Sorce Keller's express intention is to examine the European art-music tradition with the same tools and from the same perspectives that an ethnomusicologist would employ to examine music of a non-Western culture. The working out of this agenda does not go as one might expect. This is a fascinating, personal, broadly provocative book that can be approached by readers far beyond the discipline of ethnomusicology. The current notion of European art music, or the very idea of "music" in Europe, seems to have been constructed in the 19th century; it was tied strongly to social and economic change, among other things. Fundamental European assumptions about music (e.g., that there are musical "works" and that there are "composers" of those works), then, do not emerge inevitably from the stuff of music itself. Sorce Keller raises these issues and many more within a purview that comprehends European music's relationships with other musics and with its own history. This book is particularly appropriate for libraries with holdings in musicology, especially other volumes in the "Europea" series. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.
