Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes

Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes

Author: Robert S. Hatten

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2017-09-04

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 0253030277

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"Robert Hatten's new book is a worthy successor to his Musical Meaning in Beethoven, which established him as a front-rank scholar . . . in questions of musical meaning. . . . [B]oth how he approaches musical works and what he says about them are timely and to the point. Musical scholars in both musicology and theory will find much of value here, and will find their notions of musical meaning challenged and expanded." —Patrick McCreless This book continues to develop the semiotic theory of musical meaning presented in Robert S. Hatten's first book, Musical Meaning in Beethoven (IUP, 1994). In addition to expanding theories of markedness, topics, and tropes, Hatten offers a fresh contribution to the understanding of musical gestures, as grounded in biological, psychological, cultural, and music-stylistic competencies. By focusing on gestures, topics, tropes, and their interaction in the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, Hatten demonstrates the power and elegance of synthetic structures and emergent meanings within a changing Viennese Classical style. Musical Meaning and Interpretation—Robert S. Hatten, editor


Book Synopsis Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes by : Robert S. Hatten

Download or read book Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes written by Robert S. Hatten and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-04 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Robert Hatten's new book is a worthy successor to his Musical Meaning in Beethoven, which established him as a front-rank scholar . . . in questions of musical meaning. . . . [B]oth how he approaches musical works and what he says about them are timely and to the point. Musical scholars in both musicology and theory will find much of value here, and will find their notions of musical meaning challenged and expanded." —Patrick McCreless This book continues to develop the semiotic theory of musical meaning presented in Robert S. Hatten's first book, Musical Meaning in Beethoven (IUP, 1994). In addition to expanding theories of markedness, topics, and tropes, Hatten offers a fresh contribution to the understanding of musical gestures, as grounded in biological, psychological, cultural, and music-stylistic competencies. By focusing on gestures, topics, tropes, and their interaction in the music of Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, Hatten demonstrates the power and elegance of synthetic structures and emergent meanings within a changing Viennese Classical style. Musical Meaning and Interpretation—Robert S. Hatten, editor


Musical Meaning in Beethoven

Musical Meaning in Beethoven

Author: Robert S. Hatten

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2004-10-20

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 9780253217110

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Award-winning examination of Beethoven's music.


Book Synopsis Musical Meaning in Beethoven by : Robert S. Hatten

Download or read book Musical Meaning in Beethoven written by Robert S. Hatten and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2004-10-20 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning examination of Beethoven's music.


A Theory of Virtual Agency for Western Art Music

A Theory of Virtual Agency for Western Art Music

Author: Robert S. Hatten

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2018-09-06

Total Pages: 249

ISBN-13: 0253038014

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In his third volume on musical expressive meaning, Robert S. Hatten examines virtual agency in music from the perspectives of movement, gesture, embodiment, topics, tropes, emotion, narrativity, and performance. Distinguished from the actual agency of composers and performers, whose intentional actions either create music as notated or manifest music as significant sound, virtual agency is inferred from the implied actions of those sounds, as they move and reveal tendencies within music-stylistic contexts. From our most basic attributions of sources for perceived energies in music, to the highest realm of our engagement with musical subjectivity, Hatten explains how virtual agents arose as distinct from actual ones, how unspecified actants can take on characteristics of (virtual) human agents, and how virtual agents assume various actorial roles. Along the way, Hatten demonstrates some of the musical means by which composers and performers from different historical eras have staged and projected various levels of virtual agency, engaging listeners imaginatively and interactively within the expressive realms of their virtual and fictional musical worlds.


Book Synopsis A Theory of Virtual Agency for Western Art Music by : Robert S. Hatten

Download or read book A Theory of Virtual Agency for Western Art Music written by Robert S. Hatten and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-06 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his third volume on musical expressive meaning, Robert S. Hatten examines virtual agency in music from the perspectives of movement, gesture, embodiment, topics, tropes, emotion, narrativity, and performance. Distinguished from the actual agency of composers and performers, whose intentional actions either create music as notated or manifest music as significant sound, virtual agency is inferred from the implied actions of those sounds, as they move and reveal tendencies within music-stylistic contexts. From our most basic attributions of sources for perceived energies in music, to the highest realm of our engagement with musical subjectivity, Hatten explains how virtual agents arose as distinct from actual ones, how unspecified actants can take on characteristics of (virtual) human agents, and how virtual agents assume various actorial roles. Along the way, Hatten demonstrates some of the musical means by which composers and performers from different historical eras have staged and projected various levels of virtual agency, engaging listeners imaginatively and interactively within the expressive realms of their virtual and fictional musical worlds.


