Musical Elaborations

Filling a significant gap in contemporary cultural studies, "Musical Elaborations" examines the intersection of the public and private meaning of music. Incorporating the music criticism of Adorno, musical ideas from literary works by Proust, and criticism by Benjamin and de Man into his work, noted critic Edward W. Said discusses performers such as Glenn Gould, Arturo Toscanini, and Alfred Brendel and such composers as Beethoven, Wagner, and Strauss.

Born in Jerusalem in 1935, Edward W. Said was one of the world's most celebrated, outspoken, and influential public intellectuals until his death on September 24, 2003. He is the author of more than twenty books that have been translated into thirty-six languages, including Beginnings (1975); The Question of Palestine (1979); the internationally acclaimed Orientalism (1979); Covering Islam (1980); The World, the Text, and the Critic (1983); After the Last Sky (1986); Musical Elaborations (1991); Culture and Imperialism (1993); Out of Place: A Memoir (1999); Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (2001); Power, Politics, and Culture (2001); and Freud and the Non-European (2003). He began teaching at Columbia University in 1963 and became University Professor of English and Comparative Literature there in 1992. He was a past president of the Modern Language Association and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Royal Society of Literature, and the American Philosophical Society. Said was the recipient of numerous prizes and distinctions -- including twenty honorary doctorates -- and he was first U.S. citizen to receive the prestigious Sultan Owais Prize.