The imaginary museum of musical works: an essay in the philosophy of music

What is involved in the composition, performance, and reception of classical music? What are we doing when we listen to this music seriously? Why when playing a Beethoven sonata do performers begin with the first note indicated in the score; why don't they feel free to improvise around the sonata's central theme? Why, finally, does it go against tradition for an audience at a concert ofclassical music to tap its feet? Bound up in these questions is the overriding question of what it means philosophically, musically, and historically for musicians to speak about music in terms of "works". In this book, Lydia Goehr describes how the concept of a musical work fully crystallized around1800, and subsequently defined the norms, expectations, and behavioral patterns that have come to characterize classical musical practice. The description is set in the context of a more general philosophical account of the rise and fall of concepts and ideals, and of their normative functions; at the same time, debates amongst conductors, early-music performers, and avant-gardists are addressed.The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works is a seminal work of scholarship, and has appeared in an astonishing variety of contexts and disciplines from musicological and philosophical since its initial publication. This second edition features a new Introductory Essay by the author, discussing the genesisof her groundbreaking thesis, how her subsequent work has followed and developed similar themes, and how criticisms along the way have informed not only her own work but the "Imaginary Museum" concept more generally as it spread across disciplinary lines. A provocative foreword by Richard Taruskin contextualizes Goehr's argument and points to its continuing centrality to the field. INDICE: FOREWORD; INTRODUCTORY ESSAY: HIS MASTER'S CHOICE; INTRODUCTION; PART I. THE ANALYTIC APPROACH; 1. A Nominalist Theory of Musical Works; 2. A Platonist Theory of Musical Works; 3. The Limits of Analysis and the Need for History; PART II. THE HISTORICAL APPROACH; 4. The Central Claim; 5. Musical Meaning: From Antiquity to the Enlightenment; 6. Musical Meaning; 7. Musical Production without the Work-Concept; 8. After 1800: The Beethoven Paradigm; 9. Werktreue: Confirmation and Challenge in Contemporary Movements; BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WORKS CITED; INDEX

• ISBN: 978-0-19-532478-5
• Editorial: Oxford University
• Encuadernacion: Rústica
• Páginas: 368
• Fecha Publicación: 01/02/2008
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés