Mueller's Music Fables

Following the classical form of Aesop’s Fables this book contains 200 original music fables. The book employs the conceit that musical instruments are emotional and physical beings that interact like humans. Humans occasionally peek into this fabulous land to enhance the music-instrument-to-people relationships (conductors, composers, and instrument makers). In addition to covering a broad gamut of conventional and rare musical instruments, the instruments themselves play music from the old to the contemporary. By personifying musical instruments the reader obtains an insightful perspective on instrumental capabilities. The fables combine imaginative stories of how and why instruments (and various musical forms) came into being, in a straightforward albeit fabulous way. A moral is attached to each fable, reflecting Aesop's; some are literary and philosophical, others are slight and humorous. The fables are a source of wry humor, of gnomic utterances, of witty asides, and cryptic epigrams. Written in a humorous and sometimes satirical style the book is fun at the same time it is instructive. Mueller’s Musical Fables have the advantage of venturing into the elegant world of music, while being profoundly simple but never simplistic.