Product Overview
This second series of essays is an enriching companion to its ground-breaking predecessor. In a truly interdisciplinary endeavor, the scope of the explorations is extended by a unique international group of scholars working in both music and psychoanalysis. Unlike the earlier series, this volume consists entirely of original contributions.
This volume continues the analytic study of individual composers in articles on Bach and Mozart, Robert Schumann, Satie and Wagner. Wagner receives particular attention in studies of universal fantasies which relate to the music, the psychological function of the Leitmotif, and Freud's familiarity with Wagner, hitherto unexplored. Other composers whose works are considered are Schubert and Bartok.
A core issue in each of the two fields resides in the study of affect: What is its nature; the means and modes of representation? How is affect communicated in both the clinical situation and in the performance of music? In a central section of the book, On Affect and Music, writers in both areas address these questions.
An opening section concerns itself with the problem of method in applied psychoanalysis with specific reference to music, the only such treatment in the literature. Also included in this portion of the book is a preliminary report of an ongoing study of contemporary composers based upon analytic interviews.
The volume concludes with a pair of historical essays, one of which considers myths of Freud's relationship to music. The second is a study of the musicologist in Freud's early circle (and the father of Little Hans ), Max Graf.
The present volume then is the second in what promises to become a unique series - an intellectual venue for an authentically interdisciplinary study of psychoanalysis and music.
