Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology
Nothing less than aWho's Whoof musicology, and aWhat's Whatof theory, analysis, and musical philosophy. (Erich LeinsdorfNew York Times Book Review)A masterly exposition of what Kennan views as the pivotal intellectual issues surrounding postwar musical studies--an exposition that even his critics would readily concede him to be uniquely qualified to undertake. Musicians of all sorts ought to view this as a challenge...to give music the balanced critical attention it deserves. (Robert WinterNew York Review of Books)A gracefully polemical survey of "modern ideas and ideologies of music," in the course of which the author touches upon many aspects of music and musical life in the 20th century...Important and consistently stimulating. (David HamiltonLos Angeles Times Book Review)A timely proposal, and one well worth investigating for anyone who is interested in music as a discipline...It represents a useful, and indeed unique, attempt to map out in English the issues of our day. (Christopher WintleTimes Literary Supplement)