Who Needs Classical Music?

Cultural Choice and Musical Value
Erscheinungsjahr 2011
ISBN: 978-0-19-975542-4
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 168 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 251 g

During the last few decades, most cultural critics have come to agree that the division between "high" and "low" art is an artificial one, that Beethoven's Ninth and "Blue Suede Shoes" are equally valuable as cultural texts. In Who Needs Classical Music?, Julian Johnson challenges these assumptions about the relativism of cultural judgments. The author maintains that music is more than just "a matter of taste": while some music provides entertainment, or serves as
background noise, other music claims to function as art. This book considers the value of classical music in contemporary society, arguing that it remains distinctive because it works in quite different ways to most of the other music that surrounds us.

This intellectually sophisticated yet accessible book offers a new and balanced defense of the specific values of classical music in contemporary culture. The paperback edition includes a new preface from the author, re-contextualizing the debate ten years out. Who Needs Classical Music? will stimulate readers to reflect on their own investment (or lack of it) in music and art of all kinds.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Johnson, Julian

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikgattungen
• Geisteswissenschaften Musikwissenschaft Musikwissenschaft Allgemein Musiktheorie, Musikästhetik, Kompositionslehre

Über Autor(innen)

Professor of Music, Royal Holloway University of London, author of Webern and the Transformation of Nature, (Cambridge, 2000), Who Needs Classical Music (OUP, 2002), and Mahler's Voices (OUP, 2009), and composer. Winner, Dent Medal (2005) from the Royal Music Association.