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This study offers a selective overview of the most important methodological approaches and theoretical concepts relevant to the study of musical meaning which have emerged in the Anglo-American musicological tradition since the 1990s. It takes as its starting point the work of Lawrence Kramer, which represents the conceptual underpinnings of New Musicology, and continues with Michael Klein's study of musical intertextuality, which helps to further illustrate the implications of post-modern philosophy for the hermeneutical interpretation of music. A significant portion of the text is dedicated to Robert Hatten's work on markedness, correlation, gestures, topics, and tropes. The discussion of the topic theory also covers the contributions made by Raymond Monelle, Danuta Mirka, and others. The overview continues with Esti Sheinberg's theory of musical incongruities and her typology of modes of semantic ambiguity, including irony, satire, parody, and the grotesque. To complement the traditional text-based approach to musical meaning, this overview also considers meanings communicated through the movements of the human body, referencing Nicholas Cook's thoughts on embodied cognition and Robert Hatten's approach to interpreting musical gestures encoded in a musical text. Attention is also paid to the line of thinking leading from Edward T. Cone's ideas on the presence of different voices and personae in seemingly singular musical works, through Fred Maus's conception of music in terms of dramatic interaction of musical agents, to Hatten's theory of virtual agency. This is followed by the summary of Byron Almén's theory of musical narrative, i.e. the capacity of music to articulate a trajectory leading from one state to another, propelled by the dynamic forces of conflict and resolution. Subsequent chapters discuss the relevance of recent approaches to the study of musical form (William Caplin, James Hepokoski, Warren Darcy) and the possibilities/limits of musical narrative in music since 1900, in which the conventional principles of syntax (tonality, form, motivic/thematic structure) are often questioned. In the closing section, the author returns to Kramer's ideas, takes a stance with regard to the opposition of semiotic and hermeneutic approaches, and discusses ethical issues associated with the act of interpretation (and misinterpretation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study offers a selective overview of the most important methodological approaches and theoretical concepts relevant to the study of musical meaning which have emerged in the Anglo-American musicological tradition since the 1990s. It takes as its starting point the work of Lawrence Kramer, which represents the conceptual underpinnings of New Musicology, and continues with Michael Klein's study of musical intertextuality, which helps to further illustrate the implications of post-modern philosophy for the hermeneutical interpretation of music. A significant portion of the text is dedicated to Robert Hatten's work on markedness, correlation, gestures, topics, and tropes. The discussion of the topic theory also covers the contributions made by Raymond Monelle, Danuta Mirka, and others. The overview continues with Esti Sheinberg's theory of musical incongruities and her typology of modes of semantic ambiguity, including irony, satire, parody, and the grotesque. To complement the traditional text-based approach to musical meaning, this overview also considers meanings communicated through the movements of the human body, referencing Nicholas Cook's thoughts on embodied cognition and Robert Hatten's approach to interpreting musical gestures encoded in a musical text. Attention is also paid to the line of thinking leading from Edward T. Cone's ideas on the presence of different voices and personae in seemingly singular musical works, through Fred Maus's conception of music in terms of dramatic interaction of musical agents, to Hatten's theory of virtual agency. This is followed by the summary of Byron Almén's theory of musical narrative, i.e. the capacity of music to articulate a trajectory leading from one state to another, propelled by the dynamic forces of conflict and resolution. Subsequent chapters discuss the relevance of recent approaches to the study of musical form (William Caplin, James Hepokoski, Warren Darcy) and the possibilities/limits of musical narrative in music since 1900, in which the conventional principles of syntax (tonality, form, motivic/thematic structure) are often questioned. In the closing section, the author returns to Kramer's ideas, takes a stance with regard to the opposition of semiotic and hermeneutic approaches, and discusses ethical issues associated with the act of interpretation (and misinterpretation). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]