We are pleased to announce the publication of Systems of Musical Sense, a book of analysis and semiotics of music co-authored by Fulvio Delli Pizzi, Michele Ignelzi, and Paolo Rosato.

The book is available at the price of 25 EUR plus shipping costs through the publisher, the International Semiotics Institute, by sending a request (a form is downloadable from the site) to the secretary, Mrs. Maija Rossi, at one of the following addresses:

ISI, Imatra Cultural Centre
Virastokatu 1
FI-55100 Imatra, Finland

E-mail: maija.rossi@isisemiotics.fi

Fax: +358 5 681 6628



ISBN 952-5431-06-1
ISSN 1235-497X Acta Semiotica Fennica XVIII
ISSN 1458-4921 Approaches to Musical Semiotics 6

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From the back cover:

Systems of Musical Sense breathes new life into the field of music semiotics in its intuitive mix of logical rigor and hermeneutical interpretation, and unique approach to paradigmatic analysis (Ruwet, Nattiez) and established theories of tonal music (Schoenberg). More significantly, the authors lay out an entirely new and innovative theory in their concept of musical homeostasis, a phenomenon closely related to the fundamental law of physics which states that all things set in motion, organic and inorganic, tend to return to their initial point of rest. In tonal music, which also incorporates teleology, this can take place at different levels, embodied by various parameters. The sensitive analyses here demonstrate ramifications of this axiom and cast new light on the structuring and effets de sens of tonal genres ranging in diversity from Bach chorales to Wagnerian opera. The culmination of more than a decade of research by this team of widely-published music scholars, the book is also a starting point: cognitivists, theorists, musicologists and others can use the analytic method "as is," develop it further, or transform it. The systems unveiled here need not be confined to tonal, "common-practice" art music. As a universal axiom at least as dependable as the Gestaltist "law of good continuation," the theory of homeostasis reveals new dimensions in earlier musical style and those of more contemporary vintage.

Richard Littlefield


A table of contents of the book.