Music as Motion: A Synopsis of Alexander Truslit's (1938) Gestaltung und Bewegung in der Musik

Truslit's (1938) monograph, rarely cited nowadays and found in few academic libraries, contains profound insights into the motional character of music and the performer's role in shaping it. His ideas are highly relevant to contemporary attempts to understand the nature of musical motion and its communication in performance, and, although often speculative and sup- ported only by very marginal data, they provide a valuable source of hypotheses for the more extensive and precise empirical inquiries that are feasible now. To bring Truslit's important theoretical contribution to the attention of contemporary researchers and musicians, this paper presents a highly condensed and annotated translation of his book.