Innehåller bibliografi och index

Virtual works -- actual things / Paulo de Assis -- Locating the performable musical work in practice: a non-Platonist interpretation of the "classical paradigm" / David Davies -- Towards a general theory of musical works and musical listening / Gunnar Hindrichs -- The work of the performer / John Rink -- Music as play: a dialogue / Andreas Dorschel -- What anyway is a "music discomposed"? Reading Cavell through the dark glasses of Adorno / Lydia Goehr -- Response 1. What is a music dis-discomposed? / Kathy Kiloh -- Response 2. Krenek, Cage and Stockhausen in Cavell's "Music discomposed" / Jake McNulty -- Response 3. Stanley Cavell's "Music discomposed" at 52 / Paulo de Assis

What are musical works? How are they constructed in our minds? Which material things allow us to speak about them in the first place? Does a specific way of conceiving musical works limit their performative potentials? What alternative, more productive images of musical work can be devised? 'Virtual Works--Actual Things' addresses contemporary music ontological discourses, challenging dominant musicological accounts, questioning their authoritative foundation and moving towards dynamic perspectives devised by music practitioners and artist researchers. Specific attention is given to the relationship between the virtual multiplicities that enable the construction of an image of a musical work and the actual, concrete materials that make such a construction possible. With contributions by prominent scholars, this book is a wide-ranging and fascinating collection of essays, which will be of great interest for artistic research, contemporary musicology, music philosophy, performance studies and music pedagogy alike