num_pages: 376
description: In this elegant study of the works of the undeservedly neglected composer Luigi Boccherini, Elisabeth Le Guin uses knowledge gleaned from her own playing of the cello as the keystone of her original approach to the relationship between music and embodiment. In analyzing the striking qualities of Boccherini's music—its virtuosity, repetitiveness, obsessively nuanced dynamics, delicate sonorities, and rich palette of melancholy affects—Le Guin develops a historicized critical method based on the embodied experience of the performer. In the process, she redefines the temperament of the musical Enlightenment as one characterized by urgent, volatile inquiries into the nature of the self.
language: English
title: Boccherini’s Body: An Essay in Carnal Musicology
titlecomplete: Boccherini’s Body: An Essay in Carnal Musicology
genres: Theory, Music, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 13
publisher: University of California Press