Boccherini's Body: An Essay in Carnal Musicology (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780520240179)

In this elegant study of the works of the undeservedly neglected composer Luigi Boccherini, Elisabeth Le Guin uses knowledge gleaned from her own playing of the cello as the keystone of her original approach to the relationship between music and embodiment. In analyzing the striking qualities of Boccherini's music--its virtuosity, repetitiveness, obsessively nuanced dynamics, delicate sonorities, and rich palette of melancholy affects--Le Guin develops a historicized critical method based on the embodied experience of the performer. In the process, she redefines the temperament of the musical Enlightenment as one characterized by urgent, volatile inquiries into the nature of the self.

Author: Elisabeth Le Guin
ISBN-10: 0520240170
ISBN-13: 9780520240179
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 11/09/2005
Pages: 376
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.63lbs
Size: 9.26h x 6.42w x 1.24d

Review Citation(s):
Choice 09/01/2006 pg. 122