Richard Taruskin’s sweeping collection of essays distills a half century of professional experience, demonstrating an unparalleled insider awareness of relevant debates in all areas of music studies, including historiography and criticism, representation and aesthetics, musical and professional politics, and the sociology of taste. Cursed Questions, invoking a famous catchphrase from Russian intellectual history, grapples with questions that are never finally answered but never go away. The writings gathered here form an intellectual biography that showcases the characteristic wit, provocation, and erudition that readers have come to expect from Taruskin, making it an essential volume for anyone interested in music, politics, and the arts.

About the Author

Richard Taruskin is Professor Emeritus of Music at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of a dozen books, including the five-volume Oxford History of Western Music. He was awarded the Kyoto Prize in 2017.

Introduction
1. The History of What?
2. Did Somebody Say Censorship?
3. Haydn and the Enlightenment?
4. Is There a Baby in the Bathwater? On aesthetic autonomy
5. Shall We Change the Subject? A Music Historian Reflects
6. “Alte Musik” or “Early Music”? On pseudohistory
7. Nicht blutbefleckt?
8. What Else? On musical representation
9. Unanalyzable, Is It?
10. Essence or Context? On musical ontology
11. But Aren’t They All Invented? On tradition
12. Which Way Is Up? On the sociology of taste
13. A Walking Translation? On musicology east and west

Index

Reviews

"A remarkable collection by a remarkable author. From beginning to end, this is a collection that generously repays close study."—Stephen Hinton, Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, Stanford University

“A dazzling collection of essays. This is a book that incites: to thought, to anger, to the desire to respond—in short, to participate in a discipline that Taruskin succeeds in bringing to the center stage of what the humane study of artistic activity and culture should be about.”—Peter Franklin, author of Reclaiming Late-Romantic Music: Singing Devils and Distant Sounds

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

Reviews