Books by Thomas Christensen

This thesis provides a comprehensive introduction to two active research directions within the field of plasmonics: (i) nonclassical, or quantum, aspects of the plasmonic response;

Stories of Tonality in the Age of François-Joseph Fétis explores the concept of musical tonality through the writings of the Belgian musicologist François-Joseph Fétis (1784-1867), who was singularly responsible for theorizing and popularizing the term in the nineteenth century. Thomas Christensen weaves a rich story in which tonality emerges as a theoretical construct born of anxiety and alterity for Europeans during this time as they learned more about "other" musics and alternative tonal systems. Tonality became a central vortex in which French musicians thought--and argued--about a variety of musical repertoires, be they contemporary European musics of the stage, concert hall, or church, folk songs from the provinces, microtonal scale systems of Arabic and Indian music, or the medieval and Renaissance music whose notational traces were just beginning to be deciphered by scholars. Fétis's influential writings offer insight into how tonality ingrained itself within nineteenth-century music discourse, and why it has continued to resonate with uncanny prescience throughout the musical upheavals of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Bach and Mozart stand as towering representatives of European music of the 18th century, composers whose works reflect intellectual, religious, and aesthetic trends of the period. This collection of essays by leading authorities offers new perspectives on the two composers, as well as some of their important contemporaries, Haydn in particular.