[2] Writing in 2001, Alastair Williams described Kramer as a pioneering figure in the disciplinary change that brought musicology, formerly an outlier, into the broader fold of the humanities.
The book introduced a number of terms, including its title phrase, which passed into common use, most prominently “hermeneutic windows” (pressure points in and around music from which multiple lines of cultural associations extend).
This in turn became the basis of a wider theory of humanistic knowledge that embraces uncertainty and creativity and takes musical experience as its paradigm.
According to Steven Paul Scher, writing in 1999, Kramer's development of new critical languages was preeminent in advancing the study of text-music relations.
[7] David Gramit similarly credited Kramer with remapping the intersection of literary theory and music and demystifying aesthetic experience while also upholding its value.