Opera and drama (1851): Wagner demonstrates how his compositional technique

expresses the feelings inherent in the content and form of poetry.

Hanslick asserts the autonomy of music writing "the beautiful is and remains
beatiful though it aroused no emotion whatever and though there be no one to look
at it doubt in other words although the beautiful exists for the gratification of
an observer it is independent of him"

Chapter 2: The representation of feelings is not the subject of music

Hanslick posits that since emotion is not present in the music objective but is
dependet on the listener's interpretation
subjective it cannot be the basis for an aesthetics of music
he does admit however that music may awaken feelings but maintains that it cannot
represent them

Chapter 3: the beautiful in music

Hanslick writes "the essence of music is sound i nmotion and suggest that the
proper basis for an aesthetics of music are sonically moving forms"
furthermore he suggest that these forms extend or grow from a freely conceived
musical theme
he writes "the initial force of a composition is the invention of some definite
theme and not the desire to describe a given emotion by musical means"
thanks to that primitive and mysterious power whose mode of action will forever ve
hidden from us. A theme, a melody flashes on the composer's mind, dot the origin of
this germ cannot be explained but must simply be accepted as a fact. When once it
has taken root in the composer's imagination it forthwith begins to grow and
develop the principle theme being the center around which the branches group
themselves in all conceivable ways though always unmistakably related to it the
beauty of an independent and simple theme appeals to our aesthetic feeling with
that directness which tolerates no explanation except, perhaps, that of its
inherent fitness and the harmony of parts to the exclusion of any alien factor it
pleases for its own sake like an arabesque, a column, or some spontaneous product
of nature a leaf or a flower

Chapter 4: Analysis of the subjective impression of music

he distinguishes between the composer musical work as an autonomous object and the
activity of the listener when discussing the initial compositional conception he
cites women as an example for why this process cannot be emotional but must be
intellectual. He writes "women by nature are highly emotional beings, have achieved
nothing as composers". He acknowledges that composers do possess a highly developed
emotional faculty but that in music it is not the productive factor. Furthermore he
asserts it is not the actual feeling of the composer that evokes feelings in a
listener but the purely musical features of a composition regarding the listener.
He includes a lengthy discussion of the science of hearing and its limitations. He
concludes those theorists who ground the beautiful in music on the feelings it
excites build upon a most uncertain foundation. Scientifically speaking since they
are necessarily quite ignorant of the nature of this connection and can therefore
at best only indulge in speculations and flights of fancy an interpretation of
music based on the feelings cannot be acceptable either to art or science

Chapter 5: an aesthetic hearing is distinguished from a pathological hearing of

music

He identifies two modes of listening: active, aesthetic; and passive, pathological.

Dot the active listener listens to music to discover the method of composition
while to the passive listener music is merely sound. He writes "the most important
factor in the mental process which accompanies the act of listening to music and
which converts it into a source of pleasure is frequently overlooked". We here
refer to the intellectual satisfaction which the listener derives from continually
following and anticipating the composer's intentions now to see his expectations
fullfilled and now to find himself agreeably mistaken. It is a matter of course
that this intellectual flux an reflux, this perpetual giving and receiving takes
place unconsciously and with a rapidity of lightning flashes only that music can
yield truly aesthetic enjoyment which prompts and rewards the act of thus closely
fllowing the composer's thoughts and which with perfect justice may be called a
pondering of the imagination

Chapter 6: music in its relation to nature

Hanslick suggest melody is the initial force, the lifeblood, the primitive cell of
the musical organism with which the drift and development of the composition are
closely bound up both melody and harmony are achievement of man that rhythm,
however and in particular duple meter he believes is found in nature. It is the
only musical element which nature possesses, the first we are conscious of and that
with which the mind of the infant and the savage becomes soonest familiar. He
continues to posit that misc is a product of the mind, having no precursor in
nature even the music of a shepherd is not natural. He claims since it was invented
i nthe shepherd's mind and the imitations of cuckoos and symphonies, for example,
should not be considered music since its function is not musical but poetic.
i.e: to point to something outside of the music

Chapter 7: form and substance subject as applied to music

Hanslick concludes that the idea in music can only be purely musical. Music
consists of successions and forms of sound and this alone constitute the subject
and the value of the piece of music is determined by the relation between the idea,
for example the theme, and the whole of the work. He writes "we cannot acquaint
anybody with the subject of a theme except by playing it". Dot the subject of a
composition can therefore not be understood as an object derived from a external
source but is something intrinsically musical. In other words, as the concrete
group of sounds in a piece of music. Now as a composition must comply with the
formal laws of beauty, it cannot run on arbitrarily and at random but must develop
gradually with intelligible and organic definiteness as buds develop into rich
blossoms.