PERFORMING ARTS

Music and the Idea of a World

by Peter Kalkavage
Paul Dry. Mar. 2024. 325p. ISBN 9781589881860. pap. $24.95. MUSIC
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Music theorist Kalkavage (St. John’s Coll.; The Logic of Desire) takes on the challenge of interpreting music over a long trajectory, from the ancient Greeks to selected composers and writers of the Western world. His book is a revision of several lectures that he delivered and is replete with scores for the musically literate. The explanations in the book’s essential endnotes help, but it lacks a glossary that would make it more accessible to nonspecialists. The essays cover the works of thinkers and practitioners including Plato and Schopenhauer; Palestrina and writers of the Bible; Victor Zuckerkandl’s Sound and Symbol; Bach’s St. Matthew Passion; Mozart’s The Magic Flute; Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde; Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus; and Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites. Kalkavage maintains that music is ritualistic, emphatic, mnemonic, and the most unifying of the arts.
VERDICT A distinctive exploration of the many meanings of music. Best for music theorists and those with a background in philosophy.
Reviewed by Frederick J. Augustyn Jr , Feb 01, 2024
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