A language of its own : sense and meaning in the making of Western art music / Ruth Katz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Katz, Ruth, 1927-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Music.

Music--History and criticism.

Music--Social aspects.

Music--Philosophy and aesthetics.

Physical Description:

xxiii, 354 pages : illustrations, music ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Summary:

The Western musical tradition has produced not only music, but also countless writings about music that remain in continuous-and enormously influential-dialogue with their subject. With sweeping scope and philosophical depth, A Language of Its Own traces the past millennium of this ongoing exchange. Ruth Katz argues that the indispensible relationship between intellectual production and musical creation gave rise to the Western conception of music. This evolving and sometimes conflicted process, in turn, shaped the art form itself. As ideas entered music from the contexts in which it existed, its internal language developed in tandem with shifts in intellectual and social history. Katz explores how this infrastructure allowed music to explain itself from within, creating a self-referential and rational foundation that has begun to erode in recent years. A magisterial exploration of a frequently overlooked intersection of Western art and philosophy, A Language of Its Own restores music to its rightful place in the history of ideas. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part I The Structuring of a Self-Referential World

1 The Making of Musical Building Blocks 11

Preliminary Clarifications 11

The Development of Western Notation and Its Significance 13

Gregorian Chant Revisited 15

The Rise of Notation as an Autonomous System 21

Pitch 23

Duration 28

Concerning Notation: Concluding Remarks 36

Musical Frameworks as Referential Systems 41

The Greek Heritage: Music as an Organized Auditory Phenomenon 42

The Musical Heritage of the World That Gave Rise to Christianity 44

The Formal Organization of the Chant Repertoire 53

2 Systematizing Musical Laws 59

The Self-Chosen Confines of Art 59

Horizontal and Vertical Elements: A Generating and Controlling Force, Respectively 60

Cementing the Relationships among Successively Composed Voices 65

"The Function of Closure" 66

From Imperfect to Perfect Consonance-Relating Voices and Sonorities by Interval Progressions 67

Bestowing a Semblance of "Oneness" on Particles 73

External Designs 76

The Development of Inner Cohesion 79

The Rise of Harmonic Tonality 87

The Move from Desired Coincidences among Voices to a "System of Chords" 88

The Systematization of Harmonic Tonality 94

Shifting Concerns-From Musical "Rules" to Music's Communicative "Powers" 98

Part II The Crafting of a "Shared Understanding"

3 Separating 'Sense' from 'Meaning' 109

Natural Languages: Some Relevant Points 109

The Power to Occasion an Atmosphere 113

Drama Aspiring toward the "Condition of Music" 114

The Legacy of the Humanists 117

Empirical Observation and Aesthetic Theory 121

Demystifying an Elusive Agenda 126

The Camerata: Custodian of a Paradigm 127

Leading Conceptual Turning Points 133

A Fundamental Change in the Conception of Art 134

Signs as Cognitive Tools 134

Moral Philosophy and Its "Affair" with 'Beauty' 136

Modes of Communication and Cognitive Expansions 140

Social Interaction as a Regulating Force 142

The Sagacity of Sensate Discourse 143

Human Consciousness as a Creator of "Truths" 144

The Sign and the Signified in Western Music 146

4 Probing the Limits of Musical Coherence 157

The Referential Function of Learned Schemata: External versus Internal References 157

Perception Replacing Conception 165

The Return of an Enigma 166

Music's Spiritual Peculiarity as Distinct from Its Mundane Technical Aspects 169

The Changed Status of the Artist 171

The Merger of the Arts 174

Tantalizing the Ear and Luring the Mind 177

The Reformulation of Musical Structure 177

From General "Language" to Particularized "Speech" 181

A General Theory concerning the Function of Symbol Systems in the Arts 187

The Flaunting of Identities: Individual and Collective 192

Intimacy Made Public 192

The Particularization of Publics 194

Music as a Cultural Subsystem 201

The Blend between Past and Future in Romantic Thought 202

Internal References Challenged 208

The Variable Functions of Theory 212

Part III The Retreat from the "Shared Understanding"

5 A Shift in Thought and Theory 219

The Organic Nature of the Theoretical Presuppositions of Music in the West 219

The Romantic Era from a Bird's-Eye View 219

The Relationship between the Composer and the Public Revisited 221

Aesthetic Autonomy-Art for Art's Sake 224

'Music': From Closed System to Open Concept 235

Some Characteristics of the "Turn" of the Century 238

"Aristotelianism" in Musical Aesthetics 241

"Concerning the Musically Beautiful" 243

In Defense of Musicology as Envisioned 248

Diverging Trends in Fin-de-Siècle Music and Musical Analysis 250

Landmarks in a New "Tonal" Environment 256

Defying the "Soundness" of the Harmonic System 257

The Establishment of a Musical Canon 263

Atonal and Twelve-Tone Music 267

Developments That Affected Music's External Semblance 277

Lending Saliency to the "Social Role of Art" 284

6 The Appropriation of Musical Meaning 295

The Rise of a Heteronomous Aesthetic 295

The General Distrust of Categorical Systems 296

Alternate Perspectives on the Relation between 'Conception' and 'Perception' 300

The Relationship between Form and Formal Function Reexamined 310

The Pliability of the Nonrepresentational 315

The Function of "Inclusive Symbols" 316

The Appropriation of Meaning 321

Evaluating Music: How and in What Way? 327.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226425962

9780226425979

0226425967

0226425975

OCLC:

297405968