Musical Elaborations - Softcover

Said, Edward W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593687892 ISBN 13: 9780593687895

Publisher: Vintage, 2026

Synopsis

From one of the world's most beloved and respected public intellectuals comes a sweeping work of musical criticism, examining the distance between the performer and their audience

"Not since Virgil Thomson have we had a music critic with as wide ranging a view as Edward Said."—Studs Terkel

"Wonderful personal thoughts on music and musicians . . . Mr. Said is marvelous."—New York Times Book Review

Filling a significant gap in contemporary cultural studies, Musical Elaborations examines the intersection of the public and private meaning of music. Incorporating the music criticism of Adorno, musical ideas from literary works by Proust, and criticism by Benjamin and de Man into his work, noted critic Edward W. Said discusses performers such as Glenn Gould, Arturo Toscanini, and Alfred Brendel and such composers as Beethoven, Wagner, and Strauss.

About this title

About the Author

EDWARD W. SAID was born in 1935 in Jerusalem, raised in Jerusalem and Cairo, and educated in the United States, where he attended Princeton (B.A. 1957) and Harvard (M.A. 1960; Ph.D. 1964). In 1963, he began teaching at Columbia University, where he was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature. He is the author of twenty-two books which have been translated into thirty-five languages, including Orientalism (1978); The Question of Palestine (1979); Covering Islam (1980); The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983); Culture and Imperialism (1993); Peace and Its Discontents: Essays on Palestine and the Middle East Peace Process (1996); and Out of Place: A Memoir (1999). He died in 2003 in New York City.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0593687892
• ISBN 13: 9780593687895
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144