Playing with Signs

A Semiotic Interpretation of Classic Music

V. Kofi Agawu

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English

Princeton University Press
25 March 2025

Theory of music & musicology; Western "classical" music

Series: Princeton Legacy Library

An award-winning account of the importance of semiotic play in Classic instrumental music, including that of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven

Of all the repertories of Western Art music, none is as explicitly listener-oriented as that of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet few attempts to analyse the so-called Classic Style have embraced the semiotic implications of this fact. In Playing with Signs, Kofi Agawu proposes a listener-oriented theory of Classic instrumental music that encompasses its two most fundamental communicative dimensions: expression and structure.

Units of expression, defined in reference to topoi, are shown here to interact with, confront, and merge into units of structure, defined in terms of the rhetorical conventions of beginning, continuing, and ending. The book draws on examples from works by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven to show that the explicitly referential, even theatrical, surface of Classic music derives from a play with signs. Although addressed primarily to readers interested in musical analysis, the book opens fruitful avenues for further research into musical semiotics, aesthetics, and Classicism.

By: V. Kofi Agawu
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 254mm, Width: 203mm,
ISBN: 9780691273631
ISBN 10: 0691273634
Series: Princeton Legacy Library
Pages: 166
Publication Date: 25 March 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Further / Higher Education , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

V. Kofi Agawu is Distinguished Professor of Music at the City University of New York Graduate Center. His books include On African Music; The African Imagination in Music; Music as Discourse; and Representing African Music.