Hugo Riemann and the Birth of Modern Musical Thought

by Alexander Rehding

Overview

Hugo Riemann (1849-1919) is generally acknowledged as the most important musicologist of his age. By analyzing his musical thought within the turn-of-the-century context of interest in the natural sciences, German nationhood and modern technology, this book reconstructs how Riemann's ideas not only "made sense" but advanced a belief of the tonal tradition as both natural and German. Riemann influenced the ideas of generations of music scholars because his work coincided with the institutionalization of academic musicology around the turn of the last century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521820738
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/01/2003
Series:	New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism , #11
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.67(d)

About the Author

Alexander Rehding is Cotsen Fellow at the Princeton Society of Fellows. He is co-editor of Music Theory and Natural Order from the Renaissance to the Early Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press 2001). He was awarded the Jerome Roche Prize of the Royal Musical Society in 2001.

Table of Contents

1. Riemann's moonshine experiment; 2. The responsibilities of nineteenth-century music theory; 3. Riemann's musical logic and the 'as if'; 4. Musical syntax, nationhood and universality; 5. Beethoven's deafness and tone imaginations; Epilogue; Glossary: Riemann's key terms as explained in the Musik-Lexikon (5th edn, 1900).

Editorial Reviews

"This book would be equally profitable to music theorists interested in Riemann's theory and music historians studying turn-of-the-century musical culture, for it sets up a brilliant exemplary case showing how we ought to understand past music theory." Current Musicology

From the Publisher