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The combination of new insights into Ligeti by people who knew him with new analytical approaches will make this a core publication not only for Ligeti scholars, but also for readers interested in post-war music history and in Hungarian culture. Shortlisted for the RPS Music Award 2012 for Creative Communication. György Ligeti: Of Foreign Lands and Strange Sounds offers a new assessment of a composer whose constant exploration of new sound worlds- based on the musics of different cultures and ages - contributed in crucial ways to making him one of the most important musical voices of the last 50 years. The book combines texts by former students, colleagues and friends, who reflect on differ...
'Lies and Epiphanies' offers case studies of 'inspiration' in five composers. Their own tales of their 'epiphanies' played a determining role in the reception history of their works: the finale of Mahler's Second Symphony was supposedly inspired by a 'lightning bolt' of inspiration at the funeral of Hans von Bulow, while Alban Berg's Violin Concerto was purportedly his direct response to the tragic early death of Alma Mahler's daughter. Chris Walton looks behind these lightning bolts to explore instead the composers' dual roles a.
Our genetic markers have come to be regarded as portals to the past. Analysis of these markers is increasingly used to tell the story of human migration; to investigate and judge issues of social membership and kinship; to rewrite history and collective memory; to right past wrongs and to arbitrate legal claims and human rights controversies; and to open new thinking about health and well-being. At the same time, in many societies genetic evidence is being called upon to perform a kind of racially charged cultural work: to repair the racial past and to transform scholarly and popular opinion about the “nature” of identity in the present. Genetics and the Unsettled Past considers the alig...
This introduction provides students and scholars with the information and skills they need when studying composers' sketches.
Death affects all aspects of life, it touches our emotions and influences our identity. Presenting a kaleidoscope of informative views of death, dying and human response, this book reveals how different disciplines contribute to understanding the theme of death. Drawing together new and established scholars, this is the first book among the studies of emotion that focuses on issues surrounding death, and the first among death studies which focuses on the issue of emotion. Themes explored include: themes of grief in the ties that bind the living and the dead, funerals, public memorials and the art of consolation, obituaries and issues of war and death-row, use of the internet in dying and grieving, what people do with cremated remains, new rituals of spiritual care in medical contexts, themes bounded and expressed through music, and more.
1. In an open field -- 2. A parallel history of time in music and landscape -- 3. Horizons -- 4. Clouds -- 5. Meadows -- 6. Busoni's garden.
The first volume of its kind, Dislocated Memories: Jews, Music, and Postwar German Culture draws together three significant areas of inquiry: Jewish music, German culture, and the legacy of the Holocaust. Jewish music - a highly debated topic - encompasses a multiplicity of musics and cultures, reflecting an inherent and evolving hybridity and transnationalism. German culture refers to an equally diverse concept that, in this volume, includes the various cultures of prewar Germany, occupied Germany, the divided and reunified Germany, and even "German (Jewish) memory," which is not necessarily physically bound to Germany. In the context of these perspectives, the volume makes powerful argumen...
French composer Maurice Ravel was described by critics as a magician, conjurer, and illusionist. Scholars have been aware of this historical curiosity, but none so far have explained why Ravel attracted such critiques or what they might tell us about how to interpret his music. Magician of Sound examines Ravel's music through the lens of illusory experience, considering how timbre, orchestral effects, figure/ground relationships, and impressions of motion and stasis might be experienced as if they were conjuring tricks. Applying concepts from music theory, psychology, philosophy, and the history of magic, Jessie Fillerup develops an approach to musical illusion that newly illuminates Ravel's...
Metamorphosis in Music examines the evolution of compositional technique in Ligeti's works of the 1950s and 1960s. Through careful analysis of sketches, drafts, and finished scores, it reveals complex influences on the composer's creative process as he moved from the folk-inspired world of Bartók to the forefront of the avant-garde.
Since György Ligeti’s death in 2006, there has been a growing acknowledgement of how central he was to the late twentieth-century cultural landscape. This collection is the first book devoted to exploring the composer’s life and music within the context of his East European roots, revealing his dual identities as both Hungarian national and cosmopolitan modernist. Contributors explore the artistic and socio-cultural contexts of Ligeti’s early works, including composition and music theory, the influence of East European folk music, notions of home and identity, his ambivalent attitude to his Hungarian past and his references to his homeland in his later music. Many of the valuable insights offered profit from new research undertaken at the Paul Sacher Foundation, Basel, while also drawing on the knowledge of long-time associates such as the composer’s assistant, Louise Duchesneau. The contributions as a whole reveal Ligeti’s thoroughly cosmopolitan milieu and values, and illuminate why his music continues to inspire new generations of performers, composers and listeners.