Title: What music is.
Authors: Weinstock, Herbert,
Date: 1966
Publisher: Doubleday,
Physical description: xxxv, 396 pages : music ; 22 cm
Language: English
LC classification: M
Contents: I. The emergence of music ; Gregorian chant ; The ecclesiastical modes ; Notes and notation ; Early polyphony ; Measured music and counterpoint ; Early motets ; Early secular music ; The troubadours ; The minnesingers ; The trouveres ; Monophony: sacred and secular -- II. Musical periods as historic tools ; Ars nova ; Machaut ; Isorhythms and imitation ; "My end is my beginning" ; Consonance and intervals ; Landino ; "Sumer is icumen in" ; Dunstable ; The ear's wisdom -- III. A slow-swinging pendulum ; The burgundian school ; Binchois and Dufay ; Sacred and secular in Burgundian music ; Uses of the learned device ; Early instruments ; The music of chivalry ; Okeghem ; "Paper" music ; Obrecht and the polyphonic chanson ; The music of the Netherlanders ; Evolution of instrumental music ; Josquin des Pres ; The sixteenth century madrigal -- IV. Further evolution of polyphony ; Orlando di Lasso, Palestrina, Victoria, Byrd ; Music at a frontier ; Developments toward harmony ; Overtones ; Phases of organum ; Consonance and dissonance ; The ear's awareness ; Palestrina ; Orlando di Lasso ; Victoria ; William Byrd ; Variation and dance -- V. The organ ; The organ and polyphony ; Organists: German, Spanish, Italian, Netherlandish ; Sweelinck ; Fugue ; Sonata, cantata, toccata-organists: north, middle, and south German ; The modes and chordal logic ; The drift toward classic harmony ; Listening to polyphony and homophony VI. Opera ; Texture in the first operas ; The bardi camerata ; Monteverdi and orfew ; Nuove musiche ; L'Incoronazione di poppea ; Persistence of polyphony ; Sonata ; Concerto ; Concerto grosso ; Aria and arioso ; Aria da capo ; Continuo, basso continuo, thorough bass, figured bass ; Continuo ; Basso ostinato ; "When I am laid in earth" -- VII. The German states: Heinrich Schutz ; Pure splendors of sound ; A passion by Schutz ; Diatonic and chromatic ; Early opera in Germany ; Oratorio and cantata ; Seventeenth-century France: lully ; The opera overture ; Instrumental suites ; Baroque and rococo ; England: Henry Purcell ; Binary and ternary form -- VIII. Tuning and temperament ; Equal temperament ; The size of semitones ; Harmony, key, tonality, modulation ; One golden age ; Harmony ; The tonic ; Modulation ; Major-minor -- IX. Cantata ; Music and pietism ; The Bach cantatas ; The passion: Bach ; The mass ; The oratorio: Handel ; The oratorio: C.P.E. Bach and Haydn ; The decline of oratorio -- X. Choosing instruments ; The baroque ensemble ; Rameau and orchestration ; Bach's instrumentation ; The Mannheim orchestra ; The classical sonata ; First-movement form ; Sonata: exposition ; Sonata: development ; Sonata: recapitulation ; Ways and varieties of sonata: symphony, concerto, chamber piece ; Sonata: second movement ; Sonata: third movement ; Sonata: final movement ; Sonatas for ensembles: symphony ; Sonata and chamber music ; Sonata and concerto XI. Emergence of the pianoforte ; The psaltery ; Dulcimer and cimbalom ; Clavichord and harpsichord ; The earliest pianofortes ; Developing forms of pianoforte ; Growth of the pianoforte ; The kingdoms of the pianoforte ; Music of the harpsichord ; The kingdom of the harpsichord ; Triumphs of the pianoforte -- XII. Instruments played together ; Chamber music ; The string quartet ; Changes in chamber music ; Ideas of "purity" ; Listening to chamber music ; Orchestral music ; The modern orchestra ; The earliest orchestra ; The baroque orchestra ; Importance of the Mannheim orchestra ; The classical orchestra and the modern --^ XIII. The evolution of opera ; Opera in Rome and Venice ; Opera in France: lully ; Opera in Germany: Handel and Kelser ; "Neapolitan" opera ; Bel canto and virtuoso singing ; The opera libretto: zeno and metastasio ; Opera and the comic spirit ; Intermezzo and opera buffa ; Operatic "war" in Paris ; Gluck and operatic "reform" ; The preface to alceste ; The masterpieces of Gluck ; Gluck's mixed victory ; Mozart and opera ; Mozart, Genius, and the libretto ; Opera as unity --^ XIV. Beethoven: classicism and romticism ; Musical conservatives and liberals ; The end of classicism: Beethoven ; Beethoven early ; Beethoven late ; Muisc and self-expression ; Music as communication ; The demonic Beethoven ; Classicism-romanticism: Schubert ; Schubert and the lyric impulse ; Schubert and unerring form ; Listening to Schubert ; Other romantic roads ; Another romantic: Weber ; Weber and opera ; Weber, the libretto, and form ; Toward the later nineteenth century ; Fragmentation and individualization of styles ; Romanticism and idiosyncrasy ; Classical and romantic forms ; Listening to classical