A Theory of Musical Semiotics

Analyzes musical works through the theoretical frameworks of narratology and French structural semiotics, especially that of A J Greimas. This book views theories from the 'classical' semiotic tradition, from Saussure to Peirce to Lotman, as possible foundations of musical semiotics.

"Since [Tarasti's] is unquestionably the most fully developed narrative theory in the literature, this book is an important landmark . . . " —Music & Letters

Eero Tarasti advances a semiotic theory of music based on information provided by the history of Western music and by various sign theories. A Theory of Musical Semiotics provides a model for the semiotic analysis of both musical structure and semantics. It introduces English-language readers to musical narratology, which has been largely the province of European researchers.