"̀Charles Rosen's qualities as an interpreter are nourished by the range of his knowledge, his vast culture lending his interpretations an intensity and validity that prove that, far from killing spontaneity, culture enriches it. It is precisely this combination of culture and a pragmatic approach that lends his personality its exceptional profile. In the end, it is also what makes him an ideal pedagogue in the broadest and least pedantic sense of the term.'---Pierre Boulez" "̀Charles Rosen is one of the truly great musical minds of our time and a great virtuoso to boot.---Sir Charles Mackerras" "̀Charles Rosen is regarded by many as the single most influential writer on music of the past half century. Rosen's method, as always, is breathtaking in its simplicity: paying close attention to the actual behavior of the music. In doing so he identifies precisely and specifically the stylistic devices and procedures that provide each of the major historical periods from 1750 to 1920 with its particular expressive profile.---Robert L. Marshall, Professor of Music, Brandeis University" "̀A marvellous text ... Rosen points the reader in the direction of old friends, musically speaking, and finds new things to say about them, all without a shred of unnecessary jargon.'---Nigel Simeone, University of Sheffield" "How does a work of music stir the senses, creating feelings of joy, sadness, elation or nostalgia? Though sentiment and emotion play a vital role in the composition, performance and appreciation of music, rarely have these elements been fully observed. In this succinct and penetrating book, Charles rosen Draws upon more than a half century as a performer and citic to reveal how composerts from Bach to Berg have used sound to represent and communicate emotion in mystifyingly beautiful ways." "Through a range of musical examples, Rosen details the array of stylistic devices and techniques used to represent or convey sentiment. This is not, however, a listener's guide to any ̀correct' response to a particular piece. Instead, Rosen provides the tools and terms with which a appreciate this central aspect of musical aesthetics, and indeed explores the phenomenon of contradictory sentiments embodied in a single motif or melody. Taking examples from Chopin, Schumann, Wagner and Liszt, he traces the use of radically changing intensities in the Romantic works of the nineteenth century and devotes an entire chapter to the ke of C minor. He identifies a ̀unity of sentiment' in Baroque music and goes on to contrast it with the ̀obsessive sentiments' of later composers including Puccini, Strauss and Stravinsky. Profound and moving, Music and Sentiment is an invitation to a greater appreciation of the craft of composition, and performance"--BOOK JACKET.