The language of music

This is a wide-ranging look at what sort of an art music is, and a consideration of just how it works on us emotionally. Written in 1960, it predates modern studies on music cognition yet tackles the same issues.

Twentieth-century British writing on music (Cooke was English) has a refreshing practical bent to it, and this book is no exception, being a serious work written for a lay audience (albeit one able to read music--there are hundreds of short musical examples). Perhaps the book's highlight is the compendium of a number of "terms of musical vocabulary". Here Cooke identifies melodic archetypes associated with various emotional states, using mostly texted music as his supporting examples. One may accuse the author of having hand-picked his examples to support his ideas, but music, like any art, is not reducible to scientific principles, and it is uncanny that composers throughout the common-practice era would tend to use the same melodic contours to express similar emotional states. There is much more to ponder in the book than just this "dictionary" (for instance, any theorist will tackle the Tristan Prelude, and Cooke is no exception; but as he was also one of the great Wagner experts of his time, he brings a deep background to the task).

As a musician and composer, I find this one of the favorite books in my library.