The article deals with the views of a well-known German musicologist Carl Dahlhaus, a representative of the so-called "new" musical hermeneutics. According to Dahlhaus, the understanding of music is possible on the basis of adopting both the musical tradition and the tradition of music and language. The most important destination of music analysis for Dahlhaus is its ability to explain the value judgment of music, which is explained in his book Analysis and Value Judgment. So, this approach to music has to assume a dialectical unity of compositional and technical analysis, aesthetic appreciation and historical knowledge. By Dahlhaus, different types of analytical judgment of music were applied at different times - functional (the success of the implementation of the applied functions by music), aesthetic (consistent with the idea of music and beauty) and historical (matching the criteria of novelty in the practice of New Music) - they should not be confused. Of particular interest is the attempt of Dahlhaus to formulate analytical criteria that could justify the aesthetic value of music -"the variety of relations", "differentiation and integration", "principles of form", "analogy and equalization". The variety of relations is the searching of meaningful relations in the production undertaken in the aspects of kinship of musical material and similarity in the form's functions. In this case, the kinship between the motive and theme is unacceptable to search, for example, in dodecaphonic music, where the connection of any fragments taken at random is provided: here it is also important to observe a clear and evident dissimilarity in the thematic material - only under this condition meaningful search of links is possible. The criterion of differentiation and integration is linked with the first one: the variety of differences inside the composition (melody, rhythm, dynamics, articulation) and their integration, functional relationship. This criterion is not universal historically, because differentiation and integration do not necessarily counterbalance each other (for example, in Gregorian chant or early atonal pieces of Schoenberg and Webern, which does not lessen their artistic value). Another analytical criterion -the one of analogy and equalization - is connected, on the one hand, with the calculation by the composer of the impact of his music on the listener (as "adjustment" of some complex aspects of music by the simplicity of others), on the other - with the ideas of Schoenberg (he proposed the principle of "analogy" when all the parameters of musical composition, which claim to be of artistic value, should be equally developed). The last supreme criterion of evaluation is the principles of the form, which involve a combination of a big number of relations, differentiation and integration. There are four principles of the form: Reihung (lining), Fortspinnung (deployment), development, grouping. The deepest and richest of them is the principle of development, which is implemented in the classical-romantic sonata and symphony. All the analytical criteria of aesthetic evaluation of music named before are, undoubtedly, the most interesting Dahlhaus's attempt to demonstrate links between historical, theoretical and aesthetic approaches to musical analysis, based on generalization of the vast heritage of Western European composers' school and a rich experience of European music-theoretical thought.
