Musical Intonation: Aesthetic and Historical- Culturological Aspects

Abstract

The two previous lectures from the cycle “Musical Intonation” were devoted to the concept of musical intonation, its sound contours, semantics, genre-related and stylistic traits. The third and final lecture suggests concentrating our attention on the two sides of intonation – its aesthetic particularities and dramaturgical features, as well as its existence in the historical-culturological context. The aesthetical side of intonation is disclosed by means of applying
the apparatus of aesthetical categories (the dichotomy of beautiful vs. ugly, etc., the Aristotelian triad). The study of intonational dramaturgy finds the teaching about rhetorical disposition (the logical phases of unfolding the process) and the typology of the intonational-dramaturgic models to be productive. The theory of “intonational vocabulary” and “intonational crises” put forward by Boris Asafiev is conducive towards examination of the evolution of intonation in the mirror reflection of music history. The multiangle analysis of musical intonation as an intrinsically valuable microcosm combined with a large-scale scope of its historical-culturological existence presents a complex, yet perspective path of its knowledge.