CEU eTD Collection (2025); Nikovitz, Balint: Investigating the Philosophy Behind The Art of the Fugue and its Subject. A Historically Informed Analysis of J. S. Bach's Music and its Scope

CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
Author Nikovitz, Balint
Title Investigating the Philosophy Behind The Art of the Fugue and its Subject. A Historically Informed Analysis of J. S. Bach's Music and its Scope
Summary The following is a historically informed analysis of Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Art of the Fugue (Die Kunst der Fuge, BWV 1080) from a philosophical perspective and an attempt to establish direct and indirect philosophical influences as inspiration behind the collection. The thesis is built up of four chapters. In Chapter I, I provide a theoretical analysis based on the treatises on music which were know by J.S. Bach. In Chapter II, I connect these treatises to Lutheran philosophy and what is labelled as “mechanistic philosophy”. In Chapter III, I focus on The Art of the Fugue and pinpoint the theoretical background (musical as well as philosophical). In Chapter IV, I provide possible counterarguments to my thesis and then conclude the text with a positive answer to the question ‘does The Art of the Fugue has direct and indirect philosophical influences?’.
Supervisor Ben Yami, Hanoch
Department Philosophy MA
Full texthttps://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/nikovitz_balint.pdf

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