Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Is there a moment in history when a work receives its ideal interpretation? Or is negotiation always required to preserve the past and accommodate the present? The freedom of interpretation, Charles Rosen suggests in these sparkling explorations of music and literature, exists in a delicate balance with fidelity to the identity of the original work.

Rosen cautions us to avoid doctrinaire extremes when approaching art of the past. To understand Shakespeare only as an Elizabethan or Jacobean theatergoer would understand him, or to modernize his plays with no sense of what they bring from his age, deforms the work, making it less ambiguous and inherently less interesting. For a work to remain alive, it must change character over time while preserving a valid witness to its earliest state. When twentieth-century scholars transformed Mozart's bland, idealized nineteenth-century image into that of a modern revolutionary expressionist, they paradoxically restored the reputation he had among his eighteenth-century contemporaries. Mozart became once again a complex innovator, challenging to perform and to understand.

Drawing on a variety of critical methods, Rosen maintains that listening or reading with intensity--for pleasure--is the one activity indispensable for full appreciation. It allows us to experience multiple possibilities in literature and music, and to avoid recognizing only the revolutionary elements of artistic production. By reviving the sense that works of art have intrinsic merits that bring pleasure, we justify their continuing existence.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Rosen (The Classical Style) writes early on in this erudite study that "The partial freedom of, and from, meaning that is the natural result of aesthetic form is made possible by the exploitation of an inherent fluidity." If readers can parse that excerpt, they'll find plenty of remarkable insights in this exploration of how best to balance the appreciation of an artwork at a personal and intellectual level with the artwork's purposive autonomy. Focusing mainly on music (whose arguably non-referential constituent parts allow for the freest construction of meaning), Rosen does not discount historical or sociological criticism as hermeneutic structures, but posits these as secondary in importance to a direct encounter with artworks. Rosen's articles-geared always towards the acquisition of aesthetic insight-are rooted as much in practice as in observation. An evident polymath, he writes with equal grace and intelligence about the music of Mozart, the poetry of Mallarme, and Adorno's aesthetic framework. The overlap of critical observation and playfulness is evident throughout, but casual readers beware-Rosen is no Malcolm Gladwell. This is a decidedly scholarly work, and Rosen has plenty to offer disciplined readers and students of the arts. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

CHOICE Review

Rosen (emer., music and social thought, Univ. of Chicago) writes with a great deal of sophistication. That said, although in this book he expects his audience to be as cerebral as he is, he allows for the possibility that most readers are not. This is an engaging, thoughtful, and humorous collection of essays on such a wide variety of subjects that the book is difficult to categorize. The diverse chapters include "Structural Dissonance and the Classical Sonata," "Theodore Adorno: Criticism as Cultural Nostalgia," "Lost Chords and the Golden Age of Pianism," "La Fontaine: The Ethical Power of Style," "Hofmannsthal and Radical Modernism," and, most remarkably, "Happy Birthday, Elliott Carter!" At a time when cross-disciplinary work is not only exciting but expected, Rosen's writing takes the reader through musicological discourse into literature, philosophy, science, politics, and a host of other areas, all with the same agenda--to demonstrate that a work of art (any art, but in this case music) has intrinsic value regardless of the era or ethos in which it is received. Reception changes, always reevaluating and repositioning works in their deserved canon. An exciting volume for all. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All readers. K. S. Todd Oklahoma Baptist University

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Charles Rosen is an internationally respected pianist. A pupil of Moriz Rosenthal, he has performed and recorded a wide repertoire from Bach to Pierre Boulez.

(Bowker Author Biography)