Jenefer Robinson, ed. Music and Meaning
In order to promote new ways of thinking about musical meaning,
this volume brings together scholars in music theory, musicology,
and the philosophy of music, disciplines generally treated as
separate and distinct. This interdisciplinary collaboration,
while respecting differences in perspective, identifies and
elaborates shared concerns.
This volume focuses on the many and various kinds of meaning in
music. Do musical meanings exist exclusively in internal, formal
musical relations or might they also be found in the relationship
between music and other areas of expierience, such as action,
emotion, ideas, and values? Also discussed is the vexed question
why people listen to and apparently enjoy music which expresses
unpleasant emotions, such as melancholy or despair. Among the
particular pieces the writers discuss are Mahler's Ninth Symphony,
Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, and Schuber's last piano sonata.
More boradly they consider the relation of musical meaning and
interpretation to language, storytelling, drama, imagination,
metaphor, and emotion.
296 pages, 18 pages of musical examples, 1 drawing, 1 table
Cloth ISBN 0-8014-3299-5 ($47.50)
Paper ISBN 0-8014-8367-0 ($16.95)
Jerrold Levinson, The Pleasure of Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays
Perhaps best known for his work as a philosopher of music, Jerrold
Levinson is one of the most influential writers in contemporary
aesthetics. In this new collection of essays, music remains a central
concern. Four essays are devoted exclusively to, and two others deal
extensively with, the philosophy of music. Two major essays ("Musical
Expressiveness" and "Work and Oeuvre") have not previously appeared in
print; others are revised from their earlier publication.
"Jerrold Levinson is one of the world's outstanding philosophers of
art. He is wonderfully intelligent, with acute powers of analysis, . . .
highly creative, [and] always has a very firm grasp of the artistic
phenomenon under investigation. . . . The recent essays collected in this
new volume, which span a wide range of aesthetic issues, display all
these and many other virtues. They are essential reading for anyone with
a serious interest in the subject."--Malcolm Budd, University College
London
320 pages, 3 black-and-white illustrations, 6 musical examples
Cloth ISBN 0-8014-3059-3 $49.95
Paper ISBN 0-8014-8226-7 $18.95
Jeffrey Kallberg, Chopin at the Boundaries: Sex, History, and Musical Genre The complex status of Chopin in our culture--he was a native Pole and adopted Frenchman, and a male composer writing in "feminine" genres--is the subject of Jeffrey Kallberg's absorbing book. Combining social history, literary theory, musicology, and feminist thought, *Chopin at the Boundaries* is the first book to situate Chopin's music within the construct of his somewhat marginal sexual identity and to explore how this should figure in our understanding of his compositional methods. Through this novel approach, Kallberg reveals a new Chopin, one situated precisely where questions of gender open up into the very important question of genre. "Kallberg's scholarship is consistently of the highest calibre, his research meticulous and exhaustive, his arguments engaging."--John Rink, *Times Literary Supplement* "Kallberg is internationally accepted as one of the most knowledgeable writers on Chopin today. This book shows that he is also the most original . . . It is certainly the most stimulating book of Chopin criticism I have ever read."--Charles Rosen Jeffrey Kallberg is Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania. Convergences: Inventories of the Present/A series edited by Edward W. Said March 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 30 musical examples, 5 halftones, 4 diag. 320 pp. ISBN 0-674-12791-9 (KALCHX) $19.95x Spring '96/0-674-12790-0
http://www.gbhap.com (800)830-6375 Music and Ideology: Resisting the Aesthetic Edited and introduced by Adam Krims Commentary by Henry Klumpenhouwer This collection of essays, which reflects the views of music scholars who bring critical theory to bear on the theory and analysis of music, is long overdue. The essayists are not fixated on aesthetics: rather, they focus on the social and psychological concers that previously had been considered marginal to their subject. Music and Ideology is a response to the question "Must the practice of music analysis and music theory always re-inscribe the ideology of aesthetic autonomy?" And, if not, under what circumstances does it re-inscribe that ideology? The responses to these questions should appeal not only to music and cultural theorists, but also to a larger audience engaged in critical theory. Essays by Jean-Francois Lyotard, Alan Street, Richard Littlefield, David Neumeyer, Marion Guck, Suzanne Cusick, David Gramitjoke Dame, and Robert Fink. March 1998 160 pp Paperback ISBN 90-5701-321-5 US $18.95 David Nicholls, ed. The Whole World of Music: A Henry Cowell Symposium "I have never been deliberately concerned myself with developing a distinctive "personal" style, but only with the excitement and pleasure of writing music as beautifully, as warmly, and as interestingly as I can."