Musical Concerns

Jerrold Levinson is Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Maryland and past president of the American Society for Aesthetics, 2001-2003. He is the author of three collections of essays, Music, Art, and Metaphysics (Cornell University Press, 1990; 2nd edn OUP, 2010), The Pleasures of Aesthetics (Cornell University Press, 1996), and Contemplating Art (OUP, 2006); a monograph, Music in the Moment (Cornell University Press, 1998); the editor of Aesthetics and Ethics (CUP, 1998), Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics (OUP, 2003), and Suffering Art Gladly (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2013); and co-editor of Aesthetic Concepts (OUP, 2001) and Art and Pornography (OUP, 2012).

Levinson has written so many important essays in aesthetics and his reputation is so secure -- he is well established as one of our leading philosophers of art -- that any new book from him merits attention . . . it is refreshing to find multiple essays discussing songs and singing instead of composed works in the classical tradition. The value for newcomers to Levinson's work -- or even newcomers to philosophy of music or to philosophy of art -- is that it is organized so that the initial chapters consist of clear, straightforward exposition of his views on the nature of music appreciation, the value of music, and the nature of musical works.

• Acknowledgments Introduction 1: Philosophy and Music 2: The Aesthetic Appreciation of Music 3: Concatenationism, Architectonicism, and the Appreciation of Music 4: Indication, Abstraction, and Individuation 5: Musical Beauty 6: Values of Music 7: Shame in General and Shame in Music 8: Jazz Vocal Interpretation: A Philosophical Analysis 9: Popular Song as Moral Microcosm: Life Lessons from Jazz Standards 10: The Expressive Specificity of Jazz 11: Instrumentation and Improvisation 12: with Philip Alperson: What Is a Temporal Art? Index