Aesthetics and Music

Andy Hamilton is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Durham University, UK. He writes for the contemporary music magazine The Wire, and is a jazz pianist.

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction1. Aesthetics and Music in Ancient Greece 2. The Concept of Music3. The Aesthetics of Form, the Aesthetics of Expression, and 'Absolute Music': Aesthetics of Music in the Late-18th and 19th Centuries 4. The Sound of Music5. Rhythm and Time 6. Adorno and Modernism: Music as Autonomous and 'Social Fact'7. Improvisation and Composition8. The Aesthetics of Recording9. Music and DanceAnnotated BibliographyIndex

‘In this new edition of Aesthetics and Music, Andy Hamilton explores music and philosophy, moving beyond Eurocentric perspectives. I was fascinated by how the book challenges the idea of music as disembodied sound or abstract language, focusing instead on its embodied, multisensory and cultural dimensions.’