Music's Monisms: Disarticulating Modernism

Synopsis

Daniel Albright investigates musical phenomena through the lens of monism, the philosophical belief that things that appear to be two are actually one. Daniel Albright was one of the preeminent scholars of musical and literary modernism, leaving behind a rich body of work before his untimely passing. In Music’s Monisms, he shows how musical and literary phenomena alike can be fruitfully investigated through the lens of monism, a philosophical conviction that does away with the binary structures we use to make sense of reality. Albright shows that despite music’s many binaries—diatonic vs. chromatic, major vs. minor, tonal vs. atonal—there is always a larger system at work that aims to reconcile tension and resolve conflict. Albright identifies a “radical monism” in the work of modernist poets such as T. S. Eliot and musical works by Wagner, Debussy, Britten, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. Radical monism insists on the interchangeability, even the sameness, of the basic dichotomies that govern our thinking and modes of organizing the universe. Through a series of close readings of musical and literary works, Albright advances powerful philosophical arguments that not only shed light on these specific figures but also on aesthetic experience in general. Music’s Monisms is a revelatory work by one of modernist studies’ most distinguished figures.

Copyright:

2021

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

ISBN-13:

9780226791364

Related ISBNs:

9780226791227

Publisher:

The University of Chicago Press

Date of Addition:

05/31/24

Copyrighted By:

The University of Chicago

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Literature and Fiction, Language Arts, Music

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

Foreword by:

Alexander Rehding