Among the fine arts music has always held a paramount position. "Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, " wrote Plato. From the "music of the spheres" of Pythagoras to the "Future Music" of Wagner, from churches, courts, cathedrals, and concert halls to amateur recitals, military marches, and electronic records, music has commanded the perpetual attention of every civilization in history. This book follows through the centuries the debates about the place and function of music, the perceived role of music as a good or bad influence on the development of character, as a magical art or a domestic entertainment, and as a gateway to transcendental truths. Edward Lippman describes the beginnings of musical tradition in the myths and philosophies of antiquity. He shows how music theory began to take on new dimensions and intensity in the seventeenth century, how musical aesthetics was specifically defined and elaborated in the eighteenth century, and how, by the nineteenth century, music became the standard by which other arts were judged. The twentieth century added problems, pressure, and theories as music continued to diversify and as cultures viewed each other with more respect.

This book contains six chapters covering key areas of musical aesthetics, including aesthetics of emotions; aesthetics of listening; aesthetics of performance; aesthetics of composition; aesthetics of nature; and aesthetics of commerce. Each chapter adopts an experiential approach to aesthetics, in which perceptual and intuitive musical responses – real-time experiences – are valued as a source of truth. Unlike intellectual aesthetics, which values conscious associations and meticulous artistic appraisals, experiential aesthetics looks primarily at everyday subconscious appreciations. The explorations here draw from the social sciences, hard sciences, philosophy, literature, theology, musicology, humanities, and other fields that directly or indirectly contribute to an understanding of our attraction to music. Presenting user-friendly distillations of numerous theories, concepts, and functions, this book will be of interest to both lay readers and expert practitioners.

Bucknell's study investigates how music, as a discrete artistic mode of expression and a recurring theme in the work of these four writers, reveals the intricate and varied nature of the modernist project."--Jacket.

Musical aesthetics in this century--like music itself--is distinguished by its concern with specifically musical forms and principles-with the interrelationships and transformation of motifs with the permutations of sets of tones with the characteristics of forms such as the fugue or sonata and with underlying or background structures that are not really audible themselves but that nevertheless are important determinants of the form and sense of the music. Thus music and musical thought i n this century have been significantly determined by a reaction against the predominating qualities and values of the 19th century; musical hermeneutics symbolism and semiotics having replaced the traditional problem of emotional content. This volume is the third of three which are designed to present the main trends of Western musical thought in the area of philosophy and aesthetics. Each section of the work presenting the fundamental statements of a given aesthetic issue has its own brief introduction defining and interrelating the relevant ideas; the various sections seek to clarify the underlying historical continuities of thought. Each also concludes with its own bibliography.

Whilst E.T.A. Hoffmann (1776-1822) is most widely known as the author of fantastic tales, he was also prolific as a music critic, productive as a composer, and active as a conductor. This book examines Hoffmann's aesthetic thought within the broader context of the history of ideas of the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries, and explores the relationship between his musical aesthetics and compositional practice. The first three chapters consider his ideas about creativity and aesthetic appreciation in relation to the thought of other German romantic theorists, discussing the central tenets of his musical aesthetic - the idea of a 'religion of art', of the composer as a 'genius', and the listener as a 'passive genius'. In particular the relationship between the multifaceted thought of Hoffmann and Friedrich Schleiermacher is explored, providing some insight into the way in which diverse intellectual traditions converged in early-nineteenth-century Germany. In the second half of the book, Hoffmann's dialectical view of music history and his conception of romantic opera are discussed in relation to his activities as a composer, with reference to his instrumental music and his two mature, large-scale operas, Aurora and Undine. The author also addresses broader issues pertaining to the ideological and historical significance of Hoffmann's musical and literary oeuvre.

A wide-ranging study of Fauré and his contemporaries.

This book opens with the emergence and development of the discipline of aesthetics in western countries, specifically the history of Western Music Aesthetics, to study and delve into the development of Chinese Music Aesthetics. The book provides a clear timeline throughout the writing — from the history of Chinese Music Aesthetics, to the construction of a theoretical framework, and the intersections and conversations between Western and Chinese Music Aesthetics. This academic piece is fundamentally consistent with the developing field of Chinese philosophical and literary research.This book also discusses important music aesthetic categories of Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism, and metaphysics, and uses critical thinking to analyse the relationship between these categories and relevant schools of thought, reflecting the author's academic vision and thought process.

Edward A. Lippman?s writings on musical aesthetics comprise a wide variety of areas and employ both systematic and historical approaches, reflecting throughout his unrivaled knowledge of the philosophical literature on music and his deep understanding of the musical repertory. These essays span a broad range of subjects, from the ancients? sense of what music encompasses to the experience of rhythm in Anton Webern?s work. ø Lippman surveys the physical and physiological factors that condition musical perception, and he explores the effect of sung text in vocal music. In the more purely philosophical realm, he argues persuasively that music speaks in its own terms, not in any formalistic sense but through the symbolic meanings it conveys. ø The historically focused essays include investigations of the aesthetic thinking of Wagner and Schumann, an endeavor that leads Lippman to probe the sources and drives behind musical creativity. Elsewhere he explores the development of particular musical styles. The Philosophy and Aesthetics of Music draws upon both philosophy and musicology in demonstrating how the interpretation of music extends far beyond the scope of conventional theory and analysis.

Aesthetics of Music: Musicological Approaches is an anthology of fourteen essays, each addressing a single key concept or pair of terms in the aesthetics of music, collectively serving as an authoritative work on musical aesthetics that remains as close to 'the music' as possible. Each essay includes musical examples from works in the 18th, 19th, and into the 20th century. Topics have been selected from amongst widely recognised central issues in musical aesthetics, as well as those that have been somewhat neglected, to create a collection that covers a distinctive range of ideas. All essays cover historical origins, sources, and developments of the chosen idea, survey important musicological approaches, and offer new critical angles or musical case studies in interpretation.

Contains nearly 1000 pages of precise and accessible information on all musical subjects.