An Evolution of Ideas on Musical Expressiveness

This thesis contains a history of ideas and an examination of the change in theories about musical expressiveness; including cognitivism vs. emotivism, the theory of association of ideas, the arousal speech theory of musical expressiveness, and the cognitive speech theory of musical expressiveness. Also included in this study is an introductory exploration of ideas of Johann Mattheson, Peter Kivy, Colin Radford, and Aniruddh Patel. The purpose of this study is to give a chronology of ideas of major scholars in this area. In the interest of space, the focus will be on four scholars whom I believe have had the biggest impact on this topic. As we approach the end of this study, the future of musical expressiveness will be discussed, as well as the possibilities this topic holds for the future.