Edmund Gurney’s Darwinian Music Formalism

Abstract

Abstract Chapter 5 turns to Edmund Gurney’s The Power of Sound (1880), one of the first examples of a post-Darwinian music theory, significantly as an instance of ideal theory in Charles Mills’s sense. Using music analysis, in the form of score studies, Gurney offers a kind of music formalism grounded in Darwinian evolution. Having developed Darwin’s ideas into an evolutionary account of musical pleasure, and having combined this with studies of form in the music of composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Gurney argues that “impressive” music (music with a powerful emotional affect) evokes an unanalyzable feeling that dimly recalls primal scenes of erotic courtship. This chapter critically examines Gurney’s Darwinism formalism from historical and music-analytical angles. The chapter concludes with a synthesis of current thinking about formalism in music studies in order to reflect on the ongoing implications of Gurney’s Darwinian music formalism.