Record Nr.

UNINA9910963947403321

Autore

Chua Daniel K. L. <1966->

Titolo

Absolute music and the construction of meaning / / Daniel K.L. Chua

Pubbl/distr/stampa


Cambridge, UK ; ; New York, : Cambridge University Press, 1999

ISBN


9780511089015
0511089015
9781107115699
1107115698
9780511019180
0511019181
9781280420290
1280420294
9780511175756
0511175752
9780511156342
0511156340
9780511325403
0511325401
9780511481697
0511481691
9780511051067
0511051069

Edizione

[1st ed.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xii, 314 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

New perspectives in music history and criticism

Disciplina

781.1/7

Soggetti

Absolute music

Music - Philosophy and aesthetics

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Half-title; Series-title; Title; Copyright; CONTENTS; ILLUSTRATIONS; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; ON THE PREFACE; PART 1 The Garden of Eden; PART 2 The Fruit of Knowledge; PART 3 The Tower of Babel; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX

Sommario/riassunto

This book is born out of two contradictions: first, it explores the making of meaning in a musical form that was made to lose its meaning at the turn of the nineteenth century; secondly, it is a history of a music that claims to have no history - absolute music. The book therefore writes against that notion of absolute music which tends to be the paradigm for most musicological and analytical studies. It is concerned not so much with what music is, but with why and how meaning is constructed in instrumental music and what structures of knowledge need to be in place for such meaning to exist. From the thought of Vincenzo Galilei to that of Theodore Adorno, Daniel Chua suggests that instrumental music has always been a critical and negative force in modernity, even with its nineteenth-century apotheosis as 'absolute music'.