Schuberts "Stora C-dursymfoni" : Kommunikationen med ett musikaliskt konstverk : en tillämping av Paul Ricoeurs tolkningsbegrepp

• The dissertation demonstrates how it is possible to apply the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics to a musical work-of-art and illustrates the approach with an interpretation of Schubert's Great C-major Symphony (D 944). Arguments are put forward to show that the meaning of a musical work-of-art can be naively grasped under favourable communicative conditions. With a concept of meaning related to action, it is possible to use Ricoeurs's concepts of discourse, text, mimesis and world to develop a hermeneutical model for the appropriation of a work. The purpose is to appropriate "the world of the work"; not an attempt to understand the composer's psychical life.The interpretation is made in a series of different stages that form a hermeneutical arc determined by the dialectic between explaining and understanding. It illustrates that Schubert's instrumental music has its root in the key polarity and bar-grouping of pre-classicism. The great format and surging movement in Beethoven's symphonies is transformed in the C-major Symphony to an expression of sublime nature. Analyses and descriptions of processes elucidate the architectonic balance and continuity of the work.The formal structure is transcended: The course of musical events is largely analogous with the narrative structure of the Bildungsroman. The content of the symphony has its origin in the Austrian Vormärz, when German humanism and reverence for Nature typical of the Goethezeit coalesce with traditional values of Habsburg culture. The successive alternation of passive devotional parts with active dynamic parts creates an almost unlimitedmusical space. This, together with the work's expression of Joy and Hope, reflects a free human mind viewing life as a gift recieved with piety, and as a mission for endless creativity.With its innovative configuration of musical time and its utopian character, the symphony presents a possible world; an ethical reality that the listener can apply to life.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Konst -- Musikvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Arts -- Musicology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Musicology

work-of-art

interpretation

text

discourse

mimesis

18-19th century musichistory

music aesthetics

music analysis

Schubert

instrumental music

the great C-major symphony

Vormärz

reception

Musikvetenskap

Music

Musikvetenskap

Musicology

Musikvetenskap

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

dok (subject category)