Books by Carl Dahlhaus

Dahlhaus examines a single music-aesthetical idea from various historical and philosophical viewpoints.

Professor Dahlhaus sets out the criteria of realism, with particular reference to French and German theorists and examines the extent to which they apply to music too. The notes are revised here for the English-speaking reader.

Previous studies of Wagner's operas have tended to approach the works as chunks of autobiography, philosophical speculations or historical-political comments on the age in which they were written. Professor Dahlhaus dissociated himself from all such ventures.

Treats Nietzsche's youthful analysis of the contradictions in Wagner's doctrine; the question of periodicization in romantic and neo-romantic music; the underlying kinship between Brahms' and Wagner's responses to the central musical problems of their time; and, the true significance of musical nationalism.

Combining a historical and systematic approach, Carl Dahlhaus provides an account of developments in the aesthetics of music from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. Central themes in music are grouped together to illustrate both the historical course of events and a systematic unity of the essential elements in the aesthetics of music.

This book is a collection of essays, by the leading German musicologist of our day, on one of the most controversial and influential composers of our century: Arnold Schoenberg.