Library Catalog
Amazon cover image
Image from Amazon.com

Musical Meaning and Expression / Stephen Davies.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2019]Copyright date: 1994Description: 1 online resource (400 p.) : 4 drawingsContent type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9781501733987
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 781.1 20/eng/20230216
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources:
Contents:
Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- CHAPTER ONE. Music and Language -- CHAPTER TWO. Music and Pictures -- CHAPTER THREE. Music and Symbols -- CHAPTER FOUR. The Feelings of the Composer and the Listener -- CHAPTER FIVE. The Expression of Emotion in Music -- CHAPTER SIX. The Response to Music’s Expressiveness -- CHAPTER SEVEN. Musical Understanding -- Works Cited -- Index
Summary: We talk not only of enjoying music, but of understanding it. Music is often taken to have expressive import—and in that sense to have meaning. But what does music mean, and how does it mean? Stephen Davies addresses these questions in this sophisticated and knowledgeable overview of current theories in the philosophy of music. Reviewing and criticizing the aesthetic positions of recent years, he offers a spirited explanation of his own position.Davies considers and rejects in turn the positions that music describes (like language), or depicts (like pictures), or symbolizes (in a distinctive fashion) emotions. Similarly, he resists the idea that music's expressiveness is to be explained solely as the composer's self-expression, or in terms of its power to evoke a response from the audience. Music's ability to describe emotions, he believes, is located within the music itself; it presents the aural appearance of what he calls emotion characteristics. The expressive power of music awakens emotions in the listener, and music is valued for this power although the responses are sometimes ones of sadness. Davies shows that appreciation and understanding may require more than recognition of and reaction to music's expressive character, but need not depend on formal musicological training.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781501733987

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- CHAPTER ONE. Music and Language -- CHAPTER TWO. Music and Pictures -- CHAPTER THREE. Music and Symbols -- CHAPTER FOUR. The Feelings of the Composer and the Listener -- CHAPTER FIVE. The Expression of Emotion in Music -- CHAPTER SIX. The Response to Music’s Expressiveness -- CHAPTER SEVEN. Musical Understanding -- Works Cited -- Index

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

We talk not only of enjoying music, but of understanding it. Music is often taken to have expressive import—and in that sense to have meaning. But what does music mean, and how does it mean? Stephen Davies addresses these questions in this sophisticated and knowledgeable overview of current theories in the philosophy of music. Reviewing and criticizing the aesthetic positions of recent years, he offers a spirited explanation of his own position.Davies considers and rejects in turn the positions that music describes (like language), or depicts (like pictures), or symbolizes (in a distinctive fashion) emotions. Similarly, he resists the idea that music's expressiveness is to be explained solely as the composer's self-expression, or in terms of its power to evoke a response from the audience. Music's ability to describe emotions, he believes, is located within the music itself; it presents the aural appearance of what he calls emotion characteristics. The expressive power of music awakens emotions in the listener, and music is valued for this power although the responses are sometimes ones of sadness. Davies shows that appreciation and understanding may require more than recognition of and reaction to music's expressive character, but need not depend on formal musicological training.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 26. Aug 2024)