G. Rybintseva

Functional Harmony of Classicism and Social Teachings of the 17th–18th Centuries

In the musical art of the Early Modern period, the harmonic vertical acquired the status of a factor that regulated the melody, ensured the unity of the musical fabric, determined the processes of the musical pieces formation. This new role was fixed by the theory of tonal harmonic functions, which generalized the creative practice of the masters of musical classicism. The theory of harmonic functions unified consonances, which constituted a kind of hierarchical system, the place in which is determined by the ratio of the consonance to the tonic basis and the functions prescribed to it. Following the hypothesis of T. Adorno about the correspondence of musical structures to social structures, one can find analogies between the system of functionally understood harmonic verticals and the social structure of France – an exemplary monarchical state, as well as with socio-political theories and utopian projects of the period in history under consideration. Among them: the doctrine of the transition of humanity from the natural state to a civil society by T. Hobbes, projects to improve the power structures of J. Locke, utopian projects of the ideal state of French educators. The revealed analogies indicate that the sociopolitical projects of modern European rationalist thinkers and artistic models of the ideal world, created by masters of musical classicism, were based on similar ideological principles.

Key words

classicism, harmony, function, tonality, society, civil society, state.

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