The Soul Seeks Its Melodies

The connection of Judaism to music has been a lively discourse topic in recent years, and the musical awakening in religious circles is one expression of it. This book is the first comprehensive research project on the encounter of music and Judaism in the theological and philosophical realms, tracing the historical evolution of the music motif in Jewish thought. It describes the course of music as a tool serving religious, psychological, and instrumental goals until it developed into an independent aesthetic experience. Discussions also encompass various assessments of music in Jewish thought and the special connection of the Jewish people to music.

The connection of Judaism to music has been a lively discourse topic in recent years, and the musical awakening in religious circles is one expression of it. This book is the first comprehensive research project on the encounter of music and Judaism in the theological and philosophical realms, tracing the historical evolution of the music motif in Jewish thought. It describes the course of music as a tool serving religious, psychological, and instrumental goals until it developed into an independent aesthetic experience. Discussions also encompass various assessments of music in Jewish thought and the special connection of the Jewish people to music.

A new 2023 translation into American English with introduction, translated from the original manuscript of Nietzsche's 1876 Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen. This edition is bilingual- the original text is included in the back as reference material behind the English translation. This is volume 2 in The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche from Newcomb Livraria Press. This chronological, systematic set of Nietzsche's works is the first ever bilingual complete major works of Nietzsche published in English & the original German. Untimely Reflections is a collection of four essays written by Friedrich Nietzsche between 1873 and 1876. The essays are a critique of contemporary culture, society, and science, and Nietzsche argues that the "modern" way of thinking is inherently flawed. In the first essay, "David Strauss: The Confessor and the Writer," Nietzsche criticizes the way in which Strauss uses historical facts to support his own personal beliefs, describing it as a "falsification of history." In the second essay, "On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life," Nietzsche argues that "history should be a means to an end" and that individuals should not be enslaved to the past. In the third essay, "Schopenhauer as Educator," Nietzsche praises the philosopher Schopenhauer's ideas and his emphasis on self-overcoming. The fourth essay, "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth," is a critique of the composer Richard Wagner and his approach to art and politics. Nietzsche writes, "Wagner's art is not the expression of a higher rank of man, but the symptom of a lower." Overall, "Untimely reflections" is a collection of essays in which Nietzsche critiques contemporary culture, society, and science, and argues that the "modern" way of thinking is inherently flawed.

Through the hidden or lost Stories of composers, scholars, patrons, performers, audiences, repertoire, venues, and specific works, this volume explores points of intersection between music and queerness in Europe and the United States from 1870 to 1950 - a period during which dramatic changes in musical expression and in the expression of individual sexual identity played similar roles in washing away the certainties of the past."--BOOK JACKET.

The four short works in Untimely Meditations were published by Nietzsche between 1873 and 1876.They deal with such broad topics as the relationship between popular and genuine culture, strategies for cultural reform, the task of philosophy, the nature of education, and the relationship between art, science and life. They also include Nietzsche's earliest statement of his own understanding of human selfhood as a process of endlessly 'becoming who one is'. As Daniel Breazeale shows in his introduction to this new edition of R. J. Hollingdale's translation of the essays, these four early texts are key documents for understanding the development of Nietzsche's thought and clearly anticipate many of the themes of his later writings. Nietzsche himself always cherished his Untimely Meditations and believed that they provide valuable evidence of his 'becoming and self-overcoming' and constitute a 'public pledge' concerning his own distinctive task as a philosopher.

Some of the most popular works of nineteenth-century music were labeled either "Hungarian" or "Gypsy" in style, including many of the best-known and least-respected of Liszt's compositions. In the early twentieth century, Béla Bartók and his colleagues questioned not only the Hungarianness but also the good taste of that style. Bartók argued that it should be discarded in favor of a national style based in the "genuine" folk music of the rural peasantry. Between the heyday of the nineteenth-century Hungarian-Gypsy style and its replacement by a new paradigm of "authentic" national style was a vigorous decades-long debate-one little known inside or outside Hungary-over what it meant to be Hungarian, European, and modern. Redefining Hungarian Music from Liszt to Bartók traces the historical process that defined the conventions of Hungarian-Gypsy style. Author Lynn M. Hooker frames her study around the 1911 celebration of Liszt's centennial. In so doing, she analyzes Liszt's problematic role as a Hungarian-born composer and leader of Hungarian art music who spent most of his life outside of Hungary and questioned whether Hungary's national music was more the creation of Hungarians or Roma (Gypsies). The themes of race and nation that emerge in the discussion of Liszt are further developed in an analysis of discourse on Hungarian national music throughout the Hungarian press in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Showing how the "discovery" of "genuine" folk music by Bartók and Kodály, often depicted as a purely "scientific" matter, responds directly to concerns raised by earlier writers about the "problem of Hungarian music," Hooker argues that the innovations of Bartók and Kodály and their circle are not so much in correcting a flawed concept of the national as in using the idea of national authenticity to open up freedom for composers to explore more stylistic options, including the exploration of modernist musical language. Meticulously researched and elegantly written, Redefining Hungarian Music from Liszt to Bartók is essential reading for musicologists, musicians, and concertgoers alike.