Synopses & Reviews
"Clear, trenchant, delightfully opinionated, and thick with virtuosic word play. This book will not disappoint."and#151;Nicholas Cook, author of
The Schenker Project: Culture, Race, and Music Theory in Fin-de-siecle Vienna"Eloquently formulated and laced with wit. A major contribution to critical musicology."and#151;Derek B. Scott, author of Sounds of the Metropolis: The 19th-Century Popular Music Revolution in London, New York, Paris, and Vienna
"In this astonishing performance, Lawrence Kramer challenges us to rethink what it can mean to interpret music as listeners, as scholars, and as performers. Virtuosic, exhilarating, and provocative, this book confronts the conventional wisdom around such topics as hermeneutics, subjectivity, history, analysis, modernism, metaphor, and performance to shape our understanding of music into a virtual new order of things. Kramer's wide-ranging and humane outlook in Interpreting Music compels us to question what we thought we knew about music and meaning." and#151;Michael Klein, author of Intertextuality in Western Art Music
Review
and#8220;Well documented. . . . Recommended.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Thoughtful and thought-provoking. . . . All present are the qualities noted of Kramerand#8217;s impeccable writing: grace, deftness of touch, wide reading.and#8221;
Review
“Well documented. . . . Recommended.” Music and Letters
Synopsis
"Clear, trenchant, delightfully opinionated, and thick with virtuosic word play. This book will not disappoint."--Nicholas Cook, author of
The Schenker Project: Culture, Race, and Music Theory in Fin-de-siecle Vienna"Eloquently formulated and laced with wit. A major contribution to critical musicology."--Derek B. Scott, author of Sounds of the Metropolis: The 19th-Century Popular Music Revolution in London, New York, Paris, and Vienna
Synopsis
Interpreting Music is a comprehensive essay on understanding musical meaning and performing music meaningfullyand#151;and#147;interpreting musicand#8221; in both senses of the term. Synthesizing and advancing two decades of highly influential work, Lawrence Kramer fundamentally rethinks the concepts of work, score, performance, performativity, interpretation, and meaningand#151;even the very concept of musicand#151;while breaking down conventional wisdom and received ideas. Kramer argues that music, far from being closed to interpretation, is ideally open to it, and that musical interpretation is the paradigm of interpretation in general. The book illustrates the many dimensions of interpreting music through a series of case studies drawn from the classical repertoire, but its methods and principles carry over to other repertoires just as they carry beyond music by working through music to wider philosophical and cultural questions.
About the Author
Lawrence Kramer is Professor of Music and English at Fordham University. He is the author of many books, including Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History; Opera and Modern Culture; and Why Classical Music Still Matters, all from UC Press.
Table of Contents
Contents
List of Musical Examples
1. Hermeneutics
2. Language
3. Subjectivity
4. Meaning
5. Metaphor
6. History
7. Influence
8. Deconstruction
9. Analysis
10. Resemblance
11. Things
12. Classical
13. Modern
14. Works
15. Performance
16. Musicology
Notes
Index