Book Review| April 01 2020 Varieties of Musical Irony from Mozart to Mahler, by Michael Cherlin Varieties of Musical Irony from Mozart to Mahler, by Michael Cherlin. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017. xvii, 266 pp. Yayoi Uno Everett Yayoi Uno Everett YAYOI UNO EVERETT is Professor of Music at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research focuses on the analysis of postwar art music, film, and opera from the perspectives of semiotics, multimedia theories, cultural studies, and East Asian aesthetics. Her publications include Reconfiguring Myth and Narrative in Contemporary Opera (Indiana University Press, 2015) and The Music of Louis Andriessen (Cambridge University Press, 2006). She is a recipient of fellowships from the Bogliasco Foundation, the Japan Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the American Musicological Society (2020) 73 (1): 192–197. https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2020.73.1.192 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Yayoi Uno Everett; Varieties of Musical Irony from Mozart to Mahler, by Michael Cherlin. Journal of the American Musicological Society 1 April 2020; 73 (1): 192–197. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2020.73.1.192 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentJournal of the American Musicological Society Search What is the nature of musical irony? Can it be generalized across different musical styles? In shedding light on such questions, Michael Cherlin meditates on various philosophical and literary writings on irony and undertakes the ambitious task of assembling a generic classification of irony that can be applied to common-practice repertoire from Mozart to Mahler. A number of previous studies have examined musical irony with reference to specific composers and aesthetic principles; these include Esti Sheinberg's analysis of Shostakovich's music in relation to the Russian formalists, this reviewer's analysis of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre through the lens of Bakhtin's existential irony, Michael Klein's analysis of Chopin's Nocturne in B Major op. 32, no. 1, on the basis of Northrop Frye's ironic archetype, and Julian Johnson's study of irony in Mahler's songs and symphonies.1 One of the distinguishing features of Cherlin's monograph is the synoptic perspective he brings to analyzing... You do not currently have access to this content.