Abstract

This article analyzes from a sociological point of view the material used in music. It explores the dialectics of its development in the western culture and it discusses the social factors that define its particular configuration. Based on the methodological assumption that music as an art is a form of communication, the article examines the musical material in two aspects: as a medium to objectify the artistic idea and as a medium in a specific form of artistic communication. The article concludes that even the seemingly simplest decisions of a composer (during the creation process) express and manifest in an indirect way and through particularly complex mediations essential features and components of his culture and therefore of the society he lives in.