Download or read book The Musical Topic written by Raymond Monelle and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2006-09-21 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Musical Topic discusses three tropes prominently featured in Western European music: the hunt, the military, and the pastoral. Raymond Monelle provides an in-depth cultural and historical study of musical topics -- short melodic figures, harmonic or rhythmic formulae carrying literal or lexical meaning -- through consideration of their origin, thematization, manifestation, and meaning. The Musical Topic shows the connections of musical meaning to literature, social history, and the fine arts.