Return to Riemann

<p>This book is a music-theoretical and critical-theoretical study of late tonal music and in particular of the music of Wagner’s <i>Götterdämmerung</i>.</p><p>First in terms of music theory it proposes a new theory of tonal function that returns to the theories of Hugo Riemann to rediscover a development of his thought that has been covered over by the recent project of neo-Riemannian theory. Second in terms of its philosophical approach it reawakens the critical-theoretical examination of the relation between music and the late capitalist society that is sedimented in the musical materials themselves and which the music in turn subjects to aesthetically embodied critique. The music the theory and the listeners and critics who respond to them are all radically reimagined.</p><p>This book will be of interest to professional music theorists undergraduates and technically inclined musicians and listeners that is anyone who is fascinated by the chromatic magic of late-nineteenth-century music.</p>