there in the world, and follows Heidegger’s claim that the meaning of phenomenological description
lies in interpretation (Heidegger 1962:61). Ferrara directs his interest at uncovering meaning, history
and life-world in the music.
2.2.6. Lawrence Ferrara (1991): Philosophy and the Analysis of Music.
Bridges to Musical Sound, Form, and Reference
In his 1991 book, Ferrara does not develop the phenomenological approach. He declares that his
book is not a promotion of the use of phenomenological method in music (p. XVIII). However, he
acknowledges the value of phenomenological inquiry for the description of sound in time and for the
interpretation of musical meaning. Importantly, he includes the phenomenological approaches as
steps in the eclectic method for music analysis which is the core matter of the book. Ferrara dedi-
cates separate chapters to giving accounts of Husserl’s and Heidegger’s phenomenologies, supple-
mented with overviews of the history of hermeneutics and research in referential meaning in music.
Furthermore, he provides a review of literature on music phenomenology.
Sound, Form and Reference
It is Ferrara’s point of departure that listeners experience music as a multiplicity of levels of signifi-
cance, and that one analytic or phenomenological method cannot explore all possible strata of mu-
sical meaning. This is his reason for combining different approaches. He applies phenomenological
methods to describe the sound in time, conventional analytic methods to explain musical form, and
hermeneutical methods to support the interpretation of feeling, reference and historical background.
Ferrara argues that no single method can assure ”pure” or ”objective” description and insight. Con-
ventional musical analysis subjugates the music to predesignated tasks, and phenomenological
description cannot suspend its inherent methodological bias. All methods, analytical as well as her-
meneutical, depend on structures of pre-understanding (pp. XIII-XVIII, 34, 45). By giving different
approaches equal status, Ferrara aims at avoiding methodological dominance. It is his intention to
”support the freedom of the music object to show itself in its multi-dimensional polyphony of sound,
form, and reference” (p. 46).
Husserl and Heidegger
Ferrara provides an overview of Husserl’s philosophy and its roots in Kant, Hegel and Brentano, and
points out some of Husserl’s basic phenomenological concepts (pp. 59-63):
(1) The goal of phenomenology is to provide unbiased and systematic descriptions of the objects of
experience. The basis for descriptions is the immediacy of conscious perception.
(2) Consciousness directs the mind toward the things of experience. It is characterized by intentionality,
the act of pointing to the objects of experience. Consciousness is constituted by the objects to which it
points and cannot be separated from the objects. The engagement of consciousness implies meaning in
the intended objects.
(3) The constitution of consciousness is tied to the experience of internal time, the field of temporal
presence which encompasses retention of the just-past, awareness of the ”now”, and protention of
the upcoming future.
Ferrara acknowledges the value of Husserls’ early phenomenology, in particular the second volume
of Logical Investigations (1901). He appreciates that Husserl brings the subjective aspects of experi-
ence ”to the forefront for inspection and relative control” (p. 80). But he distances himself from Hus-
serl’s later philosophy. He criticizes that, according to Husserl’s Ideas: General Introduction to Pure
Phenomenology (1913), the ego is the basis for all understanding. Ferrara contends that Husserl