The Scream From music: Discussing some aspects of Rousseau’s music theory and practice in relations to his contemporaries

Abstract

This text seeks to discuss some aspects of the musical work and aesthetic criticism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). To this end, supported by a specific bibliography, the text highlights the importance of the Geneva native's analysis of the trajectory that goes from the cry of nature to the countless musical expressions. In this process of improvement, Rousseau develops a semiology of the scream (cry of nature), which becomes a key piece in the démarche of signs, influencing human development, including the expansion of the communicative capacity, until it becomes music. Musical elements and the varied expressions are analyzed by Rousseau in contrast his contemporaries’ approach. The composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764), for example, favored harmony and valued French music, in contrast to Rousseau. Nevertheless, Rousseau's exaltation of melody and his praise of Italian musicality have, despite the quarrels, a philosophical perspective through which he highlights the non-vicious, less corrupt and simpler expressiveness of Italian music that supports his defense of a natural aesthetic and/or the use of the arts paradoxically as a remedy for social ills. Even though Rousseau condemned the sciences and the arts, he established himself as a composer, especially for his works The Village Soothsayer, The Gallant Muses and Pygmalion. Through them and through theoretical works, Rousseau contributed to the topic, making it clear that music, like oral language, must enchant the listener, and develop a possible aesthetic formation, which can be achieved by the most sublime expressions of music and/or a coordinated speech.