Author Description

Rethinking Music is in two parts. Part 1 focusses on approaches to musical texts, covering such topics as the relationship of text and context, concepts of unity and meaning in music, and the role of empirical approaches, together with compositional and performance perspectives. Underlying the volume as a whole is the question of how far, and in what ways, music theory can remain viable and valuable in a changing intellectual environment. Part 2 sets out to reflect the nature of the discipline of musicology, and the ways in which it has been, and may be, challenged and enriched. The volume examines music history and cultural histories of music. The status of the musical text is a subject that has clear resonances with Part 1, and themes developed in Part 2 include questions of ethics, pedagogy, performance, and popular music as subjects for scholarly enquiry, questions of reception, canon, gender, and historiography.