Customer Reviews

The Language of Music (Clarendon Paperbacks)

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What gives music its meaning... is music akin to pure mathematics, to language... how do composers use forms and sounds to convey emotions, pictures and ideas and what are the basic idioms that are used to express those ideas in western music ?

When the book was first suggested to me, based on theme, I was expecting something "wishy washy" and not too keen on it, but for some reason I decided to give it a go, since it touches on one of my areas of reasearch. In the end it turned out to be one of those books that really got the old nogen brewing - - a book that sometimes you have to put down because it really gets your brain going or that if you read it before bedtime, you might wake up at 3:00 AM thinking about stuff he said ! - - Musicians as well as music lovers will appreciate it. You'll need to brush up on (or learn) basic music theory, however, it will be worth the effort... it might even change the way you hear your favorite symphony or music in general forever !

This wonderful little book explains how the basic elements of musical expression communicate emotional content, both locally and on a larger scale. Highly recommended to anyone trying to understand how music works.

Deryck Cooke is the person who orchestrated Mahler's tenth symphony, starting with Mahler's original draft. Take a listen to the excellent Bournemouth Symphony/Simon Rattle recording.

Cooke raises THE fundamental question of music--what does music mean?--but his technique seems a little flawed.

First, he assumes that music has a universal meaning. Yet no two people will have exactly the same reaction to a piece of music, even if they like it. It's therefore a little hard to accept his collections of musically emotive examples as altogether valid, though they are impressive enough.

Second, anyone who has brushed around in music theory enough can tell you that if you want to find a certain pattern in a piece of music, you will find it if you look hard enough. And since Cooke only uses about four or five examples to "prove" each point, the possibility of these being the lucky five examples (with multiple exceptions) makes me skeptical. And one's not really sure whether Cooke is implying that his emotive musical phrases always work, or just work some of the time.

Basically, it's impossible to deconstruct how great composers think, in the manner that Cooke attempts. If you don't believe me, try writing music according to the emotive principles he proposes. You won't create anything nearly as good as the music he discusses unless you already have some talent. And the composers' talent, in Cooke, seems to be reduced to their ability to employ the musical phrases he considers emotional.

At the same time, I never thought about the issue of musical meaning very clearly until I read Cooke. Even though I disagree with his approach and his conclusions, reading his book made understand why I think about musical meaning the way I do. A must for students of musical philosophy.

A well written and comprehensive view of the Harmonic predictability of tonal resolution. Not as much comment on the melodic aspects except by reference.