Does one need to know the rules of harmony to be considered a musician? Throughout A la recherche du temps perdu, and particularly ' Swann in Love', Proust displays a surprising sensitivity to the way music is heard, a sensitivity to which we owe some of the most beautiful writing on music. Through a study of the texts devoted to the Sonata and Septet of Vinteui, Jean-Jacques Nattiez demonstrates the fundamental role played by music in the evolution of the novel. He also shows how Debussy, Wagner and Beethoven provide the basis for a mystical quest whose goal is pure music and the literary absolute. Music as model for literature: this is the subject of Professor Nattiez's essay, which unravels the various musical themes running through Proust's work, and which thus constitutes a particularly clear and perceptive introduction to his writing.

The contributions to this handbook bring together a full-length study of Elektra in English. The volume examines the many facets of one of Richard Strauss's most complex operas. First, P. E. Easterling surveys the mythological background, while Karen Forsyth discusses Hofmannsthal's adaptation of his sources. The second part brings the music to the fore. Derrick Puffett offers an introductory essay and synopsis; Arnold Whittall considers the tonal and dramatic structure of the composition; Tethys Carpenter explores the musical language of the work in detail, with special focus given to part of the Klytaemnestra scene. The third part of the volume offers two contrasting critical essays: Carolyn Abbate provides an interpretation informed by her recent work on narrative, and Robin Holloway analyses Strauss's orchestration of the opera. The book also contains a discography and an appendix of excerpts from the Strauss-Hofmannsthal correspondence.

This first full-length study of Salome in English since Lawrence Gilman's (1907) moves from historical and literary analysis to critical appraisal and includes a synopsis, bibliography and discography.

This book is a collection of essays, by the leading German musicologist of our day, on one of the most controversial and influential composers of our century: Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg is considered here as a historical figure, as a thinker and theoretician and as a composer whose works may be subjected to technical analysis and/or examined in relation to the history of ideas. Above all, he is considered in the context of the 'New Music', the historical and cultural movement of the first two decades of this century which embrace musicians such as Webern, Schreker and Scriabin (all of whom are allotted individual essays), as well as Schoenberg himself. In addition to historical and analytical essays there are essays of a broader cultural-historical and even sociological import which should interest all those involved with twentieth-century music and ideas.

Does one need to know the rules of harmony to be considered a musician? Throughout A la recherche du temps perdu, and particularly ' Swann in Love', Proust displays a surprising sensitivity to the way music is heard, a sensitivity to which we owe some of the most beautiful writing on music. Through a study of the texts devoted to the Sonata and Septet of Vinteui, Jean-Jacques Nattiez demonstrates the fundamental role played by music in the evolution of the novel. He also shows how Debussy, Wagner and Beethoven provide the basis for a mystical quest whose goal is pure music and the literary absolute. Music as model for literature: this is the subject of Professor Nattiez's essay, which unravels the various musical themes running through Proust's work, and which thus constitutes a particularly clear and perceptive introduction to his writing.