Schubert's Instrumental Music and the Poetics of Interpretation

Music scholarship's views of Franz Schubert's instrumental works continue to evolve. How might aesthetic values, historiographies, revisions to the composer's biography, and disciplinary commitments affect how we interpret his music? Schubert's Instrumental Music and Poetics of Interpretation explores the aesthetic positions and operations that underlie critical assessments of Schubert's instrumental works. In six chapters, each devoted to one or two of Schubert's pieces, René Rusch examines the conditions that have prompted scholarship to reevaluate the composer's music and legacy, considers how different conclusions about his music may be reflective of certain aesthetic values, investigates the role of narrative in both music analysis and constructions of history, and explores alternative forms of coherence through updated analyses of the composer's instrumental works. Rusch's observations and comparative analyses address four significant areas of scholarly focus in Schubert studies, including his approach to chromaticism, his unique musical forms, the relationship between his music and biography, and the influence of Beethoven. Drawing from a range of philosophical, hermeneutic, historical, biographical, theoretical, and analytical sources, Schubert's Instrumental Music and Poetics of Interpretation offers readers a unique and innovative foray into the poetics of contemporary analyses of Schubert's instrumental music and develops new ways to engage with his repertoire. "Music scholarship has been rethinking its understanding of Franz Schubert and his work. How might our modern aesthetic values, conceptions of Schubert's life, and historiographies affect how we interpret his music? Schubert's Instrumental Music and Poetics of Interpretation examines the conditions that have prompted scholarship to reassess the composer's music and legacy. In six chapters, each devoted to one or two of Schubert's pieces, René Rusch offers critical assessments of biographical and intertextual influence, investigates the role of narrative, and explores alternate forms of unity and coherence through updated analyses of the composer's instrumental works. Rusch's comparative analyses and interpretations address four significant areas of scholarly focus in Schubert studies, including his use of chromaticism, his unique forms, the impact of events in his life, and the influence of Beethoven. Drawing from a range of philosophical, hermeneutic, historical, biographical, theoretical, and analytical sources, Schubert's Instrumental Music and Poetics of Interpretation offers readers a unique and innovative foray into the poetics of contemporary analysis of Schubert's instrumental music and develops new ways to engage with his repertoire"-- Provided by publisher Preface 1. Schubert's Musical Reception and Contemporary Schubert Criticism 2. Rethinking Conceptions of Unity 3. The Value of Diatonic Indeterminacy When Traveling through Tonal Space 4. Sonata Forms, Fantasias, and Formal Coherence 5. Biography, Music Analysis, and the Narrative Impulse 6. Beyond Homage and Critique: Rethinking Musical Influence Closing Remarks Works Cited Index