Playing with Signs

A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music

Bibliographic Data

ID11445966
AuthorsWilliam Drabkin
Year1991
Volume10
Issue3
Pages381
Publication date1991-10-01
Open AccessNo
TypeREVIEW
Review ofPlaying with Signs: A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music, V Kofi Agawu, 1991
VenueMusic Analysis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0262-5245 • E-ISSN: 1468-2249
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/853975
OpenAlexW2037893906
LanguageEN
References cited1

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 its founding in 1905

Art · Linguistics · Semiotics · Communication · Music and Audio Processing · Music Technology and Sound Studies · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Philosophy · Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub