British Journal of Aesthetics, Vol. 43, No.
2, April 2003
BOOK REVIEWS
Introduction to a Philosophy of Music. By PETER KIVY.
Clarendon Press. 2002. pp. xii + 283. £45.00.
PETER Kivy is the most influential and prolific
author on the philosophy of music within the
analytical tradition. Since his Corded Shell (1980),
which triggered an enormous interest in musical
aesthetics, he has published some seven more
volumes. Hence he would seem to be the ideal
person to write an introduction to the philosophy
of music. But because we know Kivy as a fervent
proponent of musical formalism, there is also
room for doubt: can someone who completely
identifies himself with one specific position, write
an introduction to the field in which all positions
are presented? Kivy has easily solved this problem
by choosing, as he indicates himself, not to write
an ‘introduction to the philosophy of music’ but
rather a personal ‘introduction to a philosophy of
music’ (p. vii). That is, rather than giving a survey
of the entire field, Kivy’s book presents the reader
with the essentials of his own philosophy as it has
crystallized over the past decades. The intention is
that, by watching the author at work, the reader
will acquaint himself with the practice of phil-
osophy.
After chapter 1, in which he tries to convey to
the novice an initial understanding of what kind
of activity philosophy is, Kivy starts his discussion
of music with the part the emotions play in it. He
introduces the issue by sketching the views of past
writers, such as Plato, members of the Florentine
Camerata, Schopenhauer, Hanslick, and Langer.
Although Kivy says he is fond of history, he is not
really interested in precisely reconstructing the
philosophies of his forerunners. What he does
instead, here but also in later historical excur-
sions, is to adapt theories on the issues he raises
to his own terminology. In this way they serve to
prepare Kivy’s own position, which he then
© British Society of Aesthetics 2003
explains in chapter 3. Music is not expressive of
sadness or joy by having a disposition to arouse
such an emotion in us. Rather expressiveness is a
perceived property of the music itself. The ‘con-
tour’ of music, its sonic ‘shape’, bears a structural
analogy to the heard and seen manifestations of
human emotive expression. Emotion is heard in
the music because of our inborn inclination to
animate the forms we perceive. Surprisingly, Kivy
ends his lucid account with the admission that his
contour theory faces ‘numerous difficulties’ and
that it therefore begins to look ‘pretty shaky’
(pp. 46–47).
A second core piece of Kivy’s philosophy is
formalism. After having examined the views of
Kant, Hanslick, and Gurney (chapter 4), Kivy
formulates his own version: absolute music
(instrumental music without text or dramatic
setting) is pure sound structure that we take an
interest in only for its sensuous properties and its
form; it does not possess semantic or repres-
entational content. What we enjoy when listening
to music is the unfolding of the non-fictional
musical events, which are connected by a musical
‘logic’ or ‘sense’. While attending to classical
music, we play two types of game: a ‘hypothesis
game’ and a ‘hide and seek’ game. In the former,
we form hypotheses about how the music will
continue. The experience is satisfying if the music
strikes a happy balance between the expected and
the unexpected. In the latter game we seek out
occurrences of the themes in the complicated
structure of the music. The musical work, Kivy
continues, is an ‘intentional object’, an object
perceived under a certain description. Knowledge
of music-theoretical terms is important because it
provides us with tools for distinguishing features
in the musical object that are closed to people
without such tools.
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In chapter 6 Kivy explains his definitive version
of formalism: ‘enhanced formalism’. He points
out that his theory of expressiveness is compatible
with ‘formalism’. Emotive properties like sadness
are heard properties of the music. That is, they
have no semantic or representational function but
are just properties of the musical structure as
such. Emotive properties function in absolute
music in various ways: they are inherently inter-
esting properties, pleasurable to experience; they
help constitute the sonic pattern as a pattern of
repetitions and contrasts; they give musical
‘warmth’ to the musical structure. Besides being
relevant to the ‘surface’ of musical form, they
function on the level of musical syntax and deeper
structure as well. Contrasts between emotive
tones, like that between sombreness and bright-
ness, enhance the syntax of tension and resolution.
Subsequently, in chapter 7, Kivy sets forth his
view on how music can move us emotionally.
First, he expounds the problems of the theory that
music moves us by arousing in us the emotions it
is expressive of. Two versions of this theory
are examined: Levinson’s view that we hear the
emotion in the music as the utterance of a
fictional character, with whom we sympathize;
and Radford’s and Davies’s view that cheerful
music has a tendency to make us cheerful, sad
music the tendency to make us sad, and so on. A
forceful general objection Kivy makes against
arousal theories of expressiveness is that these
cannot explain why we take pleasure in pleasure
in listening to music expressive of sad emotions.
Why listen to music that makes us sad? In his own
account of how music moves us, Kivy follows
the most common theory of what emotions
involve—an object, a belief, and a feeling com-
ponent. The object of musical emotion is the
music itself, the belief is that the music one listens
to is beautiful (magnificent, and so on), and the
feeling is the feeling of excitement, exhilaration,
or enthusiasm the beauty of the music arouses. In
short, we are moved by music because of the
beauty we find in it.
Kivy concludes his defence of formalism by
critically examining the views of the ‘foes of
formalism’, of writers who defend a view of
music either as a narrative or as the embodiment
of philosophical wisdom (chapter 8). Kivy denies
that music has the resources, notably syntax
and semantics, that allow it to perform such
functions. He also argues that narrative inter-
pretations are incompatible with the fact that
music is full of literal repetition. And even if such
narratives could be established, it remains the case
that music can be, and in fact is, appreciated by
many people who place no narrative or repres-
entational content on it at all.
