Music as thought : listening to the symphony in the age of Beethoven / Mark Evan Bonds.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bonds, Mark Evan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Symphony--19th century.

Symphony.

Music appreciation.

Music--Philosophy and aesthetics.

Music.

Physical Description:

xx, 169 pages ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2006]

Summary:

"Through the lucid presentation of many diverse sources and the close reading of several central documents, "Music as Though"t establishes the cultural force of listening to music in the age of Beethoven. The result is a compelling story with a fresh polemical spin."--Scott Burnham, Princeton University

""Music as Thought" navigates the discursive space of nineteenth-century German symphonies, and Beethoven's symphonic music especially, between the pointedly apolitical metaphysics of 'absolute music, 'and the explicit political appropriation of these works in the service of emerging German nationalism. It is hard to imagine a topic that would be more central to current musicological discourse."--Alexander Rehding, Harvard University

Contents:

Prologue. An unlikely genre : the rise of the symphony

Listening with imagination : the revolution in aesthetics.

Listening as thinking : from rhetoric to philosophy

Listening to truth : Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

Listening to the aesthetic state : cosmopolitanism

Listening to the German State : nationalism

Epilogue. Listening to form : the refuge of absolute music.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [153]-166) and index.

ISBN:

0691126593

OCLC:

62330881

Publisher Number:

9780691126593