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Martinů's Mysterious Accident
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 212

Martinů's Mysterious Accident

Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959)was one of the most prolific composers in the 20th century. Despite the fact that he lived for several years in the United States and had many of his works premiered in this country, he still stands as an enigma. This collection of essays by an international group of experts, is dedicated to the memory of Michael Henderson, who died in 1994 at the age of 47. Henderson was in the process of writing a biography of the composer. These essays include a range of new approaches to Martinu: Judy Mabary gives a concise history of Martinu's collaboration with choreographer Eric Hawkins, The Strangler; Ales Brezina looks penetratingly at the often tortured relationship between Martinu and the Czechoslovak government; and Michael Beckerman explores questions of construction in Martinu's Piano Concerto No. 2. Shorter pieces by Czech scholars Isa Popelka and Jaroslav Mihule are also included. In addition, there will be an essay by Michael Henderson on "Martinu's Mysterious Accident" which will shed light on one of the most harrowing events in the composer's life.

Janáček and Czech Music
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 420

Janáček and Czech Music

In the first week of May 1988, more than seventy scholars and musicians from five countries gathered at Washington University in St. Louis to participate in the first conference and festival ever to take place in the United States on the Moravian composer Leos Janácek. This volume, arranged in seven parts, is a collection of thirty-five of the papers presented at the conference. It is the first large collection of essays in English concerning Janácek's music, and the only collection of proceedings from a Janácek symposium to be published in the last twenty-five years... most of its essays deal with Janácek's music, while some with other Czech music, mostly from before the time of Bedrich Smetana. This breadth of scope is not a weakness of either the conference or the volume, since it places Janácek in historical perspective, and since the articles that deal with the earlier music are among the best in the volume and are deserving of a forum. John K. Novak, Notes June 1996

Janacek and His World
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 330

Janacek and His World

Once thought to be a provincial composer of only passing interest to eccentrics, Leos Janácek (1854-1928) is now widely acknowledged as one of the most powerful and original creative figures of his time. Banned for all purposes from the Prague stage until the age of 62, and unable to make it even out of the provincial capital of Brno, his operas are now performed in dynamic productions throughout the globe. This volume brings together some of the world's foremost Janácek scholars to look closely at a broad range of issues surrounding his life and work. Representing the latest in Janácek scholarship, the essays are accompanied by newly translated writings by the composer himself. The colle...

Janáček as Theorist
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 170

Janáček as Theorist

In addition to his activities as a composer, Leos Janácek was a prolific literary personality whose works include not only letters, feuilletons, criticisms, autobiography, ethnographic and pedagogical studies but also numerous articles dealing with music theory. They are unique documents, stimulating, diverse, exciting, and sometimes bewildering, they reflect Janácek's intense involvement with contemporary trends in philosophy, ethnography, physiology, and music theory, and his struggles in these worlds; yet they can hardly be found on a single bookshelf outside the Czech Republic (From the Introduction).

Frontier Orientalism and the Turkish Image in Central European Literature
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 205

Frontier Orientalism and the Turkish Image in Central European Literature

This comparative study analyzes the ways that Central European writers used stereotypes of the Turks to develop their national identities from the early modern period to the present. Charles D. Sabatos uses Andre Gingrich’s concept of “frontier Orientalism” to foreground his analysis of Central European Orientalism, designating the nations of the former Habsburg Empire as the occident and the Turks as the oriental “Other.” This study applies theoretical approaches to literary history—as developed by scholars such as Stephen Greenblatt and Linda Hutcheon—to a range of texts from the early modern period, the nineteenth-century national revivals, interwar independence, and the communist and postsocialist regimes. By following these depictions across literatures and over an extensive historical period, this study illustrates how the Turkish stereotype evolved from a menace to a more abstract yet still powerful metaphor of resistance, and finally to a mythical figure that evoked humor as often as fear.

Richard Wagner: Tristan und Isolde
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 229

Richard Wagner: Tristan und Isolde

Seven leading international writers discuss the genesis, libretto and music, and performance and reception history of Wagner's Tristan.

Foundations of Modern Harmony
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 547

Foundations of Modern Harmony

Translated into English for the first time, Foundations of Modern Harmony, by composer and music theorist Karel Janec̆ek, addresses the analysis and composition of music not based on the tonal harmony that was common language until the early 20th century. Discussing this newer music requires a vocabulary in which all combinations of notes, or chords, can be named. Janec̆ek developed his theory of modern harmony over many years. In this book, he classifies chords according to their intervallic structure, their possible arrangements, and then based on their consonance and dissonance. His focus on what we hear leads to a discussion of “imaginary” pitches, those that are still heard after ...

Dvorák and His World
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 296

Dvorák and His World

Antonin Dvorák made his famous trip to the United States one hundred years ago, but despite an enormous amount of attention from scholars and critics since that time, he remains an elusive figure. Comprising both interpretive essays and a selection of fascinating documents that bear on Dvorák's career and music, this volume addresses fundamental questions about the composer while presenting an argument for a radical reappraisal. The essays, which make up the first part of the book, begin with Leon Botstein's inquiry into the reception of Dvorák's work in German-speaking Europe, in England, and in America. Commenting on the relationship between Dvorák and Brahms, David Beveridge offers th...

From My Life
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 457

From My Life

From My Life is the autobiography of Eduard Hanslick, one of the most noted and honored music critics in nineteenth-century Vienna who made his mark with his relatively brief disquisition On the Musically Beautiful first issued in 1854. His highly informative autobiography has never appeared in complete translation to English or any other language.

Mendelssohn and His World
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 300

Mendelssohn and His World

Bringing together previously unpublished essays by historians and musicologists, reflections on Mendelssohn written by his contemporaries, the composer's own letters, and early critical reviews of his music, this volume explores various facets of Mendelssohn's music, his social and intellectual circles, and his career. The essays in Part I cover the nature of a Jewish identity in Mendelssohn's music; his relationship to the Berlin Singakademie; the role of his sister Fanny Hensel, herself a child prodigy and accomplished composer; Mendelssohn's compositional craft in the Italian Symphony and selected concert overtures; his oratorio Elijah; his incidental music to Sophocles' Antigone; his ant...