''The Language of Music'' is a 1959 book about

music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

by the critic and musician

Deryck Cooke Deryck Cooke (14 September 1919 – 26 October 1976) was a British musician, musicologist, broadcaster and Gustav Mahler expert. Life Cooke was born in Leicester to a poor, working-class family; his father died when he was a child, but his mother ...

Reception

Robert M. Wallace reviewed ''The Language of Music'' in ''

The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...

''. ''The Language of Music'' is an often cited representative of the expressionist theory of art. No systematic experimental study of Cooke's theory has emerged relating it to musical education, but one pilot study showed that for 22 non-musician students, his characterizations of musical phrases were not experienced. The philosopher Douglas Hofstadter writes that ''The Language of Music'' is, "A valuable start down what is sure to be a long hard road to understanding music and the human mind."

References

Bibliography

;Books * * * ;Journals * {{DEFAULTSORT:Language of Music 1959 non-fiction books Books by Deryck Cooke English-language books Music books