Abstract

By asking how one can speak of music through the use of words, this study considers the relationship between music and conceptual language. Music and the language of concepts seem to be two incommensurable methods of expression. Following Theodor W. Adorno's philosophicalaesthetic approach to the topic, one discovers an interesting dialectic tension between music and language that he expressed with the term "Sprachähnlichkeit" (similarity with language). Thus, by considering the ambivalence of this relationship one can find in the Adornian concepts of "constellation" and "conceptual field", introduced to musical analysis by Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, an answer to the problem of conveying information about music through words. The specific problem of musical terminology is connected to this general discussion. Its study has always concentrated on the solid foundations of a technical terminology, thus avoiding the difficulties presented by a "terminology of contents" that is here taken up - at least as a suggestion - as a possible study topic.