ABSTRACT
Music emerges as a crucial medium of communication in Friedrich Schleiermacher's attempt to envision human subjectivity as constantly unfolding in and reciprocally conditioned by nature and culture. Articulating his theory within the gradual rise of aesthetic autonomy, Schleiermacher simultaneously champions and yet disavows modernity's elevation of music as either the consummation or substitution of traditional religion. Although the subject longs for immediacy, as a holistic intermingling of human subjectivity and sensible form, Schleiermacher's narrative seeks to steer clear of injurious dimensions within competing philosophical standpoints. Musical form not only represents and communicates an immanent immediate transcendence but, finally, discloses a subjectivity whose underlying unity is transcendent to it and can be uncovered only within an absolute infinitude. For Schleiermacher, the designation of immediate arts simultaneously indicates an accompanying role, since musical expressions call for the interpretation of words, thereby ultimately seeking to accomplish a reconciliation of subjectivity and objectivity.
