Music as Art and Science
Cynthia Verba · Oxford University Press eBooks · 2016
Among the philosophes, Diderot was most directly concerned with the tensions inherent in traditional or neoclassical concepts and sought creative ways of incorporating change and even opposing ideas into his vision of the nature of the musical experience. Some of the most dramatic changes took place in his attitudes toward Rameau. While Diderot was one of the first among the philosophes to admire Rameau’s theories, this chapter traces Diderot’s growing skepticism about the relevance of general laws and abstractions and his espousal of the increasingly compelling concepts in the biological sciences as an alternative model to physics and mathematics. Not only did these changes affect his views on music as science, but they also had an impact on his musical aesthetics.