This book offers an important new perspective on the Western tradition of musical aesthetics through an examination of Anicius Boethius and Immanuel Kant. Within the trajectory illuminated by these two thinkers, musical meaning is framed by and formed through the concept of beauty--a concept which is shaped by prior understandings about notions of the self and the world. Beauty opens up a space within which the boundary between the self and the world, subject and object, is negotiated and configured. In doing so, either the subject or the object is asserted to the detriment of the other, and to the physicality of music. This book asserts that the uniqueness of music's ontology emerges from its basis in sound and embodied practice. It suggests that musical beauty is generated by the mutuality of subject and object arising within the participation that music encourages, one which involves an ekstatic mode of attention on the part of the subject.
Ferdia Stone-Davis holds a doctorate from the University of Cambridge and a masters in performance from Trinity College of Music, London. She is an interdisciplinary academic working in the fields of music, theology, and philosophy. She is also an accomplished performer of both baroque and contemporary recorder repertoire.
"I recommend her book as an honest attempt to revive the topic of musical beauty, and to make both Boethius and Kant relevant to contemporary discussions of it."
Roger Scruton, British Journal of Aesthetics
"The book consists primarily of an impressive disentangling of the rationalist arguments of Boethius and Kant... Stone-Davis is compelling in her pursuit of re-enchantment within the world today, whereby the subject is rendered open to meaning derived from outside... Stone-Davis's proposal of a pre-reflective stance that can be differentiated from the cliched posturings of a "universal language's" solipsism or of the escapist highs of "beyond words" experience in aesthetic and religious expression alike is persuasive. Indeed, the negotiations she offers leave the reader longing for a musical beauty that may well contribute significantly to a healthy collaboration of music, philosophy, and theology."
Cheryl Pauls, Direction
"Stone-Davis' work is widely-researched, well-written, and intriguing in its engagement with two of the most influential figures in western aesthetic thought.... this book was overall a fascinating read."
Christina Larsen, Transpositions
"Musical Beauty is an interesting and original contribution to theological aesthetics."
--Patrick Sherry
Lancaster University, UK
"Here is a fresh and impressive new voice in the burgeoning conversation between music and theology. With considerable skill, Dr. Stone-Davis negotiates two of the most important figures in Western aesthetics. She emerges with striking proposals about the interrelation of beauty, physicality, and musical perception that have far-reaching consequences, affecting every aspect of the way we hear and listen to music in our own time."
--Jeremy Begbie
Thomas A. Langford Research Professor of Theology, Duke University
"The philosophy of music is finally starting to emerge from the straitjacket imposed by the analytical tradition. Ferdia Stone-Davis' Musical Beauty makes a vital contribution to the growing realization that music is a resource for philosophical thinking, rather than simply an object to be defined by philosophy."
--Andrew Bowie
Professor of Philosophy and German
University of London
"Beauty leads to more than just pleasure. This elegant new study argues that it can reveal epistemological insights as well, and that musical beauty in particular can help us better understand our relationship to the world around us. As Stone-Davis argues, musical beauty is the most abstract, problematic, and, for that very reason, the most revealing of all varieties of beauty in art. She brings both historical and contemporary perspectives to this wide-ranging account."
--Mark Evan Bonds
Boshamer Distinguished Professor of Music
University of North Carolina
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