The Aesthetic Legacy of Eduard Hanslick: Close Readings and Critical Perspectives

This book addresses the complex conceptual, historical, and philosophical questions posed by Eduard Hanslick’s influential aesthetic treatise, On the Musically Beautiful (1854). The contributions reveal the philosophical foundations and subtleties of his aesthetic approach.

The collection features original essays written by leading scholars in philosophical aesthetics and musicology. It covers many of Hanslick’s overarching themes, such as the relationship between beauty and form, between music and emotion, and the role of imagination and performance in music, which have recently gained prominence in Hanslick scholarship. The chapters, divided into five thematic sections, will provide a better scholarly foundation for a deeper understanding of On the Musically Beautiful and its arguments.

In bringing together the various approaches and accounts of the different textual, historical, conceptual, and philosophical challenges posed by Hanslick’s aesthetics, The Aesthetic Legacy of Eduard Hanslick will appeal to philosophers of music, historians of aesthetics, musicologists specializing in 19th-century studies, and music theorists working on aesthetic issues.

Lee Rothfarb taught at the University of Michigan, Tulane, Harvard, and UC Santa Barbara. He originated Music Theory Online and was voted a Lifetime Member of the SMT. Publications include two monographs (Ernst Kurth, August Halm), translations from Kurth’s works, and a co-translation of Eduard Hanslick’s Vom Musikalisch-Schönen.

Alexander Wilfing is principal investigator of the project ＂Eduard Hanslick’s Criticism Between Aesthetics, Journalism, and Scholarship＂ at the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage in Vienna. Publications on Hanslick include his monograph Re-Reading Hanslick’s Aesthetics (2019) and the edited volume Hanslick im Kontext / Hanslick in Context (2020).

Christoph Landerer is an independent scholar based in Salzburg. He was principal investigator of several projects exploring On the Musically Beautiful. Publications include his monograph Eduard Hanslick und Bernard Bolzano (2004), and the edited volumes Eduard Hanslick zum Gedenken (2010) and Hanslick im Kontext / Hanslick in Context (2020).