The Small Contrapuntal Cycle in the Music of Paul Natorp

Abstract

The article examines the musical legacy of German composer Paul Natorp (1854–
1924), who has obtained his world recognition chiefly as a Neo-Kantian philosopher. Unlike the
other philosophers-composers known to history, such as, for instance, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
and Friedrich Nietzsche, the name of Natorp the composer has remained virtually unknown to
philosophers, as well as to musicians. Among the thinker’s greatest influences was Plato, whose
attitude towards music was shared by Natorp throughout his entire life. Examining music as one
of the fundamental laws of the universe, Natorp placed the principle of harmony at the core not
only of his life activities, but also of his philosophical studies and pedagogical innovations. The
article presents a scholarly analysis of the small contrapuntal cycle in the musical legacy of the
philosopher-composer with the example of Paul Natorp’s Three Preludes and Fugues for Piano,
which revive the baroque tradition of improvisation. Natorp’s piano compositions correspond
to the influences of his era, which demonstrates a constant aspiration towards the attainment of
harmony, balance and clarity in the conditions of the dissolving tonal-harmonic connections and
free compositional forms. In his compositions, the art of the future is given a special position as a
significant unifying and stabilizing component of musical creativity.

Keywords: Paul Natorp, small contrapuntal cycle, prelude, fugue