The Beethoven syndrome : hearing music as autobiography / Mark Evan Bonds.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bonds, Mark Evan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827--Appreciation--History.

Beethoven, Ludwig van.

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827.

Music--Philosophy and aesthetics--History.

Music.

Expression (Philosophy)--History.

Expression (Philosophy).

Art appreciation.

Music--Philosophy and aesthetics.

History.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xii, 325 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2020]

Summary:

"The 'Beethoven syndrome' is the inclination of listeners to hear music as the projection of a composer's inner self. This was a radically new way of listening that emerged after Beethoven's death. Beethoven's music was a catalyst for this change, but only in retrospect, for it was not until after his death that listeners began to hear composers--and not just Beethoven--in their works, particularly in their instrumental music. The Beethoven syndrome: hearing music as autobiography traces the rise, fall, and persistence of this mode of listening from the middle of the eighteenth century to the present. Prior to 1830, composers and audiences alike operated within a framework of rhetoric in which the burden of intelligibility lay squarely on the composer, whose task it was to move listeners in a calculated way. But through a confluence of musical, philosophical, social, and economic changes, the paradigm of expressive objectivity gave way to one of subjectivity in the years around 1830. The framework of rhetoric thus yielded to a framework of hermeneutics: concert-goers no longer perceived composers as orators but as oracles to be deciphered. In the wake of World War I, however, the aesthetics of 'new objectivity' marked a return not only to certain stylistic features of eighteenth-century music but also to the earlier concept of expression itself. Objectivity would become the cornerstone of the high modernist aesthetic that dominated the century's middle decades. Masterfully citing a broad array of source material from composers, critics, theorists, and philosophers, Mark Evan Bonds's engaging study reveals how perceptions of subjective expression have endured, leading to the present era of mixed and often conflicting paradigms of listening"--Dust jacket flap.

Contents:

Part 1 The Paradigm of Objective Expression: 1770-1830 p. 19

1 The Framework of Rhetoric p. 21

Expression as a Means of Persuasion p. 22

The Composer as Actor p. 25

Mimesis p. 33

2 Toward the Perception of Subjective Expression p. 38

Artasa Window on the Self p. 40

The Prestige of the Passions p. 50

Lyric Poetry p. 54

3 Hearing Composers in Their Work p. 58

Fantasy p. 58

Humor and Irony p. 73

Beethoven's Subjectivity in an Age of Objectivity p. 82

Part 2 The Paradigm of Subjective Expression: 1830-1920 p. 95

4 The Framework of Hermeneutics p. 97

The Perception of Sincerity p. 98

The Perception of Oracularity p. 106

5 First-Person Beethoven p. 120

From Rhetoric to Hermeneutics p. 120

The Heiligenstadt Testament p. 128

6 After Beethoven p. 143

Written Lives p. 143

Audible Lives p. 146

Form versus Content p. 154

Later Composers p. 157

Retrospective Subjectivity p. 161

Two Categories of Music p. 166

Part 3 Dual Paradigms: Since 1920 p. 169

7 The Return of Objectivity p. 171

The Composer as Chameleon p. 175

The Composer as Medium p. 178

The Composer as Engineer p. 179

8 The Endurance of Subjectivity p. 183.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 277-306) and index.

ISBN:

9780190068479

0190068477

OCLC:

1104214104

Publisher Number:

99983126120