How can a music signify without text ? Instead of having a definite perspective, the book reconstructs the debates that happened. It elaborates families of thought and integrates the problem of the performer. Thus it opens the way to a comparative analysis of the styles, in their relation to an anthropology.

This book has precedence and an audience in visual arts, critical studies, visual studies and esthetics but also draws on a variety of interdisciplinary texts and topics across the humanities, in literature, poetry and philosophy making it interesting to a wider audience.