argument explores the various dimensions of musical organization and musical meaning, and shows exactly how and why music is an expressive medium. The Aesthetics of Music explains and
criticizes many fashionable theories in the philosophy and theory of music, and mounts a case for the moral significance of music, its place in our culture, and the need for taste and discrimination in both performer and listener. The various schools of musical analysis are subjected to a critical examination, and recent criticism of tonality, as the foundation of musical order, are rehearsed and rejected. Scruton defends the objectivity of aesthetic values, lays down principles of criticism,
and ends with an energetic critique of modern popular music.
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