Music and Sentimentalism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

A study of sentimentalism's significance for nineteenth and twentieth-century music styles, practices, and meanings explores musical expressions of sympathetic responses to suffering and the longing to belong, challenging hierarchies of artistic value and gendered discourses. It draws from a diverse range of musical sources, including violin repertory, piano music, waltzes, concert music, and popular songs, and discusses musical form, affect, appropriation, nationalisms, psychology, eco-sentimentalism, humanitarianism, consumerism, and subject positions, with a particular emphasis on masculine sentimentalities.

\n Format: Paperback / softback
\n Length: 310 pages
\n Publication date: 31 May 2021
\n Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
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In a comprehensive exploration of the profound significance of sentimentalism for the styles, practices, and meanings of music in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a series of interpretations delve into the musical expressions of sympathetic responses to suffering and the yearning to belong. This insightful book challenges the established hierarchies of artistic value and the derogatory treatment of sentimental feeling within gendered discourses. Through fresh insights, it sheds light on the place of sentimentalism in the construction of emotion, taste, genre, gender, desire, and authenticity within musical compositions.

The contexts encompassed in this study extend across diverse musical communities, performing spaces, and listening practices, including the nineteenth-century salon and concert hall, the cinematic realm, the intimate stage persona of the singer-songwriter, and the homely ambiguities of 'easy listening.' Interdisciplinary perspectives enrich the discussions, encompassing musical form, affect, appropriation, nationalisms, psychology, eco-sentimentalism, humanitarianism, consumerism, and subject positions, with a particular focus on masculine sentimentalities.

A rich tapestry of musical excerpts is drawn from a diverse range of sources, including the violin repertory associated with Joseph Joachim, the piano music of Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt, sentimental waltzes from Schubert to Ravel, concert music by Bartók, Szymanowski, and Górecki, the Merchant-Ivory adaptation of The Remains of the Day, Antônio Carlos Jobims iconic bossa nova, and songs by Duke Ellington, Burt Bacharach, Carole King, Barry Manilow, and Jimmy Webb.

This book will captivate readers with a dual interest in the historical role of music in shaping emotions and the enduringpersistence and diversity of sentimental arts, even after their flourishing in the eighteenth-century age of sensibility.

\n Weight: 490g\n
Dimension: 154 x 235 x 22 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781032007427\n \n