Michal Smoira Cohn & Shlomo Giora Shoham 
Mission and Message of Music [PDF ebook] 
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.