Musical Understandings

Musical Understandings presents an engaging collection of essays on the philosophy of music written by Stephen Davies--one of the most distinguished philosophers in the field. He explores a range of topics in the philosophy of music including how music expresses emotion and what is distinctive to the listener''s response to this expressiveness; the modes of perception and understanding that can be expected of skilled listeners performers analysts and composers and the various manners in which these understandings can be manifest; the manner in which musical works exist and their relation to their instances or performances; and musical profundity. As well as reviewing the work of philosophers of music a number of the chapters both draw on and critically reflect on current work by psychologists concerning music. The collection includes new material a number of adapted articles which allow for a more comprehensive unified treatment of the issues at stake and work published in English for the first time.