Synopses & Reviews
Musical Understandings presents an engaging collection of essays on the philosophy of music, written by Stephen Davies--one of the most distinguished philosophers in the field. He explores a range of topics in the philosophy of music, including how music expresses emotion and what is distinctive to the listener's response to this expressiveness; the modes of perception and understanding that can be expected of skilled listeners, performers, analysts, and composers and the various manners in which these understandings can be manifest; the manner in which musical works exist and their relation to their instances or performances; and musical profundity. As well as reviewing the work of philosophers of music, a number of the chapters both draw on and critically reflect on current work by psychologists concerning music. The collection includes new material, a number of adapted articles which allow for a more comprehensive, unified treatment of the issues at stake, and work published in English for the first time.
Review
"The collection does not fail to impress in its attention to detail and variety of music. It is this
detail that also offers the greatest rewards of reading Daviess collection."--Hanne Appelqvist, Philosophy in Review
About the Author
Stephen Davies teaches philosophy at the University of Auckland. He writes mainly about aesthetics and the philosophy of art, and has written extensively on the definition of art, the ontological character of artworks, cross-cultural aesthetics, the expression of emotion in art, and the interpretation and evaluation of art. His books include
Musical Works and Performances (Clarendon, 2001),
Themes in the Philosophy of Music (OUP, 2003),
The Philosophy of Art (Blackwell, 2006), and
Philosophical Perspectives on Art (OUP, 2007).
Table of Contents
1. Artistic Expression and the Hard Case of Pure Music
2. Music and Metaphor
3. Cross-cultural Musical Expressiveness: Theory and the Empirical Program
4. Emotional Contagion from Music to Listener
5. Once Again, This Time with Feeling
6. Musical Meaning in a Broader Perspective
7. Musical Understandings
8. The Experience of Music
9. Cosi's Canon Quartet
10. Perceiving Melodies
11. Musical Colors and Timbral Sonicism
12. Versions of Musical Works and Literary Translations
13. Profundity in Instrumental Music