Music Theory in the Age of Romanticism

TwelveauthorsprobethemindoftheRomanticerainitsthinkingaboutmusic.Theyprovideasearchingexaminationofwritingsbymusictheorists,critics,aestheticians,philosophers,andcommentatorsfrom1800to1875.Indoingso,theywieldnewcriticaltoolsaswellasold,castingfreshlight,forexample,onfamiliarproblemsofmusicalformbyinspectingeighteenth-centuryrhetoricandnineteenth-centurygendereddiscourse;exploringSchubertianmodulationandWagnerianmotifwiththeinsightsofcognitivescience;reinterpretingpianisticfingerexercisebywayofMichelFoucaultandFrankensteinandsoon.TheimpactofHegelandSchellingonmusictheoryoccupiesanimportantplace,asdoesSchleiermacher'shermeneuticsonanalysisandcriticism.Thebrilliantgroupofyounghistoriansoftheory,representedhere,providesanarrayofapproaches,fromdetailedmusicanalysis,throughclosereadingoftexts,throughcriticaldiscourse,tophilosophicalenquiry.