The Mission and Message of Music: Building Blocks to the Aesthetics of Music in Our Time

This book is an English re-writing of the original Hebrew edition, published by Dvir Publishing House, in 2007, and written jointly with the late Herzl Shmueli. The book probes into the nature and quality of the beauty and meaning of music. According to the authors, these have to be found within the musical phenomena themselves and serve as the basis for the aesthetical criteria of all music. They maintain that similar to every linguistic phenomena, music is a message in sound that moves, within a certain time limit, from musician to listener. The musician on the one hand, and the listener on the other, are the two focal points between which the musical process takes place. Music is thus a covenant between the musician and the listener. One sends the musical message, the other takes it up and internalizes it; one is the initiator, the other proves the successful outcome of the artistic process. The book is intended for music connoisseurs and for all who are intersted in artistic thought, in general, and in musical thoughts in particular. Every professional concept that had to be included in the book is duly explained, so that any interested reader is able to broaden the scope of his/her outlook.
About the Author: The Musicologist Michal Smoira Cohn has a place among the few personalities who have left their mark on musical life in Israel. She served as Head of Music of the Israel Broadcasting Authority for over 25 years; acted as Head of the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem, was the music critic of the daily Hebrew newspaper Haaretz, and was nominated Chairperson of the Music Section in the Ministry for Education and Culture. An expert on Musical Thought, she lectured at the Tel-Aviv Universiry and at the Music Academies of Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, on aesthetics of music, musical forms, music history and music literature. Her books include An Historical Introduction into Music, Meanings in Music, and A personal Repertoire. Michal Smoira Cohn was born in Tel-aviv, lived most of her life in Jerusalem, is a graduate of the Palestine Academy of Music in Jerusalem, and the Higher Seminar of Musical Research at Uppsala University, Sweden. She is the daughter of the first Chief Justice of Israel, Moshe Smoira, and the widow of Justice Haim H. Cohn, of Israel's Supreme Court, and former Attorney General of Israel. She has two children; she is a greatmother of four, and a great-great-mother of three.