Rousseau Among the Moderns
Music, Aesthetics, Politics
Publication Year: 2013
Published by: Penn State University Press
COVER Front
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
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pp. ix-x
This book is dedicated to my mother, Rene´e Simon, who made sure I was exposed to music at an early age. My mother was the impetus behind the presence of the baby grand piano in our house growing up. I have fond memories of listening to her play a wide variety of music, from waltzes to popular songs. In some ways, she inspired my own desire to play. And...
A Note on the Text
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p. xi-xi
All parenthetical references to works by Rousseau are to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (Eeuvres complètes, edited by Bernard Gagnebin, 5 vols. (Paris: Gallimard, 1959–95). Internal citations refer to volume and page number. Translations are my ...
Introduction
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pp. 1-17
The history of the critical reception of Rousseau’s corpus bears the traces of interests conditioned by historical circumstance. While this is true of most writers, it is all the more true of the author of Du contrat ...
Notes to Introduction
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pp. 187-189
Chapter 1: Performance, Rhythm, and the Constitution of Community
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pp. 32-46
There is a strong dialectical tension throughout Rousseau’s work between the individual and the community. Whether in the social and political writings, the works dealing with education, or even in fictional representations, Rousseau seems to struggle between ...
Notes to Chapter 1
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pp. 189-193
Chapter 2: Singing Democracy: Music and Politics
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pp. 47-74
Democratic theory, and particularly Rousseau’s, is suffused with the idealism and lack of pragmatism that make it both immensely compelling and extraordinarily frustrating. Conceived under the decaying edifice of the absolute monarchy, it strives toward perfection, offering theoretical ...
Notes to Chapter 2
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pp. 193-197
Chapter 3: Rameau and Rousseau on Absolute and Relative Value: The Theory/Practice Problem
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pp. 75-113
In the preceding chapter, I argued for an understanding of the general will as a relative absolute consistent with conceptions of normative group dynamics functioning in musical ensembles. Pitches are given to establish an absolute standard for tuning that can be revised according to conditions ...
Notes to Chapter 3
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pp. 197-204
Chapter 4: Folk Music: Authenticity, Primitivism, and the Uses of Roots Music
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pp. 115-145
Music is associated with happiness in the beginning of the Confessions. Rousseau describes his early childhood in elegiac, idealized terms, as a time when he had no wants or needs that went unmet. In the bosom of his extended family of father, nurse, aunt, friends, and neighbors, he paints a ...
Notes to Chapter 4
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pp. 204-210
Chapter 5: Rousseau and Aesthetic Modernity: Music’s Power of Redemption
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pp. 147-222
Better known for his critiques of the project of Enlightenment and for the rhetorical barbs he aimed at the philosophes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau is not normally considered to be a defender of progress or a champion of social change. While ...
Notes to Chapter 5
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pp. 210-213
Conclusion: Rousseau Sings the Blues
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pp. 173-185
Of course Rousseau never heard the blues. The eighteenth-century Genevan was long gone when the form arose in the rural southern United States in the area near the Mississippi Delta between the 1880s and the 1920s. So why pose the ...
Notes to Conclusion
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pp. 213-215
Notes
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pp. 187-215
Bibliography
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pp. 217-225
Index
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pp. 227-240
COVER Back
E-ISBN-13: 9780271061030
Print-ISBN-13: 9780271059587
Print-ISBN-10: 0271059583
Page Count: 215
Illustrations: 1
Publication Year: 2013
