Unsung Voices

Who 'speaks' to us in "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", in Wagner's operas, in a Mahler symphony? This title opens nineteenth-century operas and instrumental works to new interpretations as the author explores the voices projected by music.

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Who "speaks" to us in The Sorcerer's Apprentice, in Wagner's operas, in a Mahler symphony? In asking this question, Carolyn Abbate opens nineteenth-century operas and instrumental works to new interpretations as she explores the voices projected by music. The nineteenth-century metaphor of music that "sings" is thus reanimated in a new context, and Abbate proposes interpretive strategies that "de-center" music criticism, that seek the polyphony and dialogism of music, and that celebrate musical gestures often marginalized by conventional music analysis.