Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century: Hermeneutic Approaches

In this second volume of nineteenth-century music analyses, Ian Bent provides a further selection of newly translated writings of nineteenth-century music critics and theorists, including composers such as Wagner, Schumann and Berlioz, and critics such as A. B. Marx and E. T. A. Hoffmann. Where Volume I, on Fugue, Form and Style, presented nineteen analyses of a technical nature, all the writing here involves a metaphorical style of verbalised description, some pure examples, and others hybrid forms mixed with technical analysis. The music analysed is amongst the best-known in the repertoire: Wagner writes on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, E. T. A. Hoffmann on the Fifth, Schumann writes on Berlioz, and Berlioz on Meyerbeer. Professor Bent presents each analysis with its own detailed introduction and each is amplified by supporting information in footnotes.