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Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Music and Discourse Towards a Semiology of Music, translated by Carolyn Abbate. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1991. xv + 272 pp. ISBN 0 691 02714 5.

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Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Music and Discourse Towards a Semiology of Music, translated by Carolyn Abbate. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1991. xv + 272 pp. ISBN 0 691 02714 5.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

William Drabkin
William Drabkin*
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
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Type
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Information
Journal of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 117 , Issue 2 , 1992 , pp. 313 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Musical Association, 1992

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References

1 Jonathan Dunsby and Arnold Whittall, Music Analysis in Theory and Practice (London, 1988), 211Google Scholar

2 In its ten-year history, Music Analysis has published three articles by Nattiez (one a revised translation of an earlier piece), and translations of one article each by Nicholas Ruwet and Jean Molino In addition, the writings of each of these authors have been introduced by a short explanatory essay by an English-speaking writer (Jonathan Dunsby, Mark Everist and Craig Ayrey respectively) By contrast, there have been only two full-length semiological studies of ‘native’ production, by Anthony Pople on Scriabin and by David Morris on MessiaenGoogle Scholar

3 ‘A Hitch Hiker's Guide to Sermiotic Music Analysis’, Music Analysis, 1 (1982), 235–42 (pp 240–1), Music Analysis in Theory and Practice, 220Google Scholar

4 I think it is fair to say that, for readers who are au fail with general music theory and contemporary criticism, the later chapters of a semiological monograph on music are bound to be easier to read than the initial ones This is certainly the opposite of my experience with academic writings, and probably accounts for semiology's effect of intimidating or putting off some of its potential readersGoogle Scholar

5 Playing with Signs A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music (Princeton, 1991), 12–13Google Scholar

6 The state of affairs was corrected by the appearance of ‘Musical Fact and the Semiology of Music’, Music Analysts, 9 (1990), 113–56, an English translation of a 1975 article that had a great influence on Nattiez's early workGoogle Scholar

7 Studies in Musical Genesis and Structure, ed Lewis Lockwood (Oxford University Press) To date, studies have appeared on the music of Beethoven (twice), Weber, Donizetti, Schumann and StraussGoogle Scholar

8 Early Music, 19 (1991), 591Google Scholar