Critical Musicology and the Responsibility of Response: Selected Essays

摘要

This is a collection of sixteen miscellaneous essaysnthat did not fi nd their way into Lawrence Kramer’snprevious books. They are presented in their originalntypefaces, formats, and paginations, and all but thenmusic examples in chapter 14 are well reproduced.nOther than one review article on canon formation andnmusic historiography, the essays all desire after thatncharacteristically Kramerian telos : to bed music downnin the most fertile context that can be synthesizednfrom resources which, ‘ Just by chance, but a suggestivenone ’ (p. 203), present themselves for criticalnpropogation; a desire to treat music’s effects ‘ historically,nwhich, it turns out, is also to fragment and multiplynit ’ (p. 180). The broadly sexual metaphors herenare intentional. Kramer’s work has always been seductive,ncreative, and inventive — as he says, ‘ “ absolutenmusic ” is not an obstacle but an opportunity ’ (p.n261). The body of work represented here has sownnthe seeds for many other scholars ’ contributions tonthe discipline.