Music as art – art as being – being as music

a philosophical investigation into how music education can embrace a work of art based on Heidegger's thinking

Susanna Leijonhufvud

Cecilia Ferm Thorgersen

pp. 113-128

in: Frederik Pio, Øivind Varkøy (eds), Philosophy of music education challenged: Heideggerian inspirations, Berlin, Springer, 2015

Abstract

Martin Heidegger claims that a Work of Art contains an intrinsic power to open the space of Being. If a Work of Art can be a musical Work of Art, then music possesses the power to strike us and hence throw us into Being. The chapter communicates an investigation of the philosophical thinking in Heidegger's book The Origin of the Work of Art and what consequences that thinking could generate for music educational practice. The chapter presents an examination of Heidegger's thinking in relation to the new Swedish syllabus for the subject music. To structure the philosophical investigation two lines were drawn; one investigating Art as an opener to Being and the other line investigating the inescapable nexus of how the Artist makes the Work of Art simultaneously as the Work of Art makes the Artist. The results show that there is an overrepresentation of phenomena connected to what Heidegger refers to as Earth and an underrepresentation of what he refers to as World. According to Heidegger, the phenomenon of art will not reveal itself unless both Earth and World are present, connected to each other through strife; a state of tension where Being comes forth. Being, in the Heideggerian sense, has the power to change history and hence constitute history on both a collective and an individual level. Although not explicitly stated in the music syllabus, our results suggest that there are possibilities for art as Being to be expressed in the subject of music.

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin