Leonard B. Meyer's writings on the theory, history, perception, and aesthetics of music have inspired and provoked generations of readers. "The Spheres of Music" makes available a selection of his most important essays (originally published between 1974 and 1998). Gathering them together in one volume not only enables the essays to "converse" with and illuminate each other, but also allows Meyer to revise, recant, and comment on the ideas they present.
With the same sensitive insight and searching intelligence he has exhibited throughout his career, Meyer transcends the boundaries that so often separate fields of inquiry. "The Spheres of Music" joins music theory to history, history to culture, culture to aesthetics, aesthetics to psychology, and psychology back to theory. In so doing, the book highlights the complex interrelationships at the heart of the creation, comprehension, and history of music. Diverse and adventurous, "The Spheres of Music" presents an intriguing and impressive collection of Meyer's work.
"Ever since the publication of his "Emotion and Meaning in Music" . . . I have considered Leonard B. Meyer one of the keenest thinkers about music among us."--Winthrop Sargeant, "The New Yorker"

In this influential book on the subject of rhythm, the authors develop a theoretical framework based essentially on a Gestalt approach, viewing rhythmic experience in terms of pattern perception or groupings. Musical examples of increasing complexity are used to provide training in the analysis, performance, and writing of rhythm, with exercises for the student's own work.
"This is a path-breaking work, important alike to music students and teachers, but it will make profitable reading for performers, too."--"New York Times Book Review"
"When at some future time theories of rhythm . . . are . . . as well understood, and as much discussed as theories of harmony and counterpoint . . . they will rest in no small measure on the foundations laid by Cooper and Meyer in this provocative dissertation on the rhythmic structure of music."--"Notes"
." . . . a significant, courageous and, on the whole, successful attempt to deal with a very controversial and neglected subject. Certainly no one who takes the time to read it will emerge from the experience unchanged or unmoved."--"Journal of Music Theory"
The late GROSVENOR W. COOPER, author of "Learning to Listen," was professor of music at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Altogether it is a book that should be required reading for any student of music, be he composer, performer, or theorist. It clears the air of many confused notions . . . and lays the groundwork for exhaustive study of the basic problem of music theory and aesthetics, the relationship between pattern and meaning.--David Kraehenbuehl, Journal of Music Theory This is the best study of its kind to have come to the attention of this reviewer.--Jules Wolffers, The Christian Science Monitor
It is not too much to say that his approach provides a basis for the meaningful discussion of emotion and meaning in all art.--David P. McAllester, American Anthropologist
A book which should be read by all who want deeper insights into music listening, performing, and composing.--Marcus G. Raskin, Chicago Review

'In Music, the Arts, and Ideas, ' Leonard B. Meyer uses music as a vantage point to discover patters in the perplexing, fragmented world of twentieth-century culture. The book is concerned with the aesthetics of music and with the relationships between music (and the other arts), ideology, and history--especially as these have shaped contemporary culture. The Postlude, written for this edition, looks back at the predictions made more than twenty-five years ago and speculates about what the coming decades may hold.

Leonard Meyer proposes a theory of style and style change that relates the choices made by composers to the constraints of psychology, cultural context, and musical traditions. He explores why, out of the abundance of compositional possibilities, composers choose to replicate some patterns and neglect others.
Meyer devotes the latter part of his book to a sketch-history of nineteenth-century music. He shows explicitly how the beliefs and attitudes of Romanticism influenced the choices of composers from Beethoven to Mahler and into our own time.
"A monumental work. . . . Most authors concede the relation of music to its cultural milieu, but few have probed so deeply in demonstrating this interaction."--"Choice"
"Probes the foundations of musical research precisely at the joints where theory and history fold into one another."--Kevin Korsyn, "Journal of American Musicological Society"
"A remarkably rich and multifaceted, yet unified argument. . . . No one else could have brought off this immense project with anything like Meyer's command."--Robert P. Morgan, "Music Perception"
"Anyone who attempts to deal with Romanticism in scholarly depth must bring to the task not only musical and historical expertise but unquenchable optimism. Because Leonard B. Meyer has those qualities in abundance, he has been able to offer fresh insight into the Romantic concept."--Donal Henahan, "New York Times"