There are several possibilities for how rhythm can come about. In the history of music philosophy, two positions concerning the relationship between rhythm and words have been dominant. On the one hand, there is Plato's position. He defends the superiority of words over sound. His position had an enormous influence on the Florentine Camerata, whose members invented the opera genre. A similar position was also put forward by the composer Richard Wagner in Opera and Drama. On the other hand are thinkers like Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, who defend the superiority of sound over words. Concerning other musical aesthetic questions, such as that of the effect of music, those thinkers disagree significantly. Kant stresses the pleasure music provides listeners, whereas Schopenhauer regards the brief liberation from the personal will as the most important effect of great music. A more permanent kind of salvation can only be reached by means of asceticism, according to Schopenhauer.

According to Plato, a song (melos) consists of word (logos), harmony (barmonia) and rhythm (rytbmos), whereby the word is supposed to be fundamental; that is, rhythm and harmony are supposed to follow the words, because words specify the content of a musical piece. Without words we would not understand the piece and would not know what it is about. It is important that we know what it is about, because music is supposed to convey the idea of the good, and only if words are at the basis of a song can it fulfill this task.

Even though Schopenhauer's philosophy of art includes many Platonic elements, he disagrees with Plato concerning the relationship of words and melody. According to Plato, words come first and determine harmony and rhythm. According to Schopenhauer, the instrumental sounds come first. The genius composer transcends the personal will and gets an understanding of the will in itself, which can directly be represented in the artistic genre of instrumental music. In order for music to have the highest kind of quality, the laws of instrumental music have to be dominant, and the words simply have to follow those laws as in the case of the composition of an opera. Here the aesthetic laws of sounds are supposed to be responsible for rhythm, melody, and harmony.

Rhythm has been dealt with theoretically as well as practically since antiquity. This entry provides a summary of the history of rhythm since the baroque era, because the history of music from that time onward includes most of the music we still listen to today. A significant notion in baroque music is the “monody,” which then meant music for one voice which is accompanied with chords. The words of the one voice were supposed to bring about the sounds and with it the rhythm. The monody became popular together with the invention of the music drama by the Florentine Camerata at the end of the 16th century. Instead of simply entertaining the audience, music was also supposed to convey values. The members of the Florentine Camerata thought that music can achieve this best by means of the monody. They were inspired by a reading of ancient texts on philosophy of music, especially Plato. It was their intention to revitalize ancient Greek tragedies. They believed that ancient dramas were sung from beginning to end, a concept that scholars now regard as false. As a consequence, the opera genre was invented. Another important aspect of baroque music is its dancelike character. Hence, the general rhythmical stream was more important than each single beat, which had to be embedded in the general, overall structure.

In classical and romantic music, however, the rhythmic aspect within music became more complex. The tension between musical periods and meter became stronger. The meter of a musical piece represented its body, but the rhythm was an expression of the human spirit. Consequently, the rhythm was supposed to represent and deal with the variety of affects that human beings can have. Music was therefore far less schematic than in the baroque era. A particularly impressive representative of that period is Richard Wagner. He developed the concept of the “infinite melody,” whereby rhythm also developed into something undetermined and unlimited.

In contemporary music we find an immense variety of rhythmic concepts. According to Adorno, one can distinguish two traditions within 20th-century music. The first is the avant-garde tradition, which is associated with Schoenberg. Various concepts of musical time turn up in this tradition. Here Luigi Nono has to be mentioned, because some of his scores contain no bars. The second is the neoclassical tradition, to which Stravinsky belongs; it consists mosdy of linear music in which the rhythmic element is similar to that of 18th-century music, as often the rhythmical figures remain constant throughout a movement. Bartok is another composer who is representative of this tradition.

One might wish to add a third tradition to which one could refer as the postmodern one. It unites elements from various cultures and plays with these elements. The most important postmodern musical movement is called minimal music, and its leading representatives are Philip Glass and Michael Nyman. It is mostly tonal music based on simple harmonies. Of particular importance is the rhythmic element. Very often a type of polyrhythm is used, which means that various rhythms overlap. Polyrhythmic elements are usually associated with jazz and have their origins in African and Indian music. In minimal music, a simple pattern is repeated very often, whereby only simple variations occur. A piece of minimal music is in many cases constituted by uniting various such patterns and variations. Once a pattern is played at a different speed, phase shifting or phasing occurs.