Music and Gesture

Music and Gesture

Author: Elaine King

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 1351557793

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume showcases key theoretical ideas and practical considerations in the growing area of scholarship on musical gesture. The book constructs and explores the relations between music and gesture from a range of differing perspectives, identifying theoretical approaches and examining the nature of certain types of gesture in musical performance. The twelve chapters in this volume are organized into a heuristic progression from theory to practice, from essay to case study. Theoretical considerations about the interpretation of musical gestures are identified and phrased in terms of semiotics, the mimetic hypothesis, concepts of musical force, immanence, quotation and topic, and the work of musical gestures. The lives of musical gestures in performance are revealed through engaging with their rhythmic properties as well as inquiring into the breathing of pianists, the nature of clarinettists' bodily movements, and the physical acts and personae of individual artists, specifically Keith Jarrett and Robbie Williams. The reader is encouraged to listen to the various resonances and tensions between the chapters, including the importance given to bodies, processes, motions, expressions, and interpretations of musical gesture. The book will be of significance to musicologists, theorists, semioticians, analysts, composers and performers, as well as scholars working in different research communities with an interest in the study of gesture.


Book Synopsis Music and Gesture by : Elaine King

Download or read book Music and Gesture written by Elaine King and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume showcases key theoretical ideas and practical considerations in the growing area of scholarship on musical gesture. The book constructs and explores the relations between music and gesture from a range of differing perspectives, identifying theoretical approaches and examining the nature of certain types of gesture in musical performance. The twelve chapters in this volume are organized into a heuristic progression from theory to practice, from essay to case study. Theoretical considerations about the interpretation of musical gestures are identified and phrased in terms of semiotics, the mimetic hypothesis, concepts of musical force, immanence, quotation and topic, and the work of musical gestures. The lives of musical gestures in performance are revealed through engaging with their rhythmic properties as well as inquiring into the breathing of pianists, the nature of clarinettists' bodily movements, and the physical acts and personae of individual artists, specifically Keith Jarrett and Robbie Williams. The reader is encouraged to listen to the various resonances and tensions between the chapters, including the importance given to bodies, processes, motions, expressions, and interpretations of musical gesture. The book will be of significance to musicologists, theorists, semioticians, analysts, composers and performers, as well as scholars working in different research communities with an interest in the study of gesture.


The Free Fantasia and the Musical Picturesque

The Free Fantasia and the Musical Picturesque

Author: Annette Richards

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-01-04

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 9780521640770

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book explores the 'picturesque' in the music of Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven.


Book Synopsis The Free Fantasia and the Musical Picturesque by : Annette Richards

Download or read book The Free Fantasia and the Musical Picturesque written by Annette Richards and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-04 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the 'picturesque' in the music of Bach, Haydn, and Beethoven.


Music and Narrative Since 1900

Music and Narrative Since 1900

Author: Michael L. Klein

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 445

ISBN-13: 0253006449

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This comprehensive volume offers a wide-ranging perspective on the stories that art music has told since the start of the 20th century. Contributors challenge the broadly held opinion that the loss of tonality in some music after 1900 also meant the loss of narrative in that music. To the contrary, the editors and essayists in this book demonstrate how experiments in approaching narrative in other media, such as fiction and cinema, suggested fresh possibilities for musical narrative, which composers were quick to exploit. The new conceptions of time, narrative voice, plot, and character that accompanied these experiments also had a significant impact on contemporary music. The repertoire explored in the collection ranges across a wide variety of genres and includes composers from Charles Ives and the Pet Shop Boys to Thomas Adès and Dmitri Shostakovich.


Book Synopsis Music and Narrative Since 1900 by : Michael L. Klein

Download or read book Music and Narrative Since 1900 written by Michael L. Klein and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume offers a wide-ranging perspective on the stories that art music has told since the start of the 20th century. Contributors challenge the broadly held opinion that the loss of tonality in some music after 1900 also meant the loss of narrative in that music. To the contrary, the editors and essayists in this book demonstrate how experiments in approaching narrative in other media, such as fiction and cinema, suggested fresh possibilities for musical narrative, which composers were quick to exploit. The new conceptions of time, narrative voice, plot, and character that accompanied these experiments also had a significant impact on contemporary music. The repertoire explored in the collection ranges across a wide variety of genres and includes composers from Charles Ives and the Pet Shop Boys to Thomas Adès and Dmitri Shostakovich.


