The possessor and the possessed : Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the idea of musical genius / Peter Kivy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kivy, Peter.

Series:

Yale series in the philosophy and theory of art.

Yale series in the philosophy and theory of art

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Handel, George Frideric, 1685-1759.

Handel, George Frideric.

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791.

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus.

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827.

Beethoven, Ludwig van.

Genius--History.

Genius.

Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.)--History.

Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.).

Composers.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource (xiv, 287 p.) ) ill., ports.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The concept of genius intrigues us. Artistic geniuses have something other people don't have. In some cases that something seems to be a remarkable kind of inspiration that permits the artist to exceed his own abilities. It is as if the artist is suddenly possessed, as if some outside force flows through him at the moment of creation. In other cases genius seems best explained as a natural gift. The artist is the possessor of an extra talent that enables the production of masterpiece after masterpiece. This book explores the concept of artistic genius and how it came to be symbolized by three great composers of the modern era: Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven. Peter Kivy, a leading thinker in musical aesthetics, delineates the two concepts of genius that were already well formed in the ancient world. Kivy then develops the argument that these concepts have alternately held sway in Western thought since the beginning of the eighteenth century. He explores why this pendulum swing from the concept of the possessor to the concept of the possessed has occurred and how the concepts were given philosophical reformulations as views toward Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven as geniuses changed in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface

I. Time out of Mind

II. Greatness of Mind

III. Breaking the Rule

IV. The Saxon or the Devil

V. The Genius and the Child

VI. The Little Man from Salzburg

VII. Giving the Rule

VIII. An Unlicked Bear

IX. Mozart's Second Childhood

X. Odd Men Out

XI. Beethoven Again

XII. Gendering Genius

XIII. Reconstructing Genius

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 271-275) and index.

ISBN:

9786611734749

9781281734747

1281734748

9780300135114

0300135114

OCLC:

1013955138