Designed to serve music students at the college level, this informal approach to music theory relates the technical aspects of music with the expressive character of the art. The approach is holistic in the sense that it focuses on the interrelationships between the piece as heard by a socially conditioned listener and the notated, performed score. The composers addressed are: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Wagner, Debussy, and Schoenberg. There are separate chapters on the problems of meaning in music and on the interdependence of aesthetic and ethical value-judgments. This novel and exciting approach to music theory will be a welcome addition to the musical analysis literature.
Author(s): Hugh Aitken
Year: 1997
Language: English
Pages: 136
Contents......Page 6
Preface......Page 8
Introduction......Page 10
1 Chopin: Prelude No. 7 in A Major......Page 14
2 The Split Fifth: A Cautionary Tale......Page 24
3 Chopin: Prelude No. 4 in E Minor......Page 26
4 Meaning in Music......Page 38
5 Some Mozart Excerpts......Page 44
6 Beethoven: Fifth Symphony......Page 54
7 Three Beethoven Excerpts......Page 72
8 Aesthics: Aesthetics Meets Ethics......Page 82
9 Two Schumann Songs and a Bit of Brahms......Page 86
10 J. S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I......Page 96
11 Wagner: Prelude to Tristan and Isolde......Page 108
12 Debussy: Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun......Page 114
13 The Analysis of Twentieth-Century Music......Page 122
Suggestions for Further Reading......Page 132
E......Page 134
S......Page 135
W......Page 136
