MUSIC WITH CATS: THE CAT IN THE WESTERN MUSICAL IMAGINATION

Abstract

The presence of the cat in Western classical music is an apparently marginal phenomenon, but it is revealing for the way in which composers have translated over the centuries the relationship between man, nature and the imaginary. From baroque anecdote to modernist symbolism, from the playful and parodic to the metaphysical and experimental, the cat becomes a sound pretext, a dramaturgical agent and, not infrequently, a plurivalent symbol of grace, cunning, intelligence, and comfort.