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It can safely be said that when literary texts are utilized or adapted by a musician to create a new work of art, it is seldom that a diminished or lessened product results. Rather, such a merging usually enlarges and enhances both text and tune, perhaps significantly changing the message of the original. Discovering exactly what the new form has to offer and how it relates to the text or melody that preceded it is often a daunting task, requiring a close examination of both the author’s and the composer’s intent. The essays in this collection offer an analysis of several adaptations, some successful, some not so successful, and attempt to assess just what the musicians or writers have m...
Paul Hindemith: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography concerning both the nature of primary sources related to the composer and the scope and significance of the secondary sources which deal with him, his compositions, and his influence as a musician and teacher. The second edition includes research published since the publication of the first edition and provides electronic resources.
Reconsideration of the phenomenon of narcissism in the works of a number of important German writers. This important collection of essays opens new pyschological perspectives on writers such as Tieck, Goethe, Freud, Thomas Mann, Heidegger and Thomas Bernhard. Psychological approaches to literature have grown rapidly in the last few decades, new developments in literary psychoanalysis mirroring the reassessment of Freud in the psychoanalytic community; particularly important revisions have come both from the Lacanian school, and from the field of object relations and self-psychology. The latter studies narcissism not only as a pathological condition, but as a healthy and universal aspect of all psychological reality. Theorists such as Heinz Kohut have also suggested that the transformations of narcissism can be healthy and may contribute to the development of wisdom, humour and creativity. The articles in this volume consider the phenomenon of narcissism across a wide range of works, several reflecting the current re-evaluations of narcissism as a counter-challenge to Freudian thought and attitudes.
"There cannot ever be too many good books about Schoenberg, and so it is a special pleasure to welcome Constructive Dissonance, which is far beyond just 'good.' These essays cover a generous range in style and idea. Many of them also are deeply moving, and nothing could be more appropriate for the composer of our century's most fiercely intense music."--Michael Steinberg, author of The Symphony: A Listener's Guide "Although much has been written about Schoenberg, no group of essays examines his life and work in such a broad context. Here we find Schoenberg's matrix: the social, cultural, political, and artistic currents that helped shape him, and to which he made his own extraordinary contri...
"Seoirse Bodley is one of the best-known senior figures of contemporary music in Ireland. This book seeks to examine his engagement with the poetry of Michael O'Siadhail and the making of these song cycles. It assesses the joint contribution to Irish art song and seeks to understand its roots in and departure from European tradition." "This apograph is the first publication of Bodley's O'Siadhail song cycles and is the first book to explore the composer's lyrical modernity from a number of perspectives. Lorriane Byrne Bodley's insightful introduction describes in detail the development and essence of Bodley's musical thinking, the European influences he absorbed which linger in these cycles, and the importance of his work as a composer of Irish art song. Through a blend of close analysis of Bodley's songs and wide-ranging engagement with both poetry and music, this book sheds new light on Bodley's integral part in fashioning Irish art song. It analyses the way Bodley's song has been harnessed both to legitimate and to challenge national art song. And it identifies elements of Bodley's musical style which are shaped by European tradition."--BOOK JACKET.
Beginning several generations before Schubert, the Lied first appears as domestic entertainment. In the century that follows it becomes one of the primary modes of music-making. By the time German song comes to its presumed conclusion with Richard Strauss's 1948 Vier letzte Lieder, this rich repertoire has moved beyond the home and keyboard accompaniment to the symphony hall. This is a 2004 introductory chronicle of this fascinating genre. In essays by eminent scholars, this Companion places the Lied in its full context - at once musical, literary, and cultural - with chapters devoted to focal composers as well as important issues, such as the way in which the Lied influenced other musical genres, its use as a musical commodity, and issues of performance. The volume is framed by a detailed chronology of German music and poetry from the late 1730s to the present and also contains a comprehensive bibliography.
Throughout the twentieth century, musicians frequently incorporated bits of works by other musicians into their own compositions and performances. When a musician borrows from a piece, he or she draws upon not only a melody but also the cultural associations of the original piece. By working with and altering a melody, a musician also transforms those associations. This book explores that vibrant practice, examining how musicians used quotation to participate in the cultural dialogues sustained around such areas as race, childhood, madness, and the mass media.
From the composer's lifetime to the present day, Gustav Mahler's music has provoked extreme responses from the public and from experts. Poised between the Romantic tradition he radically renewed and the austere modernism whose exponents he inspired, Mahler was a consummate public persona and yet an impassioned artist who withdrew to his lakeside hut where he composed his vast symphonies and intimate song cycles. His advocates have produced countless studies of the composer's life and work. But they have focused on analysis internal to the compositions, along with their programmatic contexts. In this volume, musicologists and historians turn outward to examine the broader political, social, a...