| Contents |
Markedness, topics, and tropes. Semiotic grounding in markedness and style: interpreting a style type in the opening of Beethoven's Ghost Trio, Op. 70, no. 1 -- Expressive doubling, topics, tropes, and shifts in level of discourse: interpreting the third movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in B major, Op. 130 -- From topic to premise and mode: the pastoral in Schubert's Piano Sonata in G Major, D 894 -- The troping of topics, genres, and forms: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler -- Musical gesture. Foundational principles of human gesture -- Toward a theory of musical gesture -- Stylistic types and strategic functions of gestures -- Thematic gesture in Schubert: the Piano Sonatas in A Major, D. 959, and A Minor, D 784 -- Thematic gesture in Beethoven: the Sonata for Piano and Cello in C Major, Op. 102, no. 1 -- Gestural troping and agency -- Continuity and discontinuity. From gestural continuity to continuity as premise -- Discontinuity and beyond. |
| Abstract |
This book continues to develop the author's theory of musical physical based on the principles of semiotic theory as introduced in Musical Meaning in Beethoven (1994). In Part One, he applies his theories of markedness, topics, and tropes to individual works by Beethoven and Schubert, ending the section with a chapter that presents an overview of topics, genres, and forms as tropes in Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music. Part Two introduces a new approach by combining critical theory with biological and psychological theories of gesture, thereby surpassing the limits of conventional semiotic analysis. Within this section, the author presents analyses of Classical period works by Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert. Part three extends these ideas into a theory of musical continuity, with several analyses of Beethoven's late works. |
