguments, but their implication is that atonality can only ever really be a style or fashion, and that where it works best, or even at all, it has to rely on ways of hearing that were initially acquired by our common experiences of tonality. This has had a direct impact on my listening in that I have a new respect and admiration for composers of the late romantic era, particularly Brahms and Tchaikovsky, that I have always ignored until now, in favour of more modernistic composers. It has also helped me to put my finger on the growing suspicion that, while I have always had a bit more of a taste for dissonance than is typical, I only really enjoy dissonance when it is rooted, even if to a minimal degree, in some kind of tonality. I have accepted at last that pure atonality does nothing for me. It turns out I'm not quite as modern as I thought, but then I'm OK with that.

This is a demanding but profoundly rewarding book if you have the musical background required to engage with it.

No one seriously interested in Music will regret reading this. Why does music move us? Scruton helps us to an even stronger appreciation and enjoyment of Music. (Also look out for his new book on Foxhunting.)

I agree with the other negative review of this book. Scruton's scholarship here is so tilted towards classical music and against popular music (not to mention ignorant of non-Western musics in general) that in my opinion, the book should not be considered a "philosophy" of music at all. It is, rather, an opinionated study concerned with the aesthetics of only one, geographically limited tradition (Western classical music). If he called the book "The Aesthetics of Western Classical Music" that would be fine, but unfortunately, Scruton thinks the questions and answers that emerge from his study of this tradition can be extended to explain all the musics of the world. The worst aspect of this book by far is Scruton's treatment of popular music: he not only misunderstands it, but he is condescending, dismissive, and quite frankly, insulting and ill-informed. Basically, anyone with ANY experience outside classical music - even anyone who ever enjoyed a pop tune, let alone played any genre of popular music - will find much in this volume that is glaringly incorrect, even childish, and insulting (the charges of racism against popular musicians, e.g. black performers, presented by the other reviewer here should be taken seriously). This is a book that is appreciated by philosophers who are not musicologists, and by conservative musicologists who have a training only in Western classical music. However, I can tell you that many scholars working outside the Western classical tradition thoroughly dislike this book, and think it is a shame it is so esteemed within the philosophy of music. For the philosophy of music to truly matter to musicologists, the field must move beyond the narrow, outdated focus that Scruton presents here, to a perspective that is more "global" in nature and more aware of the world's diversity of musical perspectives and practices.

Scruton is weakest when attempting to dismiss huge swathes of contemporary music by judging it according to the very different norms of very different music, sealed off from the difficulties of encountering pluralistic societies, of the past. It's hard not to conclude that Scruton is simply not very perceptive about music generally if he can get popular music so very wrong, or worse, is racist in his dismissal of ways of being musical that derive from non-white cultures.

Scruton comes off as something of a learned amateur; I have no idea if music is his "field," but if it is, he hasn't been exposed to an idea that emerged since the '50s. Virtually all of the ideas in this longish book have been stated before, by people with greater knowledge and experience than he and with more excuses for being wrong. I mean, Adorno could be forgiven his false conclusions (somewhat) because of when he lived and the environment in which he was raised. Scruton, living today, has none of these excuses for his dated arguments and almost primitive knowledge of music outside of Western Classical. The best aspects of this book are the first few chapters, which are basically a regurgitation of the usual music philosophy from a Western Art Music bent. You can get this information elsewhere, but Scruton does do a decent job of summarizing it in a readable, well-organized fashion. The book falls apart after that, though, and for a good laugh check out the chapter in which Scruton (weakly) takes swipes at jazz and rock, revealing his virtual ignorance of the nuances of either style.