Davies, Stephen - Themes in the Philosophy of Music

Is music a language of the emotions? How do recorded pop songs differ from works created for live performance? Is John Cage's silent piece, 4'33, music? Stephen Davies's new book collects some of his most important papers on central topics in the philosophy of music. As well as perennial questions, Davies addresses contemporary controversies, including the impact of modern technology on the presentation and reception of both new and old musical works. These essays, two of them new and previously unpublished, are self-standing but thematically connected, and will be of great interest to philosophers, aestheticians, and to theorists of music and art.

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CONTENTS

Introduction
ONTOLOGY
1 John Cage's 4'33. Is it Music?
2 Ontologies of Musical Works
3 Transcription, Authenticity, and Performance
4 The Ontology of Musical Works and the Authenticity of their Performances
PERFORMANCE
5 Authenticity in Musical Performance
6 So, You Want to Sing with the Beatles? Too Late!
7 What is the Sound of One Piano Plummeting?
EXPRESSION
8 The Expression of Emotion in Music
9 Is Music a Language of the Emotions?
10 Contra the Hypothetical Persona in Music
11 Philosophical Perspectives on Music's Expressiveness
APPRECIATION
12 The Evaluation of Music
13 Musical Understandings and Musical Kinds
14 Attributing Significance to Unobvious Musical Relationships
15 The Multiple Interpretability of Musical Works