The classic work on the philosophy of music—now available in English to a new generation of readers Vladimir Jankélévitch left behind a remarkable body of work steeped as much in philosophy as in music. His writings on moral quandaries reflect a lifelong devotion to music and performance, and, as a counterpoint, he wrote on music aesthetics and on modernist composers such as Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. Music and the Ineffable brings together these two threads, the philosophical and the musical, as an extraordinary quintessence of his thought. Jankélévitch deals with classical issues in the philosophy of music, including metaphysics and ontology. These are a point of departure for a sustained examination and dismantling of the idea of musical hermeneutics in its conventional sense. Music, Jankélévitch argues, is not a hieroglyph, not a language or sign system; nor does it express emotions, depict landscapes or cultures, or narrate. On the other hand, music cannot be imprisoned within the icy, morbid notion of pure structure or autonomous discourse. Yet if musical works are not a cipher awaiting the decoder, music is nonetheless entwined with human experience, and with the physical, material reality of music in performance. Music is "ineffable," as Jankélévitch puts it, because it cannot be pinned down, and has a capacity to engender limitless resonance in several domains. Jankélévitch's singular work on music was central to such figures as Roland Barthes and Catherine Clément, and the complex textures and rhythms of his lyrical prose sound a unique note, until recently seldom heard outside the francophone world.

Vladimir Jankélévitch left behind a remarkable uvre steeped as much in philosophy as in music. His writings on moral quandaries reflect a lifelong devotion to music and performance, and, as a counterpoint, he wrote on music aesthetics and on modernist composers such as Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. Music and the Ineffable brings together these two threads, the philosophical and the musical, as an extraordinary quintessence of his thought. Jankélévitch deals with classical issues in the philosophy of music, including metaphysics and ontology. These are a point of departure for a sustained examination and dismantling of the idea of musical hermeneutics in its conventional sense. Music, Jankélévitch argues, is not a hieroglyph, not a language or sign system; nor does it express emotions, depict landscapes or cultures, or narrate. On the other hand, music cannot be imprisoned within the icy, morbid notion of pure structure or autonomous discourse. Yet if musical works are not a cipher awaiting the decoder, music is nonetheless entwined with human experience, and with the physical, material reality of music in performance. Music is "ineffable," as Jankélévitch puts it, because it cannot be pinned down, and has a capacity to engender limitless resonance in several domains. Jankélévitch's singular work on music was central to such figures as Roland Barthes and Catherine Clément, and the complex textures and rhythms of his lyrical prose sound a unique note, until recently seldom heard outside the francophone world.

The relationship between music and religion has long been a clearly delineated one. Up to the late Middle Ages, music employed for ritual expressions of faith in sacred contexts was contrasted with secular music, then mostly played in open spaces. The former was believed to aid in the communication of divine truths, while the latter was suspected of arousing sensuality and thus potentially leading away from the spiritual perspective of life. In subsequent centuries, music entered first the courtly salons, then the concert hall and the home. Such music, created for virtuoso performance or for the enjoyment in private chambers, occasionally made room for an expression of religious experiences outside the dedicated spaces of worship. This aspect is particularly intriguing in instrumental music, where allusions to extra-musical messages are at best hinted at in titles or explanatory notes, and in those cases of vocal music where it can be shown that the musical language adds significant nuances to the verbal text. On the basis of various case studies that transcend a music-analytical approach in the direction of the hermeneutic perspective, this volume explores in which ways the musical language in itself, independently of an explicitly sacred context, communicates the ineffable. The discussion focuses on the musical means and devices employed to this effect and on the question what the presence of religious messages in certain works of secular music tells us about the spirituality of an era.

