Esthetics of Music

by Carl Dahlhaus, William W. Austin

Overview

This book is an introduction to the esthetics of music. Aesthetics, which were of prime importance in thinking about music in the nineteenth century, are today sometimes suspected of being idle speculation. Yet judgments about music and every sort of musical activity are based on aesthetic presuppositions. Carl Dahlhaus gives an account of developments in the aesthetics of music from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. He combines a historical and systematic approach. Central themes in music are grouped together to illustrate both the historical course of events and a systematic unity of the essential elements in the aesthetics of music. For this edition, the late Carl Dahlhaus provided an annotated bibliography. William Austin has added books for the English-speaking reader, and has also supplied notes to the text to help the student.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521280075
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/25/1982
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.47(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.59(d)

Table of Contents

Preface; Translator's introduction; 1. Historical starting-points; 2. Music as text and work of art; 3. Changing phases of the aesthetics of emotion; 4. Emancipation of instrumental music; 5. Judgements of art and of taste; 6. Genius, enthusiasm, technique; 7. Affection and idea; 8. Dialectics of 'sounding inwardness'; 9. The quarrel over formalism; 10. Program music; 11. Tradition and reform in opera; 12. Estetics and history; 13. Toward the phenomenology of music; 14. Standards of criticism; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...a magnificent introduction to the problems faced by aestheticians of the past and present...should be on all shelves as a standard reference." Choice

"As an introduction to the field by way of its major figures and topics, the work can hardly be bettered." MLA Notes

From the Publisher