Film Music Analysis

Film Music Analysis

Author: Frank Lehman

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-05-31

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1040000274

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since the establishment of film music studies, there has been a steady growth of serious analytical work on the film music repertoire. Film Music Analysis: Studying the Score offers the first collection of essays dedicated to the close investigation of musical structure and meaning in film music. Showcasing scholarship from a diverse and distinguished group of music theorists and musicologists, this book presents the many ways to inspect the inner workings of film music in a manner that is exciting and accessible to anyone curious about this music, regardless of their background in film or music theory. Each chapter takes as its focus one music-theoretical parameter and explores how that concept can be used to analyze and interpret film music. Covering theoretical concepts that range from familiar categories such as leitmotif and pitch structure to more cutting-edge ideas such as timbral associativity, topic theory, and metrical states, the book provides a toolkit with which to explore this captivatingly varied repertoire. With example analyses drawn from classic and contemporary films, Film Music Analysis: Studying the Score is a valuable teaching tool and an indispensable addition to the library of any lover of film and music.


Book Synopsis Film Music Analysis by : Frank Lehman

Download or read book Film Music Analysis written by Frank Lehman and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-05-31 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the establishment of film music studies, there has been a steady growth of serious analytical work on the film music repertoire. Film Music Analysis: Studying the Score offers the first collection of essays dedicated to the close investigation of musical structure and meaning in film music. Showcasing scholarship from a diverse and distinguished group of music theorists and musicologists, this book presents the many ways to inspect the inner workings of film music in a manner that is exciting and accessible to anyone curious about this music, regardless of their background in film or music theory. Each chapter takes as its focus one music-theoretical parameter and explores how that concept can be used to analyze and interpret film music. Covering theoretical concepts that range from familiar categories such as leitmotif and pitch structure to more cutting-edge ideas such as timbral associativity, topic theory, and metrical states, the book provides a toolkit with which to explore this captivatingly varied repertoire. With example analyses drawn from classic and contemporary films, Film Music Analysis: Studying the Score is a valuable teaching tool and an indispensable addition to the library of any lover of film and music.


Music and Gesture

Music and Gesture

Author: Elaine King

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-07-05

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1351557807

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume showcases key theoretical ideas and practical considerations in the growing area of scholarship on musical gesture. The book constructs and explores the relations between music and gesture from a range of differing perspectives, identifying theoretical approaches and examining the nature of certain types of gesture in musical performance. The twelve chapters in this volume are organized into a heuristic progression from theory to practice, from essay to case study. Theoretical considerations about the interpretation of musical gestures are identified and phrased in terms of semiotics, the mimetic hypothesis, concepts of musical force, immanence, quotation and topic, and the work of musical gestures. The lives of musical gestures in performance are revealed through engaging with their rhythmic properties as well as inquiring into the breathing of pianists, the nature of clarinettists' bodily movements, and the physical acts and personae of individual artists, specifically Keith Jarrett and Robbie Williams. The reader is encouraged to listen to the various resonances and tensions between the chapters, including the importance given to bodies, processes, motions, expressions, and interpretations of musical gesture. The book will be of significance to musicologists, theorists, semioticians, analysts, composers and performers, as well as scholars working in different research communities with an interest in the study of gesture.


Book Synopsis Music and Gesture by : Elaine King

Download or read book Music and Gesture written by Elaine King and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume showcases key theoretical ideas and practical considerations in the growing area of scholarship on musical gesture. The book constructs and explores the relations between music and gesture from a range of differing perspectives, identifying theoretical approaches and examining the nature of certain types of gesture in musical performance. The twelve chapters in this volume are organized into a heuristic progression from theory to practice, from essay to case study. Theoretical considerations about the interpretation of musical gestures are identified and phrased in terms of semiotics, the mimetic hypothesis, concepts of musical force, immanence, quotation and topic, and the work of musical gestures. The lives of musical gestures in performance are revealed through engaging with their rhythmic properties as well as inquiring into the breathing of pianists, the nature of clarinettists' bodily movements, and the physical acts and personae of individual artists, specifically Keith Jarrett and Robbie Williams. The reader is encouraged to listen to the various resonances and tensions between the chapters, including the importance given to bodies, processes, motions, expressions, and interpretations of musical gesture. The book will be of significance to musicologists, theorists, semioticians, analysts, composers and performers, as well as scholars working in different research communities with an interest in the study of gesture.


