Music, Subjectivity, and Schumann

Benedict Taylor

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English

Cambridge University Press
22 August 2024

Music reviews & criticism; Romantic music (c 1830 to c 1900); Literary theory; Philosophy

The concept of subjectivity is one of the most popular in recent scholarly accounts of music; it is also one of the obscurest and most ill-defined. Multifaceted and hard to pin down, subjectivity nevertheless serves an important, if not indispensable purpose, underpinning various assertions made about music and its effect on us. We may not be exactly sure what subjectivity is, but much of the reception of Western music over the last two centuries is premised upon it. Music, Subjectivity, and Schumann offers a critical examination of the notion of musical subjectivity and the first extended account of its applicability to one of the composers with whom it is most closely associated. Adopting a fluid and multivalent approach to a topic situated at the intersection of musicology, philosophy, literature, and cultural history, it seeks to provide a critical refinement of this idea and to elucidate both its importance and limits.

By: Benedict Taylor
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
ISBN: 9781009158077
ISBN 10: 1009158074
Pages: 380
Publication Date: 22 August 2024
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Preamble: Schumann, Subjectivity; Prosopopoeic Preliminaries: 1. Defining subjectivity; Part I. Hearing Subjects: 2. Hearing the self; 3. Hearing selves; Part II. Hearing Presence: 4. Presence of the self; 5. Presence of the other; Part III. Hearing Absence: 6. Absence of the other; 7. Absence of the self; Part IV. Hearing Others: 8. Hearing another's voice; 9. Hearing oneself as another; Epilogue: 10. Hearing ourselves.

Benedict Taylor is Reader in Music at the University of Edinburgh and editor of Music & Letters. His publications include The Melody of Time: Music and Temporality in the Romantic Era (2015) and, as editor, Rethinking Mendelssohn (2020) and The Cambridge Companion to Music and Romanticism (2021).