Of all the repertories of Western Art music, none is as
explicitly listener-oriented as that of the late eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries. Yet few attempts to analyze the
so-called Classic Style have embraced the semiotic implications of
this condition. Playing with Signs proposes a listener-oriented
theory of Classic instrumental music that encompasses its two most
fundamental communicative dimensions: expression and structure.
Units of expression, defined in reference to topoi, are shown here
to interact with, confront, and merge into units of structure,
defined in terms of the rhetorical conventions of beginning,
continuing, and ending. The book draws on examples from works by
Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven to show that the explicitly
referential, even theatrical, surface of Classic music derives from
a play with signs. Although addressed primarily to readers
interested in musical analysis, the book opens up fruitful avenues
for further research into musical semiotics, aesthetics, and
Classicism.
Originally published in 1991.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books
from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.
These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these
important books while presenting them in durable paperback
editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly
increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the
thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since
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