Kakofont storhetsvansinne eller uttryck för det djupaste liv? : Om ny musik och musikåskådning i svenskt 1920-tal, med särskild tonvikt på Hilding Rosenberg

Sammanfattning: This dissertation is a critical study of views and concepts in the musical aesthetics of new music in the Swedish 1920s. The study focuses on Hilding Rosenberg while also paying attention to Sten Broman, Gunnar Jeanson, Moses Pergament and Julius Rabe. The disser-tation is mainly concerned with the foundations of their aesthetic views in connection with their advocacy of new music in the 1920s. This, in turn, is used to disclose some basic prin-ciples in the compositions of Hilding Rosenberg from the same period.In order to study the aesthetics of these advocates of new music, their utterances are re-lated to material from three referential areas: tendencies in musical aesthetics in central Europe, divergent views in Sweden and aesthetical and philosophical traditions they can be shown to rely upon. As a theoretical foundation some theses from Peter Bürger's Theorie der Avantgarde and Andreas Huyssen's After the Great Divide are used.The study shows that their views of music are founded upon a fundamental metaphys-ics, where music is viewed as an entity of its own, with immanent laws and inner logic. This can be seen in their opinions on tradition and evolution as well as in their views of the mu-sical work. Music is considered an expression of life in a profound sense; as a configuration of will, energy and movement, and as such it is also given a moral task. In the music of Rosenberg both traditional and unconventional elements can be related to the idea of the organic work, closely connected with the view of music as expression of life. Using tradi-tional forms as a point of departure, his works are formed according to the conception of organic unity, while within these forms he works in a very free manner.