Substance an Content in Music Today

Content and meaning in music are the complex subject of this volume. The central questions are: In what ways is music more than immanence, structure, and autonomous meaning, and to what extent do “extra-musical” ideas and concepts shape a work in such a way that it seems to contain more than music alone? This topic is particularly significant for 21st-century contemporary music, as more and more composers are interested in both cultural discourses and the thematic orientation of their music. However, their approaches to such questions vary greatly.

This volume brings together essays by Mark Barden, Dániel Péter Biró, Frank Cox, Suzanne Farrin, Wieland Hoban, Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf, Timothy McCormack, Kai Johannes Polzhofer, Wolfram Schurig, Hannes Seidl, Steven Kazuo Takasugi, and Ming Tsao. All of these composers were invited to reflect on the relationship between musical structure and the content of music in light of their own compositional practice.