[1] The idea of absolute music developed at the end of the 18th century in the writings of authors of early German Romanticism, such as Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Ludwig Tieck and E. T. A. Hoffmann but the term was not coined until 1846 where it was first used by Richard Wagner in a programme to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.
[5] In this respect, instrumental music transcends other arts and languages to become the discourse of a 'higher realm', an idea expressed in Hoffmann's review of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, published in 1813.
In this respect, music has no extra-musical meaning at all and is enjoyed by appreciation of its formal structure and technical construction.
[14]Bohlman has gone on to argue that the use of music, e.g. among the Jewish diaspora, was in fact a form of identity building.
Such scholars would argue that classical music is rarely about nothing, but reflects aesthetic tastes that are themselves influenced by culture, politics and philosophy.
"[16] Music which appears to demand an interpretation, but is abstract enough to warrant objectivity (e.g. Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony), is what Lydia Goehr refers to as "double-sided autonomy".
On the topic of musical meaning, Wittgenstein, at several points in his late diary Culture and Value,[18] ascribes meaning to music, for instance, that in the finale, a conclusion is being drawn, e.g.: [One] can point to particular places in a tune by Schubert and say: look, that is the point of the tune, this is where the thought comes to a head.Jerrold Levinson has drawn extensively on Wittgenstein to comment: Intelligible music stands to literal thinking in precisely the same relation as does intelligible verbal discourse.