and romantic music --^ XV. The last operas of Mozart ; Fidelio, or opera as ethos ; Weber's descendants: Marschner and Wagner ; Romantic opera buff: Rossini ; Bellini, Donizetti, and melody ; Interim men: Cherubini and Spontini ; Later grand opera and Meyerbeer ; Weber's orchestra ; The orchestra as giant ; Orchestration and exoticism ; Chopin and harmony ; The deliquescence of classical "laws" ; Romantic chromaticism ; Romantic dissonance ; The blurring of boundaries ; Classical and romantic harmony ; The tyranny of the sonata ; Romanticism and the evolution of new patterns ; Form in romantic music ; Music, literature, and dancing ; Chopin and musical form ; Schumann and musical form ; Liszt and musical form ; The symphonic poem ; Berlioz and program music ; Liszt and "transformation of themes" ; Later symphonic poems ; Richard Strauss and the tone poem ; The nineteenth century and variety ; Misreading the nature of form ; Romantic culmination and synthesis: Wagner XVI. Musical media and characteristic style ; Materials and choice of means ; Influence of media on composition ; Recomposition and transcription ; Musical media and musical ideas ; Criticism of means ; Wagner's evolution of himself ; Wagner and operatic means ; The leitmotiv and continuous texture ; Wagner's beliefs and triumph ; Wagnerian techniques: Tristan und isolde ; Wagner and the human voice ; Der ring des nibelungen ; The uniqueness of Wagner ; Giuseppe Verdi, romantic and nonromantic ; The evolution of the Verdian opera ; Verdi and modern taste ; Richard Strauss as heir to Liszt and Wagner ; The influence of Verdi and Verismo ; The decline of opera --^ XVII. Belated romanticism and neoclassicism ; Brahms and the problems of form ; Brahms as a later Beethoven ; Brahms as romantic architect ; Listening to Brahms ; Brahms and the variation ; Later manners of variation ; Brahms as a master of form ; Brahms and ultimate victory ; The Bruckner problem ; Musical stasis ; The problem of Gustav Mahler ; Later attitudes toward Mahler ; Pursuit of the impossible ; Sibelius and the symphony ; Sibelius as anachronism ; Music of the recent past and of the future --^ XVIII. Acceptance and rebellion ; Nationalism in music ; Music in Russia ; Music in France ; Music in Austria and Hungary ; The position of Tchaikovsky ; The Tchaikovskyan ballet ; The heritage of Tchaikovsky ; Glinka and nationalism ; Whole-tone scales and 5/4 time ; Glinka, Russian music, and form ; Dargomhsky, the libretto, and realism ; Dargomizhsky and "melodic recitative" ; The five ; Balakirev, nationalism, and decorative variation ; Islamey and appliqued decoration ; Borodin and problems of form ; Listening to Russian nationalist music ; Folk music and composed music ; Glinka and later Russian opera ; Genius not wholly fulfilled: Borodin and Mussorgsky ; Rimsky-Korsakov as chameleon ; Mussorgsky, opera and academic "laws" ; The five and dancing --^ XIX. Music in France after Berlioz ; Debussy, literature, and painting ; The evolution of Debussy's style ; The liquidation of harmony and rhythm ; Pelleas et melisande ; Rebellion against the nineteenth century ; Debussy's late sonatas ; Debussy and the piano ; Elements of Debussy's style: a new harmony ; Debussy and musical pattern ; Erik Satie and musical wit ; Ravel and his critics ; Ravel as a man of the twentieth century ; Debussy, Ravel and harmony's absorption of melody ; The six and Parisian modernism --^ XX. Stravinsky and one way out of classical-romantic harmony ; Petroushka as announcing the later twentieth century ; Petroushka and bitonality ; Polytonality ; Musical explosion: le sacre du printemps ; Stravinsky and musical anarchy ; The gap between composer and audience ; Stravinsky: change of direction after le sacre ; Stravinsky and "neoclassicism" ; Continuing to listen to Stravinsky ; Stravinsky and music as expression ; The later Stravinsky ; Stravinsky and the limits of tonality --^ XXI. A harmonic side road: Scriabin ; Revolution as romanticism: Hauer and Schoenberg ; The evolution of Schoenberg's teachings ; The denial of tonality ; "Atonality" and the twelve chromatic tones ; Listening to Schoenberg ; The absence of tonality ; The absence of development ; Schoenberg and expressionism: pierrot iunaire ; Imposing order on atonality ; The twelve-tone "system" ; Listening to "serial" twelve-tone music ; The possible position of Schoenberg ; Prospects for atonal and serial music ; Webern and musical cryptograms ; Alban Berg, impure Schoenbergian ; Berg's evolving style ; Wozzeck ; Listening to Wozzeck ; The later berg and lulu ; Berg's violin concerto ; Roads into the musical future.
Notes: "A new rev. and expanded ed. of an earlier book by the same author, Music as an art."
Subject headings (LCSH): Music appreciation.; Musical analysis.