ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses phenomenological characteristics of spatial relations in the transition from premodern to modern music performance. It shows how an understanding of physical space changes fundamentally the nature of music making. The book observes compositions that experiment with the notion of sound in the physical space of the theater stage, as in seventeenth-century echo pieces and twentieth-century electronic music. It discusses pieces by Jacopo Peri, Claudio Monteverdi, Biagio Marini, Heinrich Schütz, Luciano Berio, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The book focuses on the issues of the inner space of the subject and its theatrical display. It looks at compositions that document the emergence and disintegration of modern subjectivity defined by conscious self-reflection. The book focuses on the notion of the musical work as an independent space governed by seemingly autonomous laws of musical language.
