The Potential and the Actual: Process Philosophy and Arnold Schoenberg's Violin Concerto, Op. 36*
Marianne Richert Pfau · 2016
The present paper constitutes a first attempt at approaching twelve-tone music from the perspective of philosophy established by, among others, Alfred North Whitehead during the years roughly concurrent with the composition of Schoenberg's Violin Concerto (1935-1936).1 The issues I would like to reflect upon are two-fold: what is the of the particular row of the Violin Concerto, and what is involved in the process from this potential to the actuality of the piece. First, a note on terminology: I am borrowing the concepts of potential, process, and the actual from Whitehead's philosophy of process. I propose that by slightly modifying four of the ten basic categories central to his thought we can generate a model for twelve-tone music that has the advantage of addressing music both as an aesthetic object and as perceived reality. It will open up a hitherto unexplored way of apprehending the complex relationship between the underlying grammar of Schoenberg's twelve-tone style, the actual musical dynamic, and aspects of perception. The four categories to be utilized in this approach - categories all philosophers address in one way or another - include Process, Relation, Creativity, and Novelty.2 By way of introduction, it is important to consider that Whitehead thinks of objects not as fixed material substances - static, inert, or passive entities - but rather comprehends objects as dynamic events perceived as enduring or persisting through time. This conception of objects seems readily applicable to music - some might say better than to the kinds of objects Whitehead himself had in mind3 - due to the fact that