Musical Listening in the German Enlightenment: Attention, Wonder and Astonishment

by Riley,Matthew

• ISBN13: 9780754632672
• ISBN10: 0754632679
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-10-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The silent attentiveness expected of concert audiences is one of the most distinctive characteristics of modern Western musical culture. This is the first book properly to examine the concept of attention in the history of musical thought and its foundations in the writings of German musical commentators of the late eighteenth century. Matthew Riley examines the significant writers on the topic (Descartes, Leibniz, Wolff, Baumgarten, Rousseau, Meier, Sulzer and Forkel) and provides analytical case studies to illustrate how these perceived modes of attention shaped interpretations of music of the period.

Author Biography

Matthew Riley is Lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of Birmingham, UK.

Table of Contents

List of Plates and Figures	vi
List of Music Examples	vii
Acknowledgements	ix
Introduction	1	(6)
Attentive Listening	7	(40)
The Problem of Attention	7	(3)
The Theory and Significance of Attention: Descartes to Meier	10	(7)
Pleasure, Emotion and the 'Flow' Experience	17	(4)
Adaptation of Mimesis	21	(5)
Adaptation of Rhetoric	26	(2)
Wonder and Astonishment	28	(19)
Interlude: Rousseau's Transports of Attention	47	(16)
Simultaneous and Successive Unities	48	(4)
Applications	52	(11)
Sulzer and the Aesthetic Force of Music	63	(24)
Civilizing the Savage	65	(7)
The Aesthetic Force of Music	72	(15)
Forkel on Expert and Amateur Listening Practices	87	(34)
Kenner and Liebhaber: Two Modes of Hearing	88	(4)
Musical Decline and Forkel's Remedy	92	(4)
Concert Programming: Pleasure, Amusement and Instrumental Music	96	(4)
A Metaphysical History of Musical Hearing	100	(5)
A New Approach to Attention	105	(16)
Elements of a Rhetoric of Attention	121	(52)
Arousing the Attention: The Rules of Periodicity	122	(7)
Sustaining the Attention: A Musical Dispositio	129	(3)
Forkel on Music-rhetorical Figures	132	(14)
The Rhetoric in Practice: Georg Benda and C.P.E. Bach	146	(27)
Bibliography	173	(12)
Index	185