Music and Sentiment

Acclaimed pianist and writer Charles Rosen explores music’s profound ability to convey emotion through sound How does a work of music stir the senses, creating feelings of joy, sadness, elation, or nostalgia?Though sentiment and emotion play a vital role in the composition, performance, and appreciation of music, rarely have these elements been fully observed.In this succinct and penetrating book, Charles Rosen draws upon more than a half century as a performer and critic to reveal how composers from Bach to Berg have used sound to represent and communicate emotion in mystifyingly beautiful ways. Through a range of musical examples, Rosen details the array of stylistic devices and techniques used to represent or convey sentiment.This is not, however, a listener’s guide to any “correct” response to a particular piece.Instead, Rosen provides the tools and terms with which to appreciate this central aspect of musical aesthetics, and indeed explores the phenomenon of contradictory sentimen