--Henry Cowell It is impossible to contain Henry Cowell within the boundaries of the consistencies of forms, styles, ensembles, and genres of Western art music. John Cage once described Cowell as the "open sesame for new music in America." As the author of the influential book New Musical Resources his works include innovative single movement vocal or instrumental pieces, 20 symphonies, five string quartets, and 8 suites of various kinds. Cowell was also innovative in his use of instruments from different cultures (jalatarang, dragonmouths, Japanese wind glasses, the shakuhachi flute) and in his book, Lou Harrison writes of Cowell's "adventurous promotion of automobile junkyards for the finding of new sounds." In this major book of articles and reminiscences, David Nicholls brings together for the first time a symposium dealing exclusively with Cowell and his work, providing a portrait of a composer who really engaged with "the whole world of music." December 1997 244 pp 93 b&w illus. Paperback ISBN 90-5755-0040-0 US $24 Cloth ISBN 90-5755-003-2 US $59 Contemporary Music Studies, Volume 16 Harwood Academic Publishers Valeria Tsenova, ed. Underground Music from The Former USSR This book is a valuable source of information on the composers of the generations following the great Stravinsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. It is a document of the "hidden" period of Russian music, of what happened after the denunciation of Shostakovich and Prokofiev by the Composer's Union. In contains profiles of the most interesting and innovative composers from Russia and the former Soviet republics, written by leading musicologists. Featured composers include: Andrei Volkonsky, Philip Gershkovich, Sergei Slonimsky, Boris Tishchenko, Valentin Silestrov, Leonid Grabovsky, Nikolai Karetnikov, Alemdar Karamanov, Roamn Ledenyov, Vyacheslav Artyombv, Faraj Karayev, Alexander Knaifel, Vladislav Shoot, Alexander Vustin, Victor Ekimovsky, Alexander Rasktov, Sergei Pavieno, and Vladimir Tamopolsky. March 1998 272 pp Paperback ISBN 3-7186-5821-6 US $29
http://pup.princeton.edu/order_info Charles Dill, Monstrous Opera: Rameau and the Tragic Tradition One of the foremost composers of the French Baroque operatic tradition, Rameau is often cited for his struggle to steer lyric tragedy away from its strict Lullian form, inspired by spoken tragedy, and toward a more expressive musical style. In this fresh exploration of Rameau's compositional aesthetic, Charles Dill depicts a much more complicated figure: one obsessed with tradition, music theory, his own creative instincts, and the public's expectations of his music. Dill examines the ways Rameau mediated among these often competing values and how he interacted with his critics and with the public. The result is a sophisticated rethinking of Rameau as a musical innovator. In his compositions, Rameau tried to highlight music's potential for dramatic meanings. But his listeners, who understood lyric tragedy to be a poetic rather than musical genre, were generally frustrated by these attempts. In fact, some described Rameau's music as monstrous--using an image of deformity to represent the failure of reason and communication. Dill shows how Rameau answered his critics with rational, theoretical arguments about the role of music in lyric tragedy. At the same time, however, the composer sought to placate his audiences by substantially revising his musical texts in later performances, sometimes abandoning his most creative ideas. Monstrous Opera illuminates the complexity of Rameau's vision, revealing not only the tensions within the music but also the conflicting desires that drove the man--himself caricatured by his contemporaries as a monster. Charles Dill is Associate Professor of Music History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Princeton Studies in Opera: Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker, Editors JUNE 240 pages 22 music examples 6 x 9 0-691-04443-0 Cloth $39.95S Kenneth Levy, Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians A world-renowned scholar of plainchant, Kenneth Levy has spent a portion of his career investigating the nature and ramifications of this repertory's shift from an oral tradition to the written versions dating to the tenth century. In Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians, which represents the culmination of his research, Levy seeks to change long-held perceptions about ceratin crucial stages of the evolution and dissemination of the old corpus of plainchant--most notably the assumption that such a large and complex repertory could have become and remained fixed for over a century while still an oral tradition. Levy protrays the promulgation of an authoritative body of plainchant during the reign of Charlemagne by clearly differentiating between actual evidence, hypotheses, and received ideas. How many traditions of oral chant existed before the tenth century? Among the variations noted in written chant, can