The Aesthetics of Music

What is music, what is its value, and what does it mean? In this exciting book, Roger Scruton offers a comprehensive account of the nature and significance of music from the perspective of modern philosophy.

The book starts from the metaphysics of sound, distinguishes sound from tone, analyses rhythm, melody, and harmony, and explores the various dimensions of musical organization, and of musical meaning. Taking on various fashionable theories in the philosophy and theory of music, Scruton mounts a case for the moral significance of music, its place in our culture, and the need for taste and discrimination in performing and listening to it. Laying down principles for musical analysis and criticism, the book ends with a theory of culture, and a devastating demolition of modern popular music.