What is involved in the composition, performance, and
reception of classical music? What are we doing when we
listen to this music seriously? Why when playing a
Beethoven sonata do performers begin with the first note
indicated in the score; why don't they feel free to
improvise around the sonata's central theme? Why,
finally, does it go against tradition for an audience at
a concert of classical music to tap its feet? Bound up
in these questions is the overriding question of what it
means philosophically, musically, and historically for
musicians to speak about music in terms of ''works''. In
this book, Lydia Goehr describes how the concept of a
musical work fully crystallized around 1800, and
subsequently defined the norms, expectations, and
behavioral patterns that have come to characterize
classical musical practice. The description is set in
the context of a more general philosophical account of
the rise and fall of concepts and ideals, and of their
normative functions; at the same time, debates amongst
conductors, early-music performers, and avant-gardists
are addressed.The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works is a
seminal work of scholarship, and has appeared in an
astonishing variety of contexts and disciplines from
musicological and philosophical since its initial
publication. This second edition features a new
Introductory Essay by the author, discussing the genesis
of her groundbreaking thesis, how her subsequent work
has followed and developed similar themes, and how
criticisms along the way have informed not only her own
work but the ''Imaginary Museum'' concept more generally
as it spread across disciplinary lines. A provocative
foreword by Richard Taruskin contextualizes Goehr's
argument and points to its continuing centrality to the
field. |
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