Reading the Melody

Chapter 4, ‘Reading the Melody’, explores the musical arts, both vocal and instrumental. A central issue is whether, and how, music could be representational. Quite apart from music written to accompany voice or narrative, a good deal of purely instrumental music is acknowledged, often by musicians themselves, to be representational at least in the sense of being expressive of moods and emotions, if not of ideas, narratives or visual impressions. The ubiquitous presence of music in the performed arts suggests that music has more than a supporting role in artistic representation.