one point to a single version as being older or more authentic than the others? What precursors might there have been to the notational system used in all the surviving manuscripts, where the notational system seems fully formed and mature? In answering questions that have long vexed scholars of Gregorian chant's early history, Levy offers fresh explanations of such topics as the origin of Latin neumes, the shifting relationships between memory and early notations, and the puzzling differences among the first surviving neume-species from the tenth century, which have until now impeded a critical restoration of the Carolingian musical forms. Kenneth Levy is a Scheide Professor of Music History Emeritus at Princeton University. He is well known for his work in medieval music, particularly Byzantine and Latin plainchant. He is the author of Music: A Listener's Introduction. MARCH 296 pages 28 halftones 36 line illus. 2 tables 6 x 9 0-691-01733-6 Cloth $49.50S Leslie David Blasius, The Music Theory of Godfrey Winham This book serves as an introduction to the work of Godfrey Winham, an influential figure in American music theory circles in the 1960s. Little published in his lifetime, Winham left behind, at his premature death in 1974, a massive collection of notes: correspondence, unfinished articles, sketches for books, etc. These notes were transcribed and deposited in the Special Collections of Firestone Library at Princeton University. They cover a fascinating range of subjects: exercises in analytical logic, thoughts on the construction of a formally consistent music theory, studies of particular pieces, and an epistemological reconception of Schenker's analysis. In The Music Theory of Godfrey Winham, Leslie David Blasius attempts to synthesize the various aspects of the theorist's thinking into a single coherent, if unfinished, endeavor. Blasius concentrates in particular on Winham's attempts to define formally the basic terms of music theory, his axiomatic phenomenology of pitch and harmonic relations, his tentative steps towards an axiomatic phenomenology of rhythm, and his fresh consideration of the reciprocal relationship between theory and analysis. In so doing, Blasius gives a clear picture of the materials in the archives, particularly when they exhibit Winham's multiple attempts to come to terms with a specific problem. The volume includes a set of complete excerpts of materials cited in Blasius's text and an index for the entire collection. Leslie David Blasius is currently Assistant Professor of Music Theory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of Schenker's Argument and the Claims of Music Theory. A publication of the Department of Music, Princeton University 208 pages 6 x 9 0-691-01227-X Cloth $35.00 US L27.50 UK and Europe
Judit Frigyesi, Bela Bartok and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest "Outstanding...a significant achievement not only in Bartok research, but for its special perspective and its wealth of information and documentation regarding Hungarian culture and its relation to the broader European modern scene." -Elliott Antokoletz, author of The Music of Bela Bartok Bela Bartok and Turn-of-the-Century Budapest is an imaginative and powerful reinterpretation of Bartok's aesthetic achievement, which is presented as integrally related to its historical milieu in early twentieth-century Hungary. This is neither a conventional biography of Bartok, nor a systematic analysis of his musical oeuvre. Rather, it is a sustained interpretation of the meaning of Bartok's modernism and folklorism, within the context of Hungarian modernism. Few scholars besides Frigyesi, in or out of Hungary, possess the combination of skills necessary to write such a book and it will be a standard treatment of the subject for many years to come." -Mary Gluck, author of Georg Lukacs and His Generation Bartok's music is greatly prized by concertgoers, yet we know little about the intellectual milieu that gave rise to his artistry. Bartok is often seen as a lonely genius emerging from a gray background of an "underdeveloped country." Now Judit Frigyesi offers a broader perspective on Bartok's art by grounding it in the social and cultural life of turn-of-the-century Hungary and the intense creativity of its modernist movement. Bartok spent most of his life in Budapest, an exceptional man living in a remarkable milieu. Frigyesi argues that Hungarian modernism in general and Bartok's aesthetic in particular should be understood in terms of a collective search for wholeness in life and art and for a definition of identity in a rapidly changing world. Is it still possible, Bartok's generation of artists asked, to create coherent art in a world that is no longer whole? Bartok and others were preoccupied with this question and developed their aesthetics in response to it. In a discussion of Bartok and of Endre Ady, the most influential Hungarian poet of the time, Frigyesi demonstrates how different branches of art and different personalities responded to the same set of problems, creating oeuvres that appear as reflections of one another. She also examines Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, exploring philosophical and poetic ideas of Hungarian modernism and linking Bartok's stylistic innovations to these concepts. Judit Frigyesi is a Fulbright Fellow at Bar-Ilan University. Pub date: March 23, 1998 0-520-20740-8 $45.00 cloth 367 pages, 6 x 9", 11 b/w photographs, 48 music examples World rights
