The Sublime as a Topos in Nineteenth-Century Piano Music

Abstract

The article examines the topical signification of the sublime within nineteenth- century piano music. While later Romantic aesthetics asserted that music was inherently sublime because of its perceived ability to reconcile the Kantian divisions of infinite and finite, noumenal and phenomenal, the possibility of topical signification suggests instead that music may signify the sublime as a discursive subject. Although this may be problematic for some genres, the article argues that the piano music of the nineteenth century offers the potential for signifying the sublime topically. It analyses works by Beethoven, Chopin and Liszt, identifying a specific gesture that functions as a conventionalized indexical signifier across different stylistic contexts: a “pianistic topic” of the sublime.