Musical Function
Summary
Functional Objectivity
The combination of functionality and objectivity in early 20th-century art is also found in music. The equivalent even applies to the ambiguity mentioned earlier in this book, as the two concepts seem to indicate both the manner in which the musical object relates to its concrete purpose and some essential characteristics of the music itself. This realization leads back to one of the key elements that make the term musical functionalism relevant as a collective designation: “functional” intimates the fundamental ambiguity mentioned above, while at the same time referring to the characteristic features from which the adjective is derived. The connection between Sachlichkeit and Funktionalismus in architecture and pictorial art inspires Carl Dahlhaus to use musikalischer Funktionalismus, “as a label for the attempt to explain the coexistence of tendencies that in themselves pull in different directions.” According to Dahlhaus, musical functionalism may be regarded as the successor to musical Expressionism. He admits that functionalism's so-called aesthetization process, whereby the functionalist work seems to move from a realistic purposefulness to Kantian purposefulness without purpose (Zweckmäßigkeit ohne Zweck), may seem problematic. However, this aspect can be understood if one draws a parallel to formalist literary theory:
As a more thorough analysis will show, it [formalist theory] is particularly suited to capture the suggested aesthetization process of functionalism through precise concepts. For by breaking through the smooth surface of an art that has become conventional and by allowing the function a product is to fulfill to turn into form without disguise, functionalism makes us deliberately and drastically aware of the means with which it operates. Thus it converges with formalist theory insofar as it turns the inner mechanisms of the structure outwards. And as soon as the determined, clearly defined purposes of functionalism fade and move to the background, to the extent that what ultimately remains is but a vague impression of functionalism as such, this remainder, tending toward purposefulness withoutpurpose, achieves just what the formalist theory expects of artistic means: that it prevent recognition from becoming automatic and instead focus attention on the phenomenon and its structure.
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- Musical FunctionalismA Study on the Musical Thoughts of Arnold Schoenberg and Paul Hindemith, pp. 309 - 388Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2011