ABSTRACT

In English writing of the middle to later part of the nineteenth century there are effectively three means of interpreting the history of music, each of which is essentially analogic in critical substance. The first is through direct analogy with other arts. This is marked by the appropriation of art-criticism terminology and the paralleling of music aesthetics and writings on the visual and literary arts. The second is through theologized contextualization, in which music history is placed largely within the language of a Christological framework, though one often amplified by reference to the visual arts. The third category of definition can for convenience be called progressional and/or evolutionary historicism, mostly based hermeneutically on C. Darwin though frequently discursive in this regard. National music is ‘supposed to be the remains, or at least a close imitation, of the music of the ancients’. The music of the sublime is premised on the internal effectiveness, or perhaps affectiveness, of the object.