Many non-Western traditions of music are even more challenging concerning the variety of rhythms. Within the Chinese, Japanese, Indian, and African traditions, irrational and polyrhythmic patterns were developed that have recently had an impact on Western minimal music. In India, the tolas are of particular interest in this respect, as talas are rhythmical patterns that determine a composition of classical Indian music. The tempo of most talas, which are the basis of their classical compositions, can vary.

In musicology one distinguishes between musical works and other musical pieces. A musical work is determined by means of the following qualities: it is autonomous, original, and unchangeable; was created by one composer who is regarded as its origin; is the center of attention when it is being performed; and was created for eternity.

When musical works first came about is a matter of controversy. Some scholars think that the beginning of the musical work is connected to the first formulation of the concept, which was done in the 16th century. Then Nicolaus Listenius used the phrase opus perfection et absolution. However, many scholars regard the beginning of the musical work tradition as related to its historical representation, and most scholars agree that around 1800 the tradition of the musical work became particularly strong.

There are various reasons for this position: First, before 1800, music was performed on the occasion for which it was written. From then on, older music was performed again; for example, in 1829, more than 100 years after its first performance, Bach's “St. Mathew Passion” was performed again. Second, before 1800, composers were considered not very important, but the occasion for which a piece was written or the person for whom it was composed was of significance. From 1800 onward, for at least 150 years, musical works were the dominant kind of music. After 1950 music became extremely diverse. Musical pieces were composed that were heteronomous (John Taverner, Arvo Part) or involved chance elements (John Cage, Iannis Xenakis), which cannot therefore be regarded as proper musical works. Most composers in the Western tradition before 1800 composed heteronomous music. Their music was created for a particular purpose, such as a coronation or a specific religious or royal celebration. These musical pieces were usually performed solely at the event for which they were made. The composition of a musical piece was, therefore, mostly related to a specific contemporary event in the here and now.

Autonomous music, on the other hand, is usually composed for eternity. Composers are sometimes seen as geniuses who manage to put together eternal music, maybe even by having access to an eternal realm themselves. What makes this music autonomous is that the music comes about via a composer who decides for himself which pieces he wishes to realize and which not. Antonio Vivaldi is an exemplary composer of heteronomous music who clearly did not write musical works; he composed about 300 concerts that all sound fairly similar. When he was alive this was not a problem, because then musical pieces were supposed to represent the type to which they belong in an exemplary matter, which is what his pieces did. A musical work, on the other hand, represents a specific solution to a detailed aesthetic problem. In the 20th century the development went so far that many works represent a type of music in itself.

Another aspect of a musical work is that it is original and unchangeable. After it has been created, it remains identical with itself. Iannis Xenakis, however, composed stochastic music, which means that it involves chance elements. It might include the demand that the audience makes a specific sound when the conductor tells them to do so. As the size of the audience is different at each performance, it is clear that his compositions involve chance elements, which is the reason why his works are not musical works. Magical music includes the Indian raga, a series of notes upon which a melody of classical Indian music is founded, and the tala, which knows only some vaguely given rules on the basis of which one has to improvise. As improvised music is not eternally fixed, such musical pieces are by definition not musical works. Until the 19th century, German folk songs (Volksmusik) were such as to enable people to have a pleasant or cozy evening together, and they were not written by a single composer. Both are reasons for their not being considered musical works.

The musical work represents a means of uniting objective, intersubjective, and subjective time. The composer grasps eternal music (objective time) and puts it together in a score so that it can be performed (intersubjective time), and listened to (subjective time). In any case, the relationship between music and time is a complex one, and it also has to be stressed that this relationship has been neglected by many modern and postmodern musicologists and philosophers of music.

Kant, Immanuel, Nietzsche, Friedrich, Plato, Presocratic Age, Pythagoras of Samos, Schopenhauer, Arthur, Wagner, Richard