Critical Entertainments

by Rosen, Charles

• ISBN13: 9780674006843
• ISBN10: 0674006844
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-11-30
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

An extraordinarily gifted musician and writer, Charles Rosen is a peerless commentator on the history and performance of music. Critical Entertainments brings together many of the essays that have established him as one of the most influential and eloquent voices in the field of music in our time. These essays cover a broad range of musical forms, historical periods, and issues--from Bach through Brahms to Carter and Schoenberg, from contrapuntal keyboard music to opera, from performance practices to music history as a discipline. They revisit Rosen's favorite subjects and pursue some less familiar paths. They court controversy (with strong opinions about performance on historical instruments, the so-called New Musicology, and the alleged "death" of classical music) and offer enlightenment on subjects as diverse as music dictionaries and the aesthetics of stage fright. All are unified by Rosen's abiding concerns and incomparable style. In sum, Critical Entertainments is a treasury of the vast learning, wit, and insight that we have come to expect from this remarkable writer. It will delight all music lovers.

Author Biography

Charles Rosen is a pianist and Professor Emeritus of Music and Social Thought at the University of Chicago

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(6)
I Performance and Musicology
The Aesthetics of Stage Fright	7	(5)
The Discipline of Philology: Oliver Strunk	12	(13)
II The Eighteenth Century
Keyboard Music of Bach and Handel	25	(29)
The Rediscovering of Haydn	54	(14)
Describing Mozart	68	(6)
Beaumarchais: Inventor of Modern Opera	74	(11)
Radical, Conventional Mozart	85	(20)
Beethoven's Career	105	(22)
III Brahms
Brahms: Influence, Plagiarism, and Inspiration	127	(19)
Brahms the Subversive	146	(16)
Brahms: Classicism and the Inspiration of Awkwardness	162	(39)
IV Musical Studies: Contrasting Views
The Benefits of Authenticity	201	(21)
Dictionaries: the Old Harvard	222	(11)
Dictionaries: the New Grove's	233	(22)
The New Musicology	255	(20)
V The Crisis of the Modern
Schoenberg: The Possibilities of Disquiet	275	(8)
The Performance of Contemporary Music: Carter's Double Concerto	283	(11)
The Irrelevance of Serious Music	294	(25)
Credits	319	(2)
Index	321