Formalism and musical meaning

In this study, the connection between musical meaning and formalism has been examined. The basic hypothesis of the study is that the analysis of music and musical meaning can be conducted on an objective basis through formalism. In this sense, firstly Kant's, Eduard Hanslick's and Susanne Langer's approaches of formalism have been discussed and the probability of musical objectivism has been evaluated around these approaches. The scope of approaching the music within an objective point of view has been specified and the context of the musical meaning in this objectivity has been investigated. Then, the mathematical and logical structure of the objectivity that had been revealed with the formal approach of the music has been presented. The mathematical structure of the music has been established with the music clusters and the logical structure with the musical postulates. Another point of the study is analyzing the formal structure of the music from the aspect of its connection with the language. When considered as a formal language, it has been presented that music comes into being with the designated rules and symbols aggregated in regard to these rules. Thus, the musical meaning has been designated in the context of Frege's meaning theory.