TY - BOOK ID - 31266784 TI - Freedom and the arts : essays on music and literature PY - 2012 SN - 9780674047525 0674047524 0674065492 0674069897 9780674065499 PB - Cambridge : Harvard University Press, DB - UniCat KW - 530 KW - Muziekwetenschappelijke essays KW - Music KW - Music appreciation KW - Musique KW - Philosophy and aesthetics KW - Philosophie et esthétique KW - Appréciation KW - Literature -- History and criticism. KW - Music -- History and criticism. KW - Music Literature KW - Music appreciation. KW - Literature KW - Appraisal of books KW - Books KW - Evaluation of literature KW - Criticism KW - Literary style KW - History and criticism. KW - Appraisal KW - Evaluation KW - History and criticism KW - Muziek KW - Geschiedenis en kritiek UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:31266784 AB - Is there a moment in history when a work receives its ideal interpretation? Or is negotiation always required to preserve the past and accommodate the present? The freedom of interpretation, Charles Rosen suggests in these sparkling explorations of music and literature, exists in a delicate balance with fidelity to the identity of the original work.Rosen cautions us to avoid doctrinaire extremes when approaching art of the past. To understand Shakespeare only as an Elizabethan or Jacobean theatergoer would understand him, or to modernize his plays with no sense of what they bring from his age, deforms the work, making it less ambiguous and inherently less interesting. For a work to remain alive, it must change character over time while preserving a valid witness to its earliest state. When twentieth-century scholars transformed Mozart's bland, idealized nineteenth-century image into that of a modern revolutionary expressionist, they paradoxically restored the reputation he had among his eighteenth-century contemporaries. Mozart became once again a complex innovator, challenging to perform and to understand.Drawing on a variety of critical methods, Rosen maintains that listening or reading with intensity-for pleasure-is the one activity indispensable for full appreciation. It allows us to experience multiple possibilities in literature and music, and to avoid recognizing only the revolutionary elements of artistic production. By reviving the sense that works of art have intrinsic merits that bring pleasure, we justify their continuing existence. ER -