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The Oxford handbook of topic theory

The Oxford handbook of topic theory
The Oxford handbook of topic theory
Topics are musical signs developed and employed primarily during the long eighteenth century. Their significance relies on associations that are clearly recognizable to the listener with different genres, styles and types of music making. Topic theory, which is used to explain conventional subjects of musical composition in this period, is grounded in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism, while drawing also from music cognition and semiotics. The concept of topics was introduced into by Leonard Ratner in the 1980s to account for cross-references between eighteenth-century styles and genres. As the invention of a twentieth-century academic, topic theory as a field is comparatively new, and The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory provides a much-needed reconstruction of the field's aesthetic underpinnings.

The volume grounds the concept of topics in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism. Documenting the historical reality of individual topics on the basis of eighteenth-century sources, it traces the origins of topical mixtures to transformations of eighteenth-century musical life, and relates topical analysis to other methods of music analysis conducted from the perspectives of composers, performers, and listeners. Focusing its scope on eighteenth-century musical repertoire, The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory lays the foundation for further investigation of topics in music of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.
978-0-19-984157-8
Oxford University Press
Mirka, Danuta
94e00890-c90d-4109-b54d-c251008336f1
Mirka, Danuta
94e00890-c90d-4109-b54d-c251008336f1

Mirka, Danuta (ed.) (2014) The Oxford handbook of topic theory (Oxford Handbooks), New York. Oxford University Press, 712pp.

Record type: Book

Abstract

Topics are musical signs developed and employed primarily during the long eighteenth century. Their significance relies on associations that are clearly recognizable to the listener with different genres, styles and types of music making. Topic theory, which is used to explain conventional subjects of musical composition in this period, is grounded in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism, while drawing also from music cognition and semiotics. The concept of topics was introduced into by Leonard Ratner in the 1980s to account for cross-references between eighteenth-century styles and genres. As the invention of a twentieth-century academic, topic theory as a field is comparatively new, and The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory provides a much-needed reconstruction of the field's aesthetic underpinnings.

The volume grounds the concept of topics in eighteenth-century music theory, aesthetics, and criticism. Documenting the historical reality of individual topics on the basis of eighteenth-century sources, it traces the origins of topical mixtures to transformations of eighteenth-century musical life, and relates topical analysis to other methods of music analysis conducted from the perspectives of composers, performers, and listeners. Focusing its scope on eighteenth-century musical repertoire, The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory lays the foundation for further investigation of topics in music of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: August 2013
Published date: 6 November 2014
Additional Information: Contributors are Kofi Agawu, Tom Beghin, Vasili Byros, William Caplin, Keith Chapin, Sarah Day-O'Connell, Joel Galand, Sheila Guymer, Andrew Haringer, Robert Hatten, Matthew Head, Julian Horton, Mary Hunter, John Irving, Roman Ivanovitch, Melanie Lowe, Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, Catherine Mayes, Clive McClelland, Eric McKee, Danuta Mirka, Elaine Sisman, Stephen Rumph, W. Dean Sutcliffe and Lawrence Zbikowski.
Organisations: Music

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Local EPrints ID: 375525
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/375525
ISBN: 978-0-19-984157-8
PURE UUID: 8eee995a-5a35-4b04-829a-038f2325febb

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Date deposited: 09 Apr 2015 10:22
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 19:27

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Editor: Danuta Mirka

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