and musicologists, are apprised of all the dimensions that may affect the construction of signification, including specific material inscriptions as well as the symbolic potential of the artistic language. Hence here we see a concern, characteristic of "the new cultural history," with how the forms assumed by texts may become an essential element in the creation of their meaning since different groups encounter, "possess," and experience a work in various ways, and within the context of substantially different aural and visual cultures. Readership: Musicologists and Historians; also, scholars in literary fields, in language departments, in the visual arts, political science, and in sociology. Edited by Jane F. Fulcher , Professor of Musicology, University of Michigan Contributors: Celia Applegate is Professor of History at the University of Rochester in New York, and teaches European and German history. Her publications include Bach in Berlin: Nation and Culture in Mendelssohn's Revival of the St. Matthew Passion (Cornell University Press, 2005), Music & German National Identity, co-edited with Pamela Potter (University of Chicago Press (2002), and "How German is it? Nationalism and the Origins of Serious Music in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany," in 19th Century Music (Spring 1998). She is currently working on a major study of the musical culture of modern Germany from the 18th century to the present. Michael Beckerman is Professor of Music at New York University, having previously taught at the University of Washington, St. Louis and the University of California, Santa Barbara. His research has focused in the past on