Academic : Performing Arts : Literature on music : General works

The famous quip ''I don't know much about art, but I know what I like'' sums up many people's ideas about how to judge a work of art; but there are inherent limitations if we rely on immediate impressions in judging what should be enduring products of our culture. While some might criticize this as a return to ''elitism,'' Joshua Fineberg argues that without some way of determining intrinsic value, there can be no movement forward for creators or their audience. He draws on contemporary thought about ''Design space'' and ''Universal Grammar'' to show how intrinsic values can be rediscovered. He then looks at the importance of multimedia in allowing multiple points of entry for the discovering of new works, finally showing how the composer can ''Design music for human beings''--creating a kind of art that can preserve the research agenda of conceptual work without renouncing the understanding of human listeners and performers embodied by craft. Classical Music: Why Bother? will intrigue all listeners of contemporary music, students of musical thought, and composers-but it will also interest students of contemporary aesthetics. It answers the age-old question ''How can we bring a new audience to contemporary art?'' - and challenges both the creators and their audience to broaden their ideas about what is valuable and lasting in today's culture. more...

Price: $21.95

Combines into a cohesive statement the author’s pathbreaking critical essays on Western music. more...

Price: $90.00

Music, Language, and Cognition is the third collection of Peter Kivy's seminal papers in the philosophy of music. In essays which span his earliest work in the field and his more recent contributions to journals, anthologies, and conference proceedings, Kivy considers the origin of music, the medium of expression in opera, the role of music in film, the nature of an 'ideal' performance, and the question of whether absolute music has a meaning, among other issues. Rich with. critical analysis and informed by the history of both philosophy and music, this volume will be of interest to anyone who likes not only to listen to music, but to think about it as well. - ;Music, Language, and Cognition is the third collection of Peter Kivy's seminal papers in the philosophy of music. In essays which span his earliest work in the field and his more recent contributions to journals, anthologies, and conference proceedings, Kivy considers the origin of music, the medium of expression in opera, the role of music in film, the nature of an 'ideal' performance, and the question of whether absolute music has a meaning, among other issues. Rich with. critical analysis and informed by the history of both philosophy and music, this volume will be of interest to anyone who likes not only to listen to music, but to think about it as well. - more...

Price: $50.00

Like literature and art, music has ‘works’. But not every piece of music is called a work, and not every musical performance is made up of works. The complexities of this situation are explored in these essays, which examine a broad swathe of western music. From plainsong to the symphony, from Duke Ellington to the Beatles, this is at root an investigation into how our minds parcel up the music that we create and hear. more...

Price: $70.00

Considers the idea of self-consciousness in the work of Hölderlin, Hegel, Wordsworth, and Beethoven. more...

Price: $79.00