Music and the Sonorous Sublime in European Culture, 1680–1880

The first English language collection on the musical sublime. Reveals music's place at the forefront of this interdisciplinary aesthetic category.

Sarah Hibberd (Edited by), Miranda Stanyon (Edited by)

9781108486590, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 May 2020

318 pages, 5 b/w illus. 46 music examples
25.3 x 18.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.8 kg

'... carefully presented ...' Agathe Sueur, translated from Revue de musicologie

The sublime - that elusive encounter with overwhelming height, power or limits - has been associated with music from the early-modern rise of interest in the Longinian sublime to its saturation of European culture in the later nineteenth century and beyond. This volume offers a historically situated study of the relationship between music, sound and the sublime. Together, the authors distinguish between the different aesthetics of production, representation and effect, while understanding these as often mutually reinforcing approaches. They demonstrate music's strength in playing out the sublime as transfer, transport and transmission of power, allied to the persistent theme of destruction, deaths and endings. The volume opens up two avenues for further research suggested by the adjective 'sonorous': a wider spectrum of sounds heard as sublime, and (especially for those outside musicology) a more multifaceted idea of music as a cultural practice that shares boundaries with other sounding phenomena.

Sonorous sublimes: an introduction Sarah Hibberd and Miranda Stanyon
1. Thunder or celestial harmony: French theological debates on the sonorous sublime Sophie Hache
2. 'A pleasing rape': John Dennis, music and the queer sublime Matthew Head
3. The idea of the past in eighteenth-century British music Suzanne Aspden
4. C. P. E. Bach and the neoclassical sublime: revisions of a concept Keith Chapin
5. Cherubini's Médée and sublime vengeance Sarah Hibberd
6. When does the sublime stop? Cavatinas and quotations in Haydn's Seasons Elaine Sisman
7. Counterfeits, contraltos and consonance in De Quincey's sublime Miranda Stanyon
8. The consecration of sound: sublime musical creation in Haydn, Weber and Spohr Benedict Taylor
9. Commanding performances: opera, surrogation and the royal sublime in 1848 Dana Gooley
10. Wagner's sublime effects: bells, cannon and the perception of heavy sound David Trippett.

Subject Areas: Music: styles & genres [AVG], Music reviews & criticism [AVC], Theory of music & musicology [AVA], Music [AV]