Introduction

“I often think that the highest I wish to achieve would be to compose a melody”.1 This is a striking and surprising remark coming from Ludwig Wittgenstein, the iconic philosopher of the twentieth century. Surprising, for it is not the sort of thing we expect from someone who spent his life doing philosophy and in the process re-oriented Western philosophy’s self-conception and direction. Striking, for it suggests a closer connection between music and philosophy than philosophers in the analytic tradition would be comfortable with or allow. Perhaps this enigmatic remark is a suitable start to a book about Wittgenstein and music. In this book I paint a portrait of Wittgenstein as a musical philosopher. Although he regarded music an important part of his life and relevant to his philosophical activity, his many remarks on music are scattered throughout the Nachlass and thus little known, largely unexplored, and, in general, not given the significance they deserve in Wittgenstein-studies. Certainly, what Wittgenstein says about music and composers in his diaries and notebooks are in themselves interesting, but admitting this still allows for their dismissal as a curiosity. However, the remarks suggest a many-sided Wittgenstein who is very different from conventional portraits that narrowly depict him as exclusively interested in technical questions about language and logic, meaning and method. Not only do they express his love of music and sketch its role in his life, they show a keen engagement with musical and aesthetic issues that bear the characteristic stamp of his later philosophy and motivate his philosophical practice. Thus they deserve to be taken seriously and to be related to his philosophical perspective. There is a tension between the conventional reception of

1 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Public and Private Occasions, eds and trs James Klagge and Alfred Nordmann, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefied, 2003, 17. 14 Wittgenstein as Philosopher Tone-Poet

Wittgenstein’s remarks on arts and aesthetics on the one hand, and the way he viewed his own work in relation to arts and aesthetics on the other. The conventional view is that arts and aesthetics are on the periphery of his concerns, while he says that he is not interested [as a “modern” philosopher is expected to be] in scientific questions but only aesthetic and conceptual questions are at the center of his interest. I elaborate and provide textual support for the view that for him the arts, especially music, but also aesthetics, were a focal concern both biographically and philosophically. Wittgenstein is conventionally read as providing a powerful critique of the whole project of traditional philosophy, recommending instead a family resemblance approach to philosophical reflection on aesthetic concepts. On this reading, Wittgenstein’s lectures and remarks on aesthetics fall into place as mere applications of the big themes of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and the Philosophical Investigations with their lessons about meaning, mind and method. Thus we have the themes of anti-essentialism, anti-reductionism, and anti-scientism applied to fundamental questions about the nature of art and beauty, of aesthetic experience and aesthetic appreciation. It is almost as if Wittgenstein, having arrived at his purely philosophical methods independently of the arts and aesthetics, was curious about how they might work when applied to the arts and questions of aesthetics. Viewed this way, it is natural to say that Wittgenstein’s concerns with the arts and aesthetics did not lie at the centre of his interest, but rather at its margins, since for him the core of philosophy had to do with questions of language and understanding. While a wealth of good work was done under the umbrella of this perspective, there are remarks throughout the Nachlass that suggest a deeper and more fruitful way of approaching Wittgenstein’s relation to the arts and aesthetics. In my reckoning Wittgenstein was a philosopher whom we can think through profitably when reflecting on musical/philosophical issues. In reading Wittgenstein’s remarks on music I highlight and remain faithful to biographical and historical materials, to cultural context and official philosophical texts. Since Wittgenstein’s writing style has a beauty and crisp elegance all its own, it does not easily lend itself to paraphrase. Scholars who indulge in “executive summaries” cut themselves off from the rich rewards of a close reading that opens up Wittgenstein’s texts to questions and the discernment of various voices.