Kivy, Peter

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Kivy, Peter

Kivy, Peter, American musical philosopher; b. N.Y., Oct. 22, 1934. He studied philosophy at the Univ. of Mich. (B.A., 1956; M.A., 1958), music history at Yale Univ. (M.A., 1960), and philosophy at Columbia Univ. (Ph.D., 1966). He joined the faculty of Rutgers Univ. in 1967. His importance to the field of music is in his writings on aesthetics, in which he has revitalized the complex and long-ignored problems of musical analysis as applied to external associations.

Writings

The Corded Shell: Reflections on Musical Expression (Princeton, N.J., 1980); Sound and Semblance: Reflections onMusical Representation (Princeton, N.J., 1984); Osmin’s Rage: Philosophical Reflections on Opera, Drama and Text (Princeton, N.J., 1988); Sound Sentiment: An Essay on the Musical Emotions (Philadelphia, 1989); Music Alone: Philosophical Reflections on the Purely Musical Experience (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990); The Fine Art of Repetition: Essays on the Philosophy of Music (Cambridge, 1993); Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance (Ithaca, N.Y., 1995).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire