Abstract

In this critical study of Julian Dodd’s Being True to Works of Music, I argue that the three-tier normative profile of the work-performance tradition in classical music that Dodd defends should be rejected in favour of a two-tier version. I also argue that the theory of work-performance defended in the book fits much more naturally with a contextualist ontology of musical works than with the Platonist ontology Dodd defends in Works of Music, despite his arguments to the contrary in the afterword of the new book. Finally, I argue that the reasons he gives for preferring a ‘tradition-based’ over a ‘historicized’ theory of the understanding of classical scores are not convincing.