Applicable on a wide scale not only to this repertory, Harrison's lucid explications of abstract theoretical concepts provide new insights into the workings of tonal systems in general.

This book is a music-theoretical and critical-theoretical study of late tonal music, and, in particular, of the music of Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. First, in terms of music theory, it proposes a new theory of tonal function that returns to the theories of Hugo Riemann to rediscover a development of his thought that has been covered over by the recent project of neo-Riemannian theory. Second, in terms of its philosophical approach, it reawakens the critical-theoretical examination of the relation between music and the late capitalist society that is sedimented in the musical materials themselves, and which the music, in turn, subjects to aesthetically embodied critique. The music, the theory, and the listeners and critics who respond to them are all radically reimagined. This book will be of interest to professional music theorists, undergraduates, and technically inclined musicians and listeners, that is, anyone who is fascinated by the chromatic magic of late-nineteenth-century music.

An original, listener-based approach to harmony for popular music from the rock era of the 1950s to the present

In recent years, music theorists have been increasingly eager to incorporate findings from the science of human cognition and linguistics into their methodology. In the culmination of a vast body of research undertaken since his influential and award-winning Conceptualizing Music (OUP 2002), Lawrence M. Zbikowski puts forward Foundations of Musical Grammar, an ambitious and broadly encompassing account on the foundations of musical grammar based on our current understanding of human cognitive capacities. Musical grammar is conceived of as a species of construction grammar, in which grammatical elements are form-function pairs. Zbikowski proposes that the basic function of music is to provide sonic analogs for dynamic processes that are important in human cultural interactions. He focuses on three such processes: those concerned with the emotions, the spontaneous gestures that accompany speech, and the patterned movement of dance. Throughout the book, Zbikowski connects cognitive research with music theory for an interdisciplinary audience, presenting detailed musical analyses and summaries of the basic elements of musical grammar.

An accessible multi-disciplinary exploration of Franz Schubert's haunting late song cycle Winterreise (1827) that combines context and different analytical approaches.

Though studying opera often requires attention to aesthetics, libretti, staging, singers, compositional history, and performance history, the music itself is central. This book examines operatic music by five Italian composers--Rossini, Bellini, Mercadante, Donizetti, and Verdi--and one non-Italian, Meyerbeer, during the period from Rossini's first international successes to Italian unification. Detailed analyses of form, rhythm, melody, and harmony reveal concepts of musical structure different from those usually discussed by music theorists, calling into question the notion of a common practice. Taking an eclectic analytical approach, author William Rothstein uses ideas originating in several centuries, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first, to argue that operatic music can be heard not only as passionate vocality but also in terms of musical forms, pitch structures, and rhythmic patterns--that is, as carefully crafted music worth theoretical attention. Although no single theory accounts for everything, Rothstein's analysis shows how certain recurring principles define a distinctively Italian practice, one that left its mark on the German repertoire more familiar to music theorists.