In Absolute Music: The History of an Idea, author Mark Evan Bonds examines how writers have struggled to isolate the essence of music in ways that account for its profound effects on the human spirit. By carefully tracing the evolution of absolute music from Ancient Greece through the Middle Ages to twentieth-century America, Bonds provides the first comprehensive history of this pivotal concept, and provokes new thoughts on the essence of music and how this essenceexplains music's effect. A long awaited book from one of the most respected senior scholars in the field,
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- Introduction 7
- Part One
- Essence as Effect: To 1550 23
- 1. Orpheus and Pythagoras 23
- 2. Isomorphic Resonance 30
- Part Two
- Essence and Effect: 1550-1850 39
- 3. Expression 41
- The Separation of Powers 41
- Music and Language 48
- Music as Language 58
- Mimesis 69
- 4. Beauty 79
- 5. Form 90
- Form as Number 91
- Form as Content 98
- 6. Autonomy 103
- Material Autonomy 103
- Ethical Autonomy 108
- 7. Disclosure 112
- The Composer as Oracle 112
- Beautiful Insights 117
- Cosmic Insights 121
- Part Three
- Essence or Effect: 1850-1945 127
- 8. Wagner's "Absolute" Music 129
- 9. Hanslick's "Pure" Music 140
- Hanslick the Conventional 156
- Hanslick the Radical 171
- Hanslick the Ambivalent 181
- 10. Liszt's "Program" Music 205
- 11. Polemics 214
- 12. Reconciliation 231
- 13. Qualities Recast 244
- Expression 246
- Beauty 263
- Form 264
- Autonomy 278
- Disclosure 284
- Epilogue: Since 1945 292
- Appendix: Hanslick's Vom Musikalischen-Schonen:
- Early and Selected Later Reviews and Commentary 294
- Works Cited ] 304