Music and the Historical Imagination

“A brilliant and thought-provoking collection of eleven essays on various aspects of understanding music, written…by one of our most distinguished musicologists…[a] profound and deeply personal view of music and history.”—Library Journal

“[Treitler] argues for art as multilevel affirmative action… Treitler’s argument [is] buttressed, amplified, and intensified in beautifully fashioned essays.”—Musical America

“Treitler is, in the truest sense, a contemporary scholar, completely open to all human endeavour, not subscribing to any doctrine except the willingness to admit ‘that the meaning of a text is not fixed within its boundaries but is ever contingent upon the interests and the circumstances of the community of readers or listeners’ …Should be required reading for all music lovers and students.”—Antioch Review