The Thought of Music

What, exactly, is knowledge of music? And what does it tell us about humanistic knowledge in general?The Thought of Music grapples directly with these fundamental questions—questions especially compelling at a time when humanistic knowledge is enmeshed in debates about its character and future. In this third volume in a trilogy on musical understanding that includesInterpreting Music andExpression and Truth, Lawrence Kramer seeks answers in both thoughtabout music and thoughtin music—thinking in tones. He skillfully assesses musical scholarship in the aftermath of critical musicology and musical hermeneutics and in view of more recent concerns with embodiment, affect, and performance. This authoritative and timely work challenges the prevailing conceptions of every topic it addresses: language, context, and culture; pleasure and performance; and, through music, the foundations of understanding in the humanities.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the Joseph Kerman Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

What, exactly, is knowledge of music? And what does it tell us about humanistic knowledge in general?The Thought of Music grapples directly with these fundamental questions—questions especially compelling at a time when humanistic knowledge is enmeshed in debates about its character and future. In this third volume in a trilogy on musical understanding that includesInterpreting Music andExpression and Truth, Lawrence Kramer seeks answers in both thoughtabout music and thoughtin music—thinking in tones. He skillfully assesses musical scholarship in the aftermath of critical musicology and musical hermeneutics and in view of more recent concerns with embodiment, affect, and performance. This authoritative and timely work challenges the prevailing conceptions of every topic it addresses: language, context, and culture; pleasure and performance; and, through music, the foundations of understanding in the humanities.

The publisher gratefully acknowledges the Joseph Kerman Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Preface: The Thought of Music
Acknowledgments

1 • Music and the Forms of Thought
2 • Speaking of Music: In Search of an Idiom
3 • The Ineffable and How (Not) to Say It
4 • Pleasure and Valuation
5 • The Cultural Field: Beyond Context
6 • Virtuosity, Reading, Authorship: A Genealogy
7 • The Newer Musicology? Context, Performance, and the Musical Work

Postscript: Imagining the Score
Notes
Index of Names
Index of Concepts