The Musical Topic: Hunt, Military and Pastoral

by Raymond Monelle

The Musical Topic discusses three tropes prominently featured in Western European music: the hunt, the military, and the pastoral. Raymond Monelle provides an in-depth cultural and historical study of musical topics--short melodic figures, harmonic or rhythmic formulae carrying literal or lexical meaning--through consideration of their origin, thematization, manifestation, and meaning. The Musical Topic shows the connections of musical meaning to literature, social history, and the fine arts.

304 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2006

Reviews

[Karl Joosep Pihel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Music is a cultural phenomenon. If music refers to "outside of music", it does so because it is born from "out" of music. However, when it does so, it refers to the world of culture and not a specific thing in and of itself. Thus the musical horse, the musical sunrise and nature in music are always just that - the specific musical versions thereof. This is the insight that Raymond Monelle derives from Saussurean tradition of linguistics as he probes deeply three ubiquitous musical topics, that have existed in European classical music for centuries. A genealogy, a deep historical overview and probing to connect music to a wider context. Anything but a dry academic view, Monelle demonstrates how musical semiotics can make old and dusty music come alive again with the meanings that must have been obvious, if not consciously articulated, for the people of its time and still can be for us.

[Denise · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting way to think about music. I honestly didn't finish it though. I mostly needed it for research and the last few chapters went into specific topics that are not useful to my current research and I got busy with other things and never finished.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting examination of various themes and currents found in Western European music.