Performance studies in the Western art music tradition have often been dominated by the relationship of theoretical score-analysis to performance, although some recent trends have aimed at dislodging the primacy of the score in favour of assessing performance on its own terms. In this book Julian Hellaby further develops these trends by placing performance firmly at the heart of his investigations and presents a structured approach to analysing the interpretation of a musical work from the perspective of a musically informed listener. To enable analysis of individual interpretations, the author develops a conceptual framework in which a series of performance-related categories is arranged hierarchically into an 'interpretative tower'. Using this framework to analyse the acoustic evidence of a recording, interpretative elements are identified and used to assess the relationship between a performance and a work. The viability of the interpretative tower is tested in three major case studies. Contrasting recorded performances of solo keyboard works by Bach, Messiaen and Brahms are the focus of these studies, and analysis of the performances, using the tower model, uncovers an interpretative rationale. The book is wide-ranging in scope and holistic in approach, offering a means of enhancing a listener's appreciation of an interpretation. It is richly illustrated with examples taken from commercial recordings and from the author's own recordings of the three focal works. A CD of the latter is included.

Music scholarship's views of Franz Schubert's instrumental works continue to evolve. How might aesthetic values, historiographies, revisions to the composer's biography, and disciplinary commitments affect how we interpret his music? Schubert's Instrumental Music and Poetics of Interpretation explores the aesthetic positions and operations that underlie critical assessments of Schubert's instrumental works. In six chapters, each devoted to one or two of Schubert's pieces, René Rusch examines the conditions that have prompted scholarship to reevaluate the composer's music and legacy, considers how different conclusions about his music may be reflective of certain aesthetic values, investigates the role of narrative in both music analysis and constructions of history, and explores alternative forms of coherence through updated analyses of the composer's instrumental works. Rusch's observations and comparative analyses address four significant areas of scholarly focus in Schubert studies, including his approach to chromaticism, his unique musical forms, the relationship between his music and biography, and the influence of Beethoven. Drawing from a range of philosophical, hermeneutic, historical, biographical, theoretical, and analytical sources, Schubert's Instrumental Music and Poetics of Interpretation offers readers a unique and innovative foray into the poetics of contemporary analyses of Schubert's instrumental music and develops new ways to engage with his repertoire.

This book is a standard reference on Sonq dynasty music, and a model of meticulous scholarship. In the book Professor Pian surveys the theoretical and practical treatises on music, the historical and encyclopedic compilations, the song collections, and various other related materials. She comments on available editions of the musical works themselves, the origin of each piece, and its value for scholarly research. She also explains in detail the intricacies of the Sonq dynasty modal system and forms of notation, an understanding of which is essential for reading Sonq music. Originally published in 1967, this title is now reprinted with a new foreword and an introductory essay. Book jacket.

This extremely practical introduction to musical analysis explores the factors that give unity and coherence to musical masterpieces. Having first identified and explained the most important analytical methods, Nicholas Cook examines given compositions from the last two hundred years to show how different analytical procedures suit different types of music.

Every week, I see an article extolling the educational benefits of playing or singing music. From brain imaging to empirical data, the benefits are becoming well known. But I have yet to see a book describing the correlation between the elements of music and the elements of other areas of educational endeavorssuch as reading, math, and science. What I attempted to do in this book is to show these relationships in context of musical elements and elements found in other academic fields.

This selection of sixteen of Nicholas Cook's essays covers the period from 1987 to 2004 and brings out the development of the author's ideas over these years. In particular the two keywords of the title -Meaning and Performance- represent critical directions that expand to the point that, by the end of the book, they become coextensive: music is seen as social action and meaning as created by that action. Within this overall direction, a wide variety of topics is explored, ranging from Beethoven to Schenker, from Chinese qin music to jazz and rock, from perceptual psychology to sketch studies and analysis of record sleeves. A substantial introduction draws out the links (and differences) between the essays, sometimes critiquing them and always setting them into the developing context of the author's work as a whole.

First published in the Spanish periodical Anuario Musical, vols. XXVIII-XXIX, 1973 & 1974 (Barcelona, 1976), professor Kastner's article presents one of the most thorough and succinct studies on the interpretation of sixteenth and seventeenth century Iberian keyboard music. Its content has been drawn from extant theoretical sources coupled with the more than forty years of personal experience and keen insight of Macario Santiago Kastner, one of the major Hispanicists and musicologists of this century. Though dealing within the narrow frame of two Iberian centuries, the major part of this essay is pertinent to the performance and practice of all early music. --Translator's foreword.

This book explores the musical interest and needs of children in their daily lives. Based upon their expressed thoughts and actual "musicking" behaviors, this text examines the songs they sing, the rythyms they make, and the roles that music plays for them. Blending standard education field experiences with ethnographic techniques, Dr. Campbell demonstrates how music is personally and socially meaningful to children and what values they place on particular musical styles, songs, and functions. He explores musical behaviors in various contextual settings, and presents in notated and narrative forms some of the "songs in their heads," balancing music learned with music "made," and intentional, purposeful music with natural musical behavior. Songs in Their Heads is a vivid and engaging book that bridges the disciplines of music education, musicology, ethnomusicology, and folklore. Designed as a text or supplemental text in a variety of music education method courses, as well as a reference for music specialists and classroom teachers, this book will also appeal to parents interested in understanding and enhancing music making in their children.