Clelia Repetto
University of Turin
Traditionally, musical works have been regarded as Platonic abstracta, i.e., eternal and immutable types that are multiply instantiated into tokens, i.e., concrete performances. However, such a type/token distinction is unsuited to explain musical improvisation, even in the versions proposed by Alperson and Kivy, who explicitly attempt to integrate it into the structuralist framework. The failure of a type/token-based theory to account for musical improvisation leads to different proposals on musical ontology. In particular, Moruzzi and Bertinetto propose two accounts that recognise musical improvisation as paradigmatic for a metaphysical investigation on musical artworks, arguing for a perspective that returns to the performative aspect of music the central position it deserves. The purpose of this paper is to reiterate and reinforce the objections towards the traditional account of musical artworks (section 2), taking especially into consideration the historicality of the concept it is built upon/on (section 3) and to discuss two proposals that similarly and differently feel the need of moving beyond structuralism, shifting the perspective from musical artworks as abstract objects to concrete processes (section 4).
Chair: Christabel Cane
Time: September 13th, 11:20 – 11:50
Location: HS E.002
SOPhiA 2026 