Description

What are musical works? Are they discovered or created? Can recordings substitute faithfully for live performances? This book considers these and other intriguing questions. It first outlines the nature of musical works, their relation to performances, and their notational specification; it then considers authenticity in performance, musical traditions, and recordings. Comprehensive and original, the volume discusses many kinds of music, applying its conclusions to issues as diverse as the authentic performance movement, the cultural integrity of ethnic music, and the implications of the dominance of recorded over live music.

Features

• one of the world's leading philosophers of music
• covers a broad range of classical, popular, avant-garde, folk, Eastern, and Western music
• up-to-date references and examples used
• promises to become the standard work on this topic
• original combination of themes: works, notations, performances, recordings

Reviews

"If, as an exercise, we were to make a list of leading contributors to the field, we might quarrel about some inclusions and exclusions. But . . . I bet that Stephen Davies would appear near the top of our finished list. . . . An ambitious book, it confirms to the highest standards of scholarship and argument. . . . An indispensable classic."-- The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

Product Details

384 pages; 26 music examples; ISBN13: 978-0-19-924158-3ISBN10: 0-19-924158-9

About the Author(s)