Spur des Klangs: Posthermeneutische Überlegungen zum Eigensinn der Musik (nicht nur) in der Wiener Schule

Based upon a reading of Arnold Schoenberg’s theoretical writings on the musical idea and its presentation, this essay discusses the possibility of a so-called posthermeneutical perspective on the phenomenon of sound in the Second Viennese School. Schoenberg’s sceptical considerations towards the relevance of sound are confronted with various arrangements, transcriptions, and instrumentations of works by Webern, Schoenberg and Berg. It can be demonstrated that sound here should be conceived neither solely as a means of constituting formal structure, meaning, and sense, nor as the constitutive Other of meaning. Against the background of current discussions on the concept of »Posthermeneutik« (cf. Dieter Mersch, Posthermeneutik, 2010), sound may be understood as a phenomenon oscillating between sense and sensuality