Julian Johnson (Prof. of Music, Prof. of Music, Royal Holloway Univ

Who Needs Classical Music?

Cultural Choice and Musical Value

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

During the last few decades, most cultural critics have come to agree that the division between "high" and "low" art is an artificial one, that Beethoven's Ninth and "Blue Suede Shoes" are equally valuable as cultural texts. In Who Needs Classical Music?, Julian Johnson challenges these assumptions about the relativism of cultural judgments. The author maintains that music is more than just "a matter of taste": while some music provides entertainment, or serves as background noise, other music claims to function as art. This book considers the value of classical music in contemporary society, arguing that it remains distinctive because it works in quite different ways to most of the other music that surrounds us. This intellectually sophisticated yet accessible book offers a new and balanced defense of the specific values of classical music in contemporary culture. The paperback edition includes a new preface from the author, re-contextualizing the debate ten years out. Who Needs Classical Music? will stimulate readers to reflect on their own investment (or lack of it) in music and art of all kinds.

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Challenging the many cultural critics who contend that the division between "high" and "low" art is an artificial one, Julian Johnson counters that music is more than just "a matter of taste." Classical music, he suggests, is distinguished by a self-conscious attention to its own materials and their formal patterning. Far from being irrelevant today, Johnson argues, classical music continues to offer rich and engaging insights into our experience of modern life. The paperback edition includes a new preface from the author, bringing his argument up to date.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Oxford University Press Inc
• Seitenzahl: 160
• Erscheinungstermin: 1. September 2011
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 240mm x 159mm x 13mm
• Gewicht: 264g
• ISBN-13: 9780199755424
• ISBN-10: 0199755426
• Artikelnr.: 32729606

Autorenporträt

Professor of Music, Royal Holloway University of London, author of Webern and the Transformation of Nature, (Cambridge, 2000), Who Needs Classical Music (OUP, 2002), and Mahler's Voices (OUP, 2009), and composer. Winner, Dent Medal (2005) from the Royal Music Association.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction
Chapter 1.: Musical Values
Chapter 2.: Uses and Abuses
Chapter 3.: Music as Art
Chapter 4.: Understanding Music
Chapter 5.: The Old, the New, and the Contemporary
Chapter 6.: Cultural Choices
Bibliography
Index