Abstract

Autonomous music is conceivable only as a commodity. This striking insight is already underlying Adam Smith’s aesthetics of music, but it should not be misunderstood as an economic determinism on music. Rather, Smith’s economic theory itself is subject of aestheticisation. Both levels, aesthetics and economics, are structurally coupled. This is particularly evident in Smith’s musical-aesthetic considerations. He distinguishes clearly between vocal and instrumental music. While vocal music is characterised by the communication of relations of sympathy, instrumental music communicates only itself and is therefore autonomous. Thus it corresponds to the figure of the invisible hand, which actually has its most precise expression in instrumental music.