Intersections of Music Theory, Philosophy, and Physics in Fin-de-siècle Vienna

Abstract

This thesis is an interdisciplinary study to compare the simultaneous “revolutions” in music theory and physics during the early decades of 20th-century Vienna.

In my first case study, I situate music theorist Heinrich Schenker alongside physicist and philosopher of science Ernst Mach. Motivated by a postcard correspondence between them, I investigate their mutual involvement with the Philosophical Society of Vienna. Additionally, I read two essays—Schenker’s “The Spirit of Musical Technique” and Mach’s “On the Principle of Comparison in Physics”—and find shared emphases on communication and language, memory and psychology, the concept of “Spirit,” and descriptions and formalism.

In my second case study, I investigate the parallel emergence of atonality in music and quantum theory in physics. I identify Kant’s concepts of Anschauung [Intuition] and Anschaulichkeit [Visualizability or Intelligibility] in Schoenberg’s twelve-tone composition method and Schrödinger’s wave mechanics. Additionally, I emphasize the integral role of language in these developments.