‘L’art ne progresse pas, mais il se transforme’: Reconsidering Teleology in Fétis’s Historiography

Scholars who research F.J. Fétis and his concept of tonalité have made a strong case for his dependence on the ideas of Kant, the early German Idealists, and Hegel. In doing so they emphasize the progress-oriented aspects of Fétis’s narrative, but consequently struggle to account for his tenet that “art does not progress, but transforms itself.” This paper explains these non-teleological aspects of Fétis’s perspective by turning to J. G. von Herder, an important forefather of anthropology. I demonstrate that Herder’s views on human history and progress foreshadow, and almost certainly influenced, those of Fétis, and I conclude by drawing upon one of Fétis’s late works to suggest that he may have attempted to reconcile these two threads of his narrative.

Apr 7, 2013

Music Theory Society of New York State annual conference