A Language of Its Own ? Sense and Meaning in the Making of Western Art Music : University of Chicago Press : 9780226425979 : 0226425975 : 13 Sep 2013 : The Western musical tradition has produced not only music, but also countless writings about music that remain in continuous&;and enormously influential&;dialogue with their subject. With sweeping scope and philosophical depth, A Language of Its Own traces the past millennium of this ongoing exchange. Ruth Katz argues that the indispensible relationship between intellectual production and musical creation gave rise to the Western conception of music. This evolving and sometimes conflicted process, in turn, shaped the art form itself. As ideas entered music from the contexts in which it existed, its internal language developed in tandem with shifts in intellectual and social history. Katz explores how this infrastructure allowed music to explain itself from within, creating a self-referential and rational foundation that has begun to er