Talk:Absolute music

Why is the Spiritualist debate empty?
In this article, there is nothing under the section the Spiritualist debate? Either this should be deleted or revised. --Anonymous 20:52, 09 May 2010 (PST) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.119.249.138 (talk)

Very rough article
This entire article is pretty confusing, but the sections "The Formalist debate" and "Opposition to instrumental music" are--what the hell? I am by no means a Nietzsche scholar, but the Nietzsche quote in the section on instrumental music is utterly misleading. Nietzsche himself wrote instrumental music, and he speaks in The Birth of Tragedy of how music cannot be made to follow the meaning of ideas; music qua music is instrumental, even if it happens to include sung words. I'm removing the Nietzsche quote. Ratiuglink (talk) 21:45, 22 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I would add to this that there are no citations under the heading "Oppositions to Absolute Music," and the quotations seem suspect. I removed the Hegel references because they seemed downright wrong and made no reference to any source. I don't know what it means to talk about art having -- or lacking -- a "right to exist," but it certainly has nothing to do with anything Hegel ever said. I left the references to Wagner, but somebody who knows a bit really ought to look into them. --Brijohn6882 (talk) 23:36, 19 February 2013 (UTC)

Moved from Abstract Music to Absolute Music
I hope everyone is happy with this, more classical pages were linking to absolute music anyway. --Chinasaur 08:33, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * What is the difference between the two terms. Why is absolute preferable? It seems to me less clear, it seems like the expression "she's really pregnant". Hyacinth 04:46, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

There's good empirical evidence that "absolute" is preferable: the majority of music articles were linking to "absolute music" rather than "abstract music" even though "absolute" used to be the redirect.

To my mind, however, the main difference between the words is that "absolute music" is a definite, well-understood term in classical music, whereas "abstract music" could really have many other connotations outside of any established terminology. You could imagine saying "that music is really abstract" about a lot of different genres of music, whereas "that is a piece of absolute music" has a more specific meaning. An analogy would be calling free verse "unstructured verse" or the like; it technically describes the form well, but it allows other unintended meanings and there happens to be a more specific and recognizable term available.

In the context of new musicology and those sorts of PoMo arguments, "abstract music" seems to be used more, perhaps even to mean something slightly different. If that's the case, maybe that stuff could be moved to abstract music, but most of this article is focusing on the different between absolute and program music, for which "absolute" is surely more appropriate.

Not sure what you mean with the pregnancy thing. --Chinasaur 07:31, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * What does "absolute music" mean? What does "abstract music" mean? Hyacinth 07:35, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Absolute music is a kind of music, the kind without meaning. Music from many genres is considered to be absolute music. Abstract music is a specific genre of music based on its musical style where the sounds do no represent anything real. All abstract music is absolute music. In electronica similar genres to abstract include experimental, drone, noise, chill, ambient and acoustic. - Shiftchange (talk) 04:37, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

From VfD:
From Cleanup: Abstract music - gobbledygook
 * This listing was moved from Cleanup by SimonP, but he currently has no opinion on whether it should be deleted.
 * delete. Lefty 15:08, 2004 Apr 24 (UTC)
 * Keep: appears to be a real, though minor, musical niche. I suspect that "abstract music" has been around for a long time, although I don't know enough about musical history to be sure. Wile E. Heresiarch 16:06, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * (No vote) ????? I thought "abstract music" meant anything that wasn't program music, the latter being stuff like The Sorceror's Apprentice or Symphonie Fantastique or Pacific 231 or Scheherazade or "An Alpine Symphony" or "Grand Canyon Suite" in which the music is deliberately descriptive of a story line and you are supposed to be relating the sound you hear to marching broomsticks, or lustful longing, or steam locomotives, or Sinbad's ship on the sea, or rainstorms, or sunrises-mule braying-storm-and-sunset... sorry, got a little carried away there. Anyway isn't 99.5% of all classical music abstract? Dpbsmith 17:38, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC) Oooh, there's a List of Program Music and I just named four pieces that aren't on it, yet... gotta go, there's work to do! Dpbsmith 17:41, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * Keep. Markalexander100 16:49, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep, perfectly valid concept that is meaningful to composers, performers, theorists and listeners. I for one think it should be at absolute music (which is currently a redirect to abstract music), but this one should be kept, either as an article or as a redirect to absolute music. Del arte 18:41, 25 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep --Samuel J. Howard 09:08, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
 * Keep. Robert Happelberg 20:16, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)

what is some historical/cultural characteristics of absolute music?

Removed
I removed the following sentence:
 * "It is to be experienced purely as music."

As, though I'm not sure what "purely as music" means, it appears that any other form of enjoyment or consideration is unacceptable. Hyacinth 05:00, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

aha i caught you! hi! im laurence adriel from pauline vanier —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.254.98.24 (talk) 00:51, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Opening clause
Could someone explain in plain English what this means, please:
 * "Absolute music (sometimes abstract music) is a concept in music that describes music as an art form separated from formalisms or other considerations"

I'm a music graduate, and so far as I can understand this, it appears to be nonsense: surely formalism is quite often a characteristic of "absolute music". In any case, if that sentence is tripping me up, I don't think it's a very good opening to a lede which should be a straight-forward introduction to someone looking for explanation/definition. Unless someone can make sense of this, I may come back and try to clarify it myself. Alfietucker (talk) 04:51, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

"Formalisms" could be better read as "formalities". Either way it's misleading, as the point is absolute music about about the form and nothing else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.208.126.237 (talk) 01:06, 4 December 2018 (UTC)

Additional citations
Why and where does this article need additional citations for verification? What references does it need and how should they be added? Hyacinth (talk) 00:39, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

The decision to ignore Mark Evan Bonds's book _Absolute Music: The History of an Idea_ is a major deficiency. This is by common consensus the most important contribution to the topic since Dahlhaus--and far more lucid than the scattershot work of Chua. A minor quibble: Wittgenstein's _Culture and Value_ is in _no_ sense a "diary," however much it might so seem to a naive reader. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.95.54.104 (talk) 17:55, 1 April 2022 (UTC)