Milton and the Ineffable offers a comprehensive reassessment of Milton's poetic oeuvre in light of the literary and conceptual problem posed by the poet's attempt to put into words that which is unsayable and beyond representation. The struggle with the ineffability of sacred or transcendental subject matter in many ways defines Milton's triumphs as a poet, especially in Paradise Lost, and goes to the heart of the central critical debates to engage his readers over the centuries and decades. Taking an interdisciplinary conceptual approach, this study sheds fresh light on many of these debates by situating his poetics of ineffability in the context of the intellectual cross-currents of Renaissance humanism and Protestant theology. The book plots an ongoing narrative in Milton's poetry about silence and ineffable mystery which forms the intellectual framework within which Milton continually shapes and reshapes his poetic vision of the created universe and the elect man's singular place within it. From the free paraphrase of Psalm 114 to Paradise Regained, the presence of the ineffable insinuates itself into Milton's poetry as both the catalyst and check for his poetic creativity, where the fear of silence and ineffable mystery on the one hand, and the yearning to lose himself and his readers in unspeakable rapture on the other, becomes a struggle for poetic self-determination and finally redemption.

What, exactly, is knowledge of music? And what does it tell us about humanistic knowledge in general? The Thought of Music grapples directly with these fundamental questions—questions especially compelling at a time when humanistic knowledge is enmeshed in debates about its character and future. In this third volume in a trilogy on musical understanding that includes Interpreting Music and Expression and Truth, Lawrence Kramer seeks answers in both thought about music and thought in music—thinking in tones. He skillfully assesses musical scholarship in the aftermath of critical musicology and musical hermeneutics and in view of more recent concerns with embodiment, affect, and performance. This authoritative and timely work challenges the prevailing conceptions of every topic it addresses: language, context, and culture; pleasure and performance; and, through music, the foundations of understanding in the humanities. The publisher gratefully acknowledges the Joseph Kerman Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

From Confucius to Saint Augustine and Beethoven to the blues, a rediscovery of the joy that is music In this revelatory book, Daniel K. L. Chua asks a simple question: Is music joy? For Chua, the answer is a resounding yes--music is a lesson in joy that teaches us how to live well. But to hear this ancient knowledge, he says, we have to attend to a music that is so much greater than our greatest hits. Drawing on extensive sources, from the Confucian classics to the writings of Saint Augustine, Chua's book is a globe‑trotting, time‑traveling, mind‑boggling journey to rediscover the joy that is music. Using examples from Beethoven to the blues and from philosophy and theology to music theory, Chua updates the relation between music and joy and argues for its relevance in the face of our many political and environmental crises. He opens our ears to a music that is the very definition of joy for today's troubled world.

Melissa and Vince know they want to be together, but run into issues while focusing on their relationship. Only when they're apart do they realize how much they need each other. Just as all is well, Melissa's parents enter the picture and cause trouble for her.

“Light, as it were, is but a current in the vast ocean of time.” Under a black starless sky, a troupe of ragged freaks and performers - led by the perverse and enigmatic Ringmaster - makes its way into a town disparaged by death and disease, intent on curing the sadness, suffering and infirmity of its inhabitants with Light.

Deep Refrains is a wide-ranging investigation of the philosophy of music. Michael Gallope asks what it means for music to "speak” when it is not saying anything in particular. To answer this question, he turns to the writings of some of the most revered thinkers of the twentieth century--Ernst Bloch, Theodor Adorno, Vladimir Jank�l�vitch, Gilles Deleuze, and F�lix Guattari. For these theorists, Gallope argues, the paradox that music is both ineffable and yet harbors deep philosophical wisdoms is fertile ground for thinking outside of conceptual boundaries. It provides the lens for a utopian potentiality that inspires hope (Bloch), an ethical critique of modernity (Adorno), an exemplification of the ephemeral movement of lived time (Jank�l�vitch), and a sonic extension of the syncopated, contrapuntal rhythms of sense and social life (Deleuze and Guattari). Gallope argues that a philosophical engagement with music’s ineffability rarely calls for silence or declarations of the unspeakable. Rather, it asks us to think through the ways in which the impact of music is made to address complex philosophical problems specific to the modern world.