Constructive and Destructive Forces: Ernst Kurth’s Concept of Tonality

Felix Wörner, in “Constructive and Destructive Forces: Ernst Kurth’s Concept of Tonality,” reconstructs the discursive foundations of Kurthian energetics. Kurth’s premise that sound (Klang) in music is only an inadequate representation of inner forces leads him to conclude that tonality is not given through the musical material itself. Kurth’s theoretic formulations, as Wörner notes, are indebted to such diverse philosophical concepts as Dilthey’s psychological hermeneutics, Bergsonism, and Gestalt theory. Tonalität, for Kurth, enacts the “crisis” of romantische Harmonik, presenting a highly flexible and ever-changing constellation of constructive and destructive forces which must themselves be reenacted through musical listening.