Aesthetics of Music

For the first time, Dr. David Whitwell presents a thorough study of the performance of music in society together with the philosophical views on art versus entertainment, the role of performance in education and character formation and how earlier philosophers viewed the interplay among Reason, Emotions, experience and the senses. The present volume presents for the first time a comprehensive view of the aesthetic principles of English culture during the Baroque. Following the usual division into Jacobean and Restoration Periods, the reader will find here a detailed study of Music as reflected in court and civic performances, but also as reflected in poetry, theater and the Church. This period of English letters also enjoyed its greatest period in philosophy and this volume examines in detail the aesthetic views of Bacon, Milton, Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Penn, Hume, Berkeley, Temple, Rymer, Wotton, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson and Harris. Finally, today's active musician in the English-speaking world will discover here the intellectual path by which Music traveled from being a core study of the highest level of society to the present day, where we find that the highest level of society knows almost nothing about Music and Music is provided them by members of the lower classes.