ABSTRACT
This introduction chapter presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the potent relationships between ethics and aesthetics in Paul Bekker's work, while at the same time clarifies underexplored aspects of the Weimar context. The conceptual framework presented is focused around a selection of interconnected themes that will resurface in some shape or form in each chapter. An overarching theme is freedom. The book discusses elsewhere how freedom can be regarded a very important, if not the most important ethical issue for many Weimar thinkers, and how it was an integral part of both musical and political developments. In Bekker's early twentieth-century context and in its potent link to German Idealism as well as current scholarly strands, the theme of freedom can be seen to encompass three interconnected sub-themes that warrant brief clarification here: modernism, creativity, and ethics.