Metaphors of Depth in German Musical Thought

Metaphors of Depth in German Musical Thought

Author: Holly Watkins

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-09-01

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 1139501593

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What does it mean to say that music is deeply moving? Or that music's aesthetic value derives from its deep structure? This study traces the widely employed trope of musical depth to its origins in German-language music criticism and analysis. From the Romantic aesthetics of E. T. A. Hoffmann to the modernist theories of Arnold Schoenberg, metaphors of depth attest to the cross-pollination of music with discourses ranging from theology, geology and poetics to psychology, philosophy and economics. The book demonstrates that the persistence of depth metaphors in musicology and music theory today is an outgrowth of their essential role in articulating and transmitting Germanic cultural values. While musical depth metaphors have historically served to communicate German nationalist sentiments, Watkins shows that an appreciation for the broad connotations of those metaphors opens up exciting new avenues for interpretation.


Book Synopsis Metaphors of Depth in German Musical Thought by : Holly Watkins

Download or read book Metaphors of Depth in German Musical Thought written by Holly Watkins and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to say that music is deeply moving? Or that music's aesthetic value derives from its deep structure? This study traces the widely employed trope of musical depth to its origins in German-language music criticism and analysis. From the Romantic aesthetics of E. T. A. Hoffmann to the modernist theories of Arnold Schoenberg, metaphors of depth attest to the cross-pollination of music with discourses ranging from theology, geology and poetics to psychology, philosophy and economics. The book demonstrates that the persistence of depth metaphors in musicology and music theory today is an outgrowth of their essential role in articulating and transmitting Germanic cultural values. While musical depth metaphors have historically served to communicate German nationalist sentiments, Watkins shows that an appreciation for the broad connotations of those metaphors opens up exciting new avenues for interpretation.


The Pastoral in Charles Griffes's Music

The Pastoral in Charles Griffes's Music

Author: Taylor A. Greer

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2024-06-18

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0253069300

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

At the turn of the century, visionary composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes synthesized highly diverse elements from other musical traditions into his distinct artistic voice. As American as he was far ranging in his interests, Griffes was an aesthetic polyglot, combining elements of literature, visual arts, global folk melodies, and contemporary European art music into a new musical language. The breadth of his sources of inspiration are breathtaking, including the sensual harmonies of fin-de-siècle French music, the British Aesthetic Movement, folk music drawn from the Middle East and Java, and a wide range of poets, including William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Sharp. The Pastoral in Charles Griffes's Music explores both his music and the rich historical context from which it grew to enrich our understanding of the composer's artistic contribution and reveal new intersections and contradictions in European and American culture during the early twentieth century. Taylor A. Greer also critiques the philosophical foundation of topic theory and its relationship to the pastoral in Griffes's music to reflect on the end of the nineteenth century and clarify our understanding of his artistic influences. With Griffes's conception of the pastoral, he transformed the siciliana-based tradition he inherited from the eighteenth century into a new and vibrant genre that preserved the usual associations of simplicity and tranquility and introduced new elements of tension into the pastoral ideal, including global voices, paradox, and occasional conflict.


Book Synopsis The Pastoral in Charles Griffes's Music by : Taylor A. Greer

Download or read book The Pastoral in Charles Griffes's Music written by Taylor A. Greer and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2024-06-18 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the turn of the century, visionary composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes synthesized highly diverse elements from other musical traditions into his distinct artistic voice. As American as he was far ranging in his interests, Griffes was an aesthetic polyglot, combining elements of literature, visual arts, global folk melodies, and contemporary European art music into a new musical language. The breadth of his sources of inspiration are breathtaking, including the sensual harmonies of fin-de-siècle French music, the British Aesthetic Movement, folk music drawn from the Middle East and Java, and a wide range of poets, including William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and William Sharp. The Pastoral in Charles Griffes's Music explores both his music and the rich historical context from which it grew to enrich our understanding of the composer's artistic contribution and reveal new intersections and contradictions in European and American culture during the early twentieth century. Taylor A. Greer also critiques the philosophical foundation of topic theory and its relationship to the pastoral in Griffes's music to reflect on the end of the nineteenth century and clarify our understanding of his artistic influences. With Griffes's conception of the pastoral, he transformed the siciliana-based tradition he inherited from the eighteenth century into a new and vibrant genre that preserved the usual associations of simplicity and tranquility and introduced new elements of tension into the pastoral ideal, including global voices, paradox, and occasional conflict.