Abstract: The Category of Musical Thinking in Jozef Kresánek’s Work The development of Slovak musicologist Jozef Kresánek as a scientist headed towards the definition of the notion ‘musical thinking’ as a complex in which several disciplines of both systematic and historical musicology are combined. The impulses from Czech inter-war art science and aesthetics as well as basic works from German musicology served as a starting point for his own research. Starting with ethnomusicology he turned to both older and modern Slovak music history and his knowledge culminated in his book trilogy Základy hudobného myslenia (Fundamentals of Musical Thinking), Tonalita (Tonality), Tektonika (Tectonics) as well as an epilogue Hudba a človek (Music and Man). The outline of the subcategories of the ’musical thinking’ complex is demarcated by the intersection of historical-developmental conditions and changes, cultural and social environment, man’s attributes as a musically creative personality and the principles of order and organization, present in music. In harmony with the field of activity of stable principles and changeable norms Kresánek delineated three spheres: sonoristics, dynamism and thematic shapes, and presented their usage in special domains – in the development of tonality and tectonics.
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