This article aims at understanding the Hegelian conception of
music as expression of the inner life of human subjectivity as well as the role
that music plays in Hegel’s philosophical system. I defend that much of the
value of Hegel’s reflections on music is the primary role assigned to musical
performance as expressive and communicative event. Therefore Hegel’s reference
to virtuosity and improvisation is consistent with his general thesis that
art is the «sensual manifestation of the idea». Improvisation presents the
essence of music, because it shows the self-construction of musical subjectivity
‘on the stage’. It shows the unfolding of musical expressiveness, while building
expressive subjectivity in real-time. Moreover, since it exhibits creativity in
actu, musical improvisation also displays art as product, as connection (in the
making) of form and content. However, improvisation shows art as art, that
is, as only ephemeral and partial harmony between form and content, because
it performs art: still better, it performs the end of art, showing its constituent
possibilities and limits and making explicit that art’s relationship with real
life is a constitutive element of its nature as art.
