Book, Sound and meaning, O: another history of music[LS]

Of all the arts, music is the most ephemeral, the most difficult to translate into words. This is why most traditional music histories are based on biographies of composers and descriptions full of adjectives of the most relevant works and styles, and it is rare that they manage to make sense of what is intuited when listening to music. It is not surprising, therefore, that, since its first publication, in 1989, Sound and Sense has become a coffee table book for musicians, music lovers and the curious. In this work, José Miguel Wisnik is not restricted to so-called classical music, of European origin, but proposes an approach capable of including musical traditions from all over the world, grouped into three large blocks: “Modal”, “Tonal” and “Serial”. The main ideas presented are supported by a sound track available in a playlist on the publisher's page. The erudite and sensitive approach to the history of musical language and its contradictions with society and with certain mythological, philosophical and literary constructions, makes Sound and Sense a book like no other.