Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology by Leonard B. Meyer

From the Publisher

Leonard Meyer proposes a theory of style and style change that relates the choices made by composers to the constraints of psychology, cultural context, and musical traditions. He explores why, out of the abundance of compositional possibilities, composers choose to replicate some patterns and neglect others.

Meyer devotes the latter part of his book to a sketch-history of nineteenth-century music. He shows explicitly how the beliefs and attitudes of Romanticism influenced the choices of composers from Beethoven to Mahler and into our own time.

"A monumental work. . . . Most authors concede the relation of music to its cultural milieu, but few have probed so deeply in demonstrating this interaction."—Choice

"Probes the foundations of musical research precisely at the joints where theory and history fold into one another."—Kevin Korsyn, Journal of American Musicological Society

"A remarkably rich and multifaceted, yet unified argument. . . . No one else could have brought off this immense project with anything like Meyer's command."—Robert P. Morgan, Music Perception

"Anyone who attempts to deal with Romanticism in scholarly depth must bring to the task not only musical and historical expertise but unquenchable optimism. Because Leonard B. Meyer has those qualities in abundance, he has been able to offer fresh insight into the Romantic concept."—Donal Henahan, New York Times

Booknews

Meyer (emeritus, music and humanities, U. of Pennsylvania) takes a bold approach to the question of how and why styles change. He argues that the construction of a history of music is not, as is often supposed, a matter of accounting for innovations. Rather, the crucial question is why, out of the abundance of both old and new possibilities, composers choose to replicate some patterns and neglect others. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents