[ks. suomenkielinen versio]
Silke Wulf
Doctor of Philosophy
University of Bremen
Author of Zeit der Musik (2013)
What is music? What does it mean?
Music is a creative act in which our mind can find freedom. Probably it ‘means’ nothing.
Why do we keep listening to it?
We listen to music because it moves us.
What has not been comprehended about music?
Is there anything comprehended about music yet?
What is the most deplorable misunderstanding concerning music? What is the most important goal for musicology or philosophy of music?
I think one goal for philosophy of music is to think philosophical thoughts in a musical way. I want to stress one point of this special way of thinking: when you are making music, you can’t reduce it to rational and technical issues, nor to emotional aspects. When you’re making music, you must think and feel what you’re doing while you are acting.
Why do we still need to listen to Mozart? Why would it be advisable to try to fathom Stockhausen’s pieces?
Music is timeless. Either it touches you (and you get in resonance with it) or it doesn’t.
Why are there so few women composers?
I don’t know. I cannot talk for “the women”. Me, I try to compose my philosophical thoughts.
How could we correct our conception of music, essentially cooked up from 18th to 20th-century western ingredients, with something originating from other times and places?
By re-thinking.
Is the distinction between absolute or autonomous music on the one hand, and non-absolute or non-autonomous music on the other, a serviceable tool in making sense of the topic?
Every kind of music, which is made in the sense I described above, is “autonomonous” or selbstmaßgebend.
What are you studying currently?
I’m trying to find out whether you can understand yourself (Dein Selbst) as an aesthetic act.
What are you listening to right now?
Right now I am listening to the world around me (birds singing, the wind blowing, children playing, the clock ticking) and to the progress of my inner thoughts.
[cf. the other four staccato interviews: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Five]
