Description
Book Synopsis"Jerrold Levinson's new book, Music in the Moment, makes a major contribution to the now flourishing field of philosophy of music. He has a daring thesis about music listening that is going to shake up the experts, and pose for them, and for us all...
Trade ReviewA small book, a big question. Does musical understanding require reflective, explicit awareness of large-scale musical structure? Jerrold Levinson's answer is, interestingly, no. As a recovering Schenkerian myself, I am struck by the glorious yet disconcerting heresy of this thesis.... Rarely has a new book in musical aesthetics so rattled my ideas about the actual event of listening. In music academia, any view that denies an architectonic view of how music works at even the most elemental level is practically unthinkable. Yet here it is. Brilliantly argued and cogently presented, Music in the Moment not only muddies the pond, it dashes and splashes about. It will be interesting to see who jumps on it.
* British Journal of Aesthetics *
Levinson's theory that musical understanding lies in entering the flow of linked musical moments is firmly and compellingly made in his Music in the Moment. This slim, taut book makes the case for its deceptively simple thesis with such clarity and gentle certainty that, at the end, it's hard to understand why anyone would think otherwise.
* Washington Times *
When a musically sophisticated aesthetician like Levinson feels compelled to polemicize, we do well to pay heed.... Listening is both an experience of occurrent sound and an invitation to contemplation, and such contemplation will engage a wide range of thoughts and memories.... Perhaps, then, Levinson is telling us that... we too often seem to forget that music is, first and foremost, for listening.
* Journal of the American Musicological Society *
Music in the Moment is a welcome addition to the... list of books in aesthetics and the philosophy of music.
* Philosophical Review *
Brilliant and compelling.... It is engagingly written and powerfully argued.... This very fine book amply deserves the attention it will receive from both philosophers and musicologists.
* Philosophical Quarterly *
The conundrum of musical understanding has always been problematic because of music's keen relationship to time: it progresses through time, and therefore does not reveal itself inherently holistically. Jerrold Levinson examines this dichotomy most effectively.... Recommended for general readers and all levels of students.
* Choice *
