Against Musical Ontology

Abstract

Abstract A somewhat excitable affair, this essay recommends that efforts by philosophers with an interest in ontology to specify the identity conditions of musical works should be deferred indefinitely, preferably until the end of time. More specifically, it argues that attempts to determine in advance which features a performance of a work must (or must not) possess if it is to count as a performance of that work are doomed. This is not because such attempts threaten to limit the creative freedom of the performer, although some may object to that, but because they inevitably misrepresent what the exemplary exercise of that freedom achieves. In particular, such attempts misrepresent the notion of a performance’s being ‘faithful’ to the work performed, and so misrepresent (at least some of) the reasons we may have to value one performance over another, or, as performers, to play a work in this way rather than that.

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