Joseph Kerman, an eminent musicologist and critic who modernized a field he had found insular and stagnant, challenging conventional wisdom with colorful, pungent prose, died on March 17 in Berkeley, Calif. He was 89.

His death, after a long illness, was confirmed by his daughter, Lucy Kerman.

Mr. Kerman, the author of a number of admired books and essays, disliked what he saw as the intellectual isolation of musicology and encouraged a more multidisciplinary approach. In 1985, for example, he noted that feminist criticism, an integral part of film, literary and art studies, was largely absent from musicology.

Among Mr. Kerman’s most important books was “Contemplating Music: Challenges to Musicology” (1985), in which he wrote: “Critical thought in music lags conceptually far behind that in the other arts. In fact nearly all musical thinkers travel at a respectful distance behind the latest chariots (or bandwagons) of intellectual life in general.” Nonetheless, he concluded, “I end this book with hopes for motion.”

Mr. Kerman expressed his often contentious opinions vividly. He described Puccini’s “Tosca” as “a shabby little shocker.” Writing about Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in 1997, he wrote, “Now nearly 100 years old, Rach 3’s life expectancy goes up every year, and given the wonders of bioscience, the piece is likely to end up in some dismaying retirement community of the 22nd century, toothless, creaky, scarcely ecstatic, but still ready to play and above all garrulous.”