抄録
This essay examines the priority of vocal music in the musical writings of Johann Mattheson (1681-1764). In traditional Western Europe, instrumental music was considered to be inferior to vocal music because of its lack of words and consequently meaning. Mattheson also accepts this hierarchy within music.
However, what counts for him with regards to this hierarchy is not the presence or absence of words but the mechanism of sound generation of voice and musical instruments. By reading his argument about the melody composition and the musical instruments in his writings, mainly Kern melodischer Wissenschafft (1737) and Der vollkommene Capellmeister (1739), this essay clarifies that Mattheson specifically emphasized the intricate mechanism of throat as a natural instrument of sound generation on which a theory of melody composition has to be grounded. Depending on the idea of “nature” in the 18th century, Mattheson thought that melodies for musical instruments must follow the model of melody composition for the voice. In conclusion, this essay considers the actuality of Mattheson’s thought by opposing it to E. Hanslick’s “formalism.”
