LETTING GO

Chapter:

CHAPTER 13 C-Minor Moods

Source:

MUSIC IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

Schopenhauer was the most radically romantic thinker in Germany during the last decade of Beethoven’s life. Like Beethoven a lonely man, he evolved an influential philosophy of pessimism. As manifested in the strivings of individuals, he taught, the Will produces inevitable strife and frustration, dooming all inhabitants of the world to a life of unsatisfied cravings and spiritual pain. Ultimately the only way out was renunciation of desire, implying transcendence of the individual will—an idea for which Schopenhauer was indebted to Buddhist teachings, making him one of the earliest European bridge-builders to Asian culture. Short of full renunciation, some temporary assuagement of worldly pain can be found in philosophy and art—particularly in music, whose inherent faculty of transcendence could model, and perhaps even induce, the spiritual quiescence at which Schopenhauer’s philosophy aimed.

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 13 C-Minor Moods." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 16 Jun. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-13004.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 13 C-Minor Moods. In Oxford University Press, Music In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries. New York, USA. Retrieved 16 Jun. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-13004.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 13 C-Minor Moods." In Music In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 16 Jun. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-13004.xml