Only in chapter 9 does Kivy leave the domain
of instrumental music and turn to music with
words. Ignoring song and other forms of non-
dramatic vocal music, he focuses completely on
the ‘problem of opera’. This is the problem of
making some kind of accommodation between
pure musical form with its inevitable repetitions,
and fictional drama with its non-repetitious, one-
directional character. It is a problem that cannot
be definitively solved. In what is one of the best-
written parts of the book, Kivy shows how
the best composers of the genre (Monteverdi,
Handel, Mozart, Wagner) have reached different
satisfying but unstable solutions.
In chapter 10 Kivy goes into the concept of
musical representation. He makes a distinction
between pictorial representation and structural
representation. Both types, he argues, are ‘aided’:
they cannot be perceived without the help of a
sung text or a programme underlying the music.
Music as a pure sound structure, he emphasizes
again, cannot tell a story.
The themes of chapters 11 and 12, the musical
work and musical performance, are less devel-
oped than the other topics discussed in this book.
After he has explained why the question ‘What is
a musical work?’ is a problematic one, Kivy heads
straight for the theory he favours: Platonism. This
is the view that musical works, like numbers,
have an objective and timeless existence. Musical
performance Kivy defines as compliance with the
score. Rather than defining score compliance in
its turn, Kivy tries to provide a general under-
standing by giving a couple of concrete examples.
He then goes into the question how a per-
formance goes beyond the condition of score
compliance. Performing classical music is, in his
view, most akin to arranging music. His discus-
sion of the artistry of the performer ends in an
attack on the philosophy of authentic performance.
 BOOK REVIEWS
Kivy concludes his book with one of his
favourite themes—the liberating power of music.
Schopenhauer was the first great philosopher to
discuss this value but, according to Kivy, his
account is flawed on two points: that music shares
this power with the other arts and that music
owes its liberating power to its representing the
metaphysical will. For Kivy, it is just because it
represents nothing at all that absolute music can
be liberating. Unlike the other arts, which thrive
on ‘real-world contents’, absolute music creates a
world of its own in which we can forget our
problems.
Kivy has written a very readable and elegantly
composed philosophy of music, which requires
no prior knowledge of musicological termin-
ology. The treasures of the book are the keen
analyses of the issues, the sophisticated argu-
mentations, and the wealth of relevant arguments.
Nevertheless, there are also minus points. First,
because the philosophy is restricted to the interest
of the author, many important issues do not
feature in it; for instance, the nature of musical
sound and its perception, music as a temporal
process, vocal music beyond opera, and the
relationship between music and society. The
scope of the book is also restricted in that it
focuses on classical music of the period 1700–
1900 and in that it pays no attention whatsoever
to philosophers outside the analytical traditions
(for example, Adorno). Second, although Kivy
expresses his intention to give a fair reading of
rival positions, these often do not really come to
life. Quotations are lacking in the book, so that
we are completely left to the author’s inter-
pretations of what other philosophers have had
to say. And while at some points Kivy deals
extensively with diverging views, at other points,
particularly in the latter part of the book, he
pushes through his own view without paying very
much consideration to alternatives.
The question remains whether reading an
introduction to musical aesthetics of the kind
Kivy has written is the ideal way of being
introduced to the field. I doubt this. The reason
why introductions to philosophy usually provide
a survey of the field as neutral as possible is that
the newcomer needs to be acquainted with a
wide range of positions, arguments, and counter-
189
arguments, before she can start to determine
her own position. Kivy apparently overrates the
capacity of the average newcomer to come up
with viable alternatives for his strongly argued
philosophy. Rather than stimulating the free
development of the student’s intuitions, Kivy’s
philosophy of music is likely to steer her thinking
into specific directions. Therefore, my conclusion
is that Kivy’s introduction is most suitable for
those who already have received a more neutral
introduction into (musical) aesthetics. Kivy’s
book is best read as a synthesis of the philosophy
he has developed in his previous books and
articles. It is a most valuable book for those who
want to confront their views of music with one of
the best-argued positions in musical aesthetics.
CONSTANTIJN KOOPMAN
University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
The Invention of Art. A Cultural History. By LARRY
SHINER. The University of Chicago Press. 2001.
pp. xix + 362. £22.50.
THE INVENTION of Art is intended to answer the
question: what is the origin of our notion of ‘art’?
Specifically, how did we arrive at what the author,
Larry Shiner, calls ‘the modern fine art system’
and its component ideas, practices, and institu-
tions? Answering this question would be valuable
in itself, but Shiner thinks that it has particular
urgency today, given our confusion over ‘what art
is and what its role ought to be’. Shiner’s answer
is compelling, nuanced, and carefully argued.
This is no small feat, in light of the complexity of
the question and the vast and disparate body of
material on which any answer must draw. The
book’s argument, aimed at the general reader, is
clearly presented and free of postmodern jargon
and ideological rigidity. Although many of its
conclusions will be familiar to historians and
philosophers of art, the breadth of its research and
its multifaceted approach will make it valuable to
the specialist.
Professor Shiner argues that our modern
system of fine art is an invention of the eighteenth
century, which, as a cultural era, he takes to
extend from about 1680 to 1830. The use of the