What is modal music? Why did the ancients consider music the key of sciences, related to metaphysics? Are there many “musicsâ€, as there are many languages? Is there a relation between Indian music, jazz, cante jondo, Gregorian chant? How should we understand African music? What are the relations between music and religion? And between music and magic, or therapy? This collection of texts, covering a wide range of subjects, concerns the amateur music lover as well as the professional musician. The renowned musicologist Alain Danielou here explains clearly and simply the profound concepts relating music to its essential roots.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alain Danielou
Alain Danielou is Director of the International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation, Berlin, and adviser for Oriental Music to the International Music Council (UNESCO). Born in Paris, he pursued scientific and artistic studies before specializing in musicology. He traveled extensively in North Africa, the Middle East, China and Japan and then settled in India, where he studied Indian Music and philosophy, Hindi and Sanskrit, and made a unique collection (over 800) of Sanskrit manuscripts on music. In 1949 he was appointed Research Professor of Music at Benares Hindu University and in 1954 became Director of the Adyar Library and Research Centre in Madras. In 1959 he returned to Europe, joining the Ecole Francaise d' Extreme Orient in Paris, and subsequently became Director of Studies of the Centre d'Etudes de Musique Orientale of Paris. He has written extensively in both French and English on Oriental Music and on many aspects of Indian history and culture, and has also published two novels. He is the general editor of the three UNESCO collections of records: "Anthology of the Orient" (Barenreiter Musicaphon), "Musical Sources" (Philips, Holland) and "Musical Altas" (EMI, Italy).
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