Mark Evan Bonds: 2 books
Absolute Music
The History of an Idea
Language: English
Release Date: May 9, 2014
What is music, and why does it move us? From Pythagoras to the present, writers have struggled to isolate the essence of "pure" or "absolute" music in ways that also account for its profound effect. In Absolute Music: The History of an Idea, Mark Evan Bonds traces the history of...
Music as Thought
Listening to the Symphony in the Age of Beethoven
Language: English
Release Date: January 10, 2009
Before the nineteenth century, instrumental music was considered inferior to vocal music. Kant described wordless music as "more pleasure than culture," and Rousseau dismissed it for its inability to convey concepts. But by the early 1800s, a dramatic shift was under way. Purely instrumental...