Analytical strategies and musical interpretation

Analytical strategies and musical interpretation is devoted to music analysis as an interpretative activity. Interpretation is often considered only in theory, or as a philosophical problem, but this book attempts to demonstrate and reflect on the interpretative results of analysis.

Two associated types of practice are emphasised: 'translation', the transformation of one type of experience or art object into the musical work, the artistic attempt to persuade us that the new product is equal to or more valid than, its origin; and 'rhetoric', the attempt to persuade us, through structure, to accept the signifying power of the work. The unifying theme of the essays is the interpretative transformation of concepts, ideas and forms that constitutes the heart of the compositional process of nineteenth- and twentieth-century music.

The repertoire covered ranges from Schumann through Wagner, Mahler, Zemlinsky, Debussy, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern and Stravinsky to Elliott Carter and Harrison Birtwistle.