Representation in Western Music

Representation in Western Music offers a comprehensive study of the roles of representation in the composition, performance and reception of Western music. In recent years, there has been increasing academic interest in questions of musical interpretation and meaning and in music’s interactions with other artistic media, and yet no book has dealt extensively with representation’s important role in these processes. This volume presents new research about musical representation, with particular focus on Western art and popular music from the nineteenth century to the present day. It assembles essays by an international assortment of leading scholars on a range of subjects including instrumental music, opera, popular song, ballet, cinema and the music video. Individual sections address representation, interpretation and musical meaning; music’s relationships with visual forms of representation; musical representation in dramatic forms; and the functions of music in the representation of identity.