Michael Marissen, ed. Bach Perspectives 3: Creative Responses to the Music of J.S. Bach from Mozart to Hindemith This volume examines a fascinating dimension of J. S. Bach's music: the crucial influence it has exerted upon the musical works of many other composers. In a series of articles by distinguished musicologists, compositions my Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Hindemith, and others are considered in light of the ways in which they bear Bach's unmistakable imprint. Ludwig Finscher opens with a survey of Bach's influence through several centuries, examining his sway over composers from Mozart and Beethoven to Schumann, Wagner, and Reger. Thomas Christensen shows that various of Bach's early disciples claimed authority from their master for opposing assessments of music and musical theory. Robert L. Marshall argues that Mozart's intense involvement with Bach's music probably occurred much earlier in his career than has generally been thought. William Kinderman demonstrates that Beethoven's assimilation of Bach also occurred very early in his career and that all aspects of Beethoven's mature style are heavily indebted to Bach. Walter Frisch reveals how Brahms's absorption in Bach's work involves a fruitful relation to cultural tradition. Steven Hinton traces Hindemith's evolving--yet essentially consistent--understanding of Bach's music. A work that subtly yet decisively traces Bach's presence in the ongoing history of composition, this volume is an important contribution to our understanding of Bach and of his many eminent successors. Michael Marissen is a professor of music at Swarthmore College and vice president of the American Bach Society. He is also the author of The Social and Religious Designs of J. S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. June Music 240 pp. 6 3/4 x 10 45 musical examples, table, indexes $55.00s cloth 0-8032-1048-5 AMEBP3 Bach Perspectives: George J. Buelow, Laurence Dreyfus, Don O. Franklin, Walter B. Hewlett, Robert L. Marshall, Martin Petzoldt, George B. Stauffer, Russell Stinson, and Christoph Wolff, series editors. Ask for a complete list of titles in the series. Glenn Stanley, ed. Beethoven Forum 6 "The best of present-day Beethoven scholarship."--Stanley Sadie, editor of New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. "Since 1992, the University of Nebraska Press has published a *Beethoven Forum*, which is rich in information and knowledge. Fundamental research and topicality, once the domain of the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, are admirably combined in the Forum."--Der Spiegel. Glenn Stanley opens Beethoven Forum 6 with a consideration of the "piano sonata culture" of the late eighteenth century and how Beethoven's sonatas influenced this culture. Lawrence Kramer explores the "Tempest" sonata and the way it exemplifies "one of the leading intellectual projects of the Enlightenment, the project of speculative anthropology or 'universal history.'" Elaine R. Sisman examines the "lyrical," "small-scale" sonatas of Beethoven's middle period in relation to his renewed preoccupation with the idea of "fantasia." Nicholas Marston concludes the volume's consideration of the piano sonatas with a study of the development of a musical idea in the "Hammerklavier" sonata. Birgit Lodes examines the relationship between the human and the divine as they are represented in the Gloria of Beethoven's great mass, the Missa Solemnis. In a second article on this late masterpiece, Norbert Gertsch describes a subscription copy of the *Missa Solemnis*--a copy that Beethoven had corrected--and its significance for a future scholarly edition of the work. Maynard Solomon offers a commentary, transcription, and translation of a papal document concerning the marriage of Beethoven's great-uncle Cornelius. In a review article, Nicholas Marston discusses the recent edition of the Landsberg 5 sketchbook and future prospects for sketchbook eiditions. Robert Levin concludes the volume with a review of Performing Beethoven, edited by Robin Stowell. Glenn Stanley, an associate professor of music at the University of Connecticut, organized the March 1996 conference at Carnegie Hall entitled "The Beethoven Piano Sonatas: The Works and Their Critical Reception," at which these papers were first presented. He is also the editor of Beethoven Forum 3. February Music 288 pp. 8 1/8 x 10 1/4 48 musical examples; 5 tables; 6 illustrations, indexes $55.00s cloth 0-8032-4267-0 BEEBF6 Beethoven Forum: Lewis Lockwood, editor-in-chief; Mark Evan Bonds, Christopher Reynolds, and Elaine R. Sisman, series editors. Ask for a complete list of titles in the series.
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