The Possessor and the Possessed: Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the Idea of Musical Genius [Hardcover]

Peter Kivy IV (Author)

List Price:	CDN$ 64.25
Price:	CDN$ 58.74 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping. Details
You Save:	CDN$ 5.51 (9%)
	o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

Usually ships within 2 to 4 weeks.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.ca. Gift-wrap available.

	Amazon Price	New from	Used from
Hardcover	CDN $58.74	--	--
Paperback	CDN $31.73	--	--
See # more paperbacks

Product Details

Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press (Sep 10 2001)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0300087586
ISBN-13: 978-0300087581
Product Dimensions: 21 x 14.2 x 2.6 cm
Shipping Weight: 458 g
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,966,736 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

From Booklist

Plato characterized genius as inspiration derived from a greater-than-human spirit. In the third century C.E., Longinus characterized genius as the possession of an extraordinary talent to create and, so doing, break the established rules of artistic creation. Another definition covers the workaholic or journeyman who explores an art exhaustively. Mozart was considered informed by divine inspiration. Although their contemporaries scorned their music, Handel and Beethoven were eventually said to possess the talent and ingenuity to move music forward. Bach typified the journeyman composer, who developed themes in every way he could. With its extensive discussions of Plato's and Longinus' definitions and of Schopenhauer's and Kant's expansions on the possessor of genius, its refutation of Tia DeNora's proposal that Beethoven's genius was constructed, and its rebuttal of Christine Battersby's assertion that females can't be geniuses, Kivy's book is more about philosophy than about music. Those interested in its subject will appreciate Kivy's argumentation for the classic definitions of genius and about how Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven endure as musical geniuses. Alan Hirsch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description

The concept of genius intrigues us. Artistic geniuses have something other people don't have. In some cases that something seems to be a remarkable kind of inspiration that permits the artist to exceed his own abilities. It is as if the artist is suddenly possessed, as if some outside force flows through them at the moment of creation. In other cases genius seems best explained as a natural gift. The artist is the possessor of an extra talent that enables the production of masterpiece after masterpiece. This book explores the concept of artistic genius and how it came to be symbolised by three great composers of the modern era: Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven.

Peter Kivy, a leading thinker in musical aesthetics, delineates the two concepts of genius that were already well formed in the ancient world. Kivy then develops the argument that these concepts have alternately held sway in Western thought since the beginning of the eighteenth century. He explores why this pendulum swing from the concept of the possessor to the concept of the possessed has occurred and how the concepts were given philosophical reformulations as views toward Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven as geniuses changed in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries.

See all Product Description

Tag this product

(What's this?)

Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.

Customer Reviews

There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

Share your experience with this product with others

Create your own review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com ^(beta)

Amazon.com: 5.0 out of 5 stars (1 customer review)

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Absolutely Excellent Book!, July 29 2007

By Southern Gal - Published on Amazon.com

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: The Possessor and the Possessed: Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, and the Idea of Musical Genius (Hardcover)

So what is genius? Sure, we all have an idea. But sometimes that word is thrown around quite carelessly. What it is really?

I loved this book. It is extremely well written, intelligent, enlightening, and thought provoking.

Regarding Beethoven, even I, with a very limited understanding of music, could tell something extraordinary was happening the very first time I heard the Ninth Symphony and none of Beethoven's music has disappointed me since. I have CDs where Leonard Bernstein and Benjamin Zander talk about Beethoven's genius in their own words. But now I have a much greater understanding of the concept of musical genius as well as a profound appreciation of its rarity.

I highly recommend this book. It will remain on my bookshelves for a very long time.

› Go to Amazon.com to see the review 5.0 out of 5 stars