Description
Book SynopsisWhy do we value music? Many people report that listening to music is one of life''s most rewarding activities. In Critique of Pure Music, James O. Young seeks to explain why this is so. Formalists tell us that music is appreciated as pure, contentless form. On this view, listeners receive pleasure, or a pleasurable ''musical'' emotion, when they explore the abstract patterns found in music. Music, formalists believe, does not arouse ordinary emotions such as joy, melancholy or fear, nor can it represent emotion or provide psychological insight. Young holds that formalists are wrong on all counts. Drawing upon the latest psychological research, he argues that music is expressive of emotion by resembling human expressive behaviour. By resembling human expressive behaviour, music is able to arouse ordinary emotions in listeners. This, in turn, makes possible the representation of emotion by music. The representation of emotion in music gives music the capacity to provide psychological ins
Table of Contents1. Music and Expressiveness ; 2. Music and the Arousal of Emotion ; 3. The Content of Music ; 4. Music and Lyrics ; 5. The Value of Music ; Bibliography
