Peter Kivy
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199562800
- eISBN:
- 9780191721298
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199562800.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Literary interpreters of the absolute music canon tend to fall into two distinct groups. Those who throw caution to the winds and impute to pure instrumental music narratives in startling detail, ...
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Literary interpreters of the absolute music canon tend to fall into two distinct groups. Those who throw caution to the winds and impute to pure instrumental music narratives in startling detail, even to the extent of naming names; and those of a more circumspect disposition, who put narrations to the music that are vague or sketchy enough to slip by without striking the average music lover as wildly implausible or ‘off the wall’. The most popular and most frequently resorted to artifice, for those narrative interpreters of the more moderate stripe, to underwrite their readings of the absolute music canon, is a shadowy figure that has become known as the musical ‘persona’. This character is the subject of this chapter.Less
Literary interpreters of the absolute music canon tend to fall into two distinct groups. Those who throw caution to the winds and impute to pure instrumental music narratives in startling detail, even to the extent of naming names; and those of a more circumspect disposition, who put narrations to the music that are vague or sketchy enough to slip by without striking the average music lover as wildly implausible or ‘off the wall’. The most popular and most frequently resorted to artifice, for those narrative interpreters of the more moderate stripe, to underwrite their readings of the absolute music canon, is a shadowy figure that has become known as the musical ‘persona’. This character is the subject of this chapter.
