Valentina Sandu-Dediu released her new book, entitled "Choices, attitudes, emotions. About style and musical rhetoric." on March 25th, 2010 at the "Dinu Lipatti" Hall of The National University of Music in Bucharest. The event gathered the author, Smaranda Murgan - the dean of the Faculty of Composition, Musicology and Music Pedagogy at The National University of Music in Bucharest and writer Ioana Parvulescu, who talked about the connections between the literary style and the musical style:

"I don't think it is exactly the same style, however, there are many common areas between the literary style and the musical style, and especially in the ways of comprehending them. I attended some courses at the University of Music, some interdisciplinary courses taught by Valentina Sandu-Dediu, where I noticed for the first time that the questions she asked the students were similar to those asked by a literature professor, especially when talking about poetry. I found this first impression richly confirmed in the book "Choices, attitudes, emotions. About style and musical rhetoric."

The volume represents a sequel of the previous researches done by musicologist Valentina Sandu-Dediu in the field of mannerism, stylistics and musical rhetoric. It has a lot in common with the courses taught by the author in the last few years (the stylistics course and the music and literature course at The National University of Music in Bucharest, the last one taught together with Ioana Parvulescu). Is this a strictly didactic work or one addressed to a larger audience? "I think it is both and I don't see why they should exclude each other. The particularity of didactics doesn't mean just an orderly presentation and main ideas, because we must not underestimate our students. It also means sentences that have a meaning and a narrative direction. It is true that I have written the book with didactic purpose; this was the first aim of the book, but in time this has changed. I remember what Ioana Parvulescu used to say while she was writing her book "Life begins on Friday", namely that 'sometimes the book drives you and not the other way around'."

And, in the end we asked Valentina Sandu-Dediu why "Choices, attitudes, emotions. About style and musical rhetoric." ?

"In fact, this what the book is about: style as personal choice, the creators' attitudes, the interpreters' attitudes and the attitudes of those who write about music. It is about rhetoric and this implies emotions, whether they are Baroque emotions or, why not, contemporary ones."