Abstract

This chapter elaborates the biography of Ernst Bloch and explains his particular thoughts on musical philosophy. He was born on July 8, 1885. In 2000, a multifunctional center of science and culture was established in Bloch's name, aiming to develop a site oriented to his themes and to debate contemporary questions about the shape of the future. The Principle of Hope was his most important work, providing an encyclopedia of human hopes. Art became the essential basis of a philosophy of hope. Bloch's treatment of music in The Spirit of Utopia was embedded in contemporary discourse. Fidelio was the model for Bloch's way of doing philosophy. Monographs that deal with Bloch's views on art often provided summary treatment to the musicological aspect. Essays on individual aspects of Bloch's music philosophy have continued to appear without interruption from the 1960s to the present.