Music, Subjectivity, and Schumann

The concept of subjectivity is one of the most popular in recent scholarly accounts of music; it is also one of the obscurest and most ill-defined. Multifaceted and hard to pin down, subjectivity nevertheless serves an important, if not indispensable purpose, underpinning various assertions made about music and its effect on us. We may not be exactly sure what subjectivity is, but much of the reception of Western music over the last two centuries is premised upon it. Music, Subjectivity, and Schumann offers a critical examination of the notion of musical subjectivity and the first extended account of its applicability to one of the composers with whom it is most closely associated. Adopting a fluid and multivalent approach to a topic situated at the intersection of musicology, philosophy, literature, and cultural history, it seeks to provide a critical refinement of this idea and to elucidate both its importance and limits.

Preamble: Schumann, Subjectivity; Prosopopoeic Preliminaries: 1. Defining subjectivity; Part I. Hearing Subjects: 2. Hearing the self; 3. Hearing selves; Part II. Hearing Presence: 4. Presence of the self; 5. Presence of the other; Part III. Hearing Absence: 6. Absence of the other; 7. Absence of the self; Part IV. Hearing Others: 8. Hearing another's voice; 9. Hearing oneself as another; Epilogue: 10. Hearing ourselves.