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Showing 1 - 11 of 11 matches in All Departments
Previous studies of Wagner's operas have tended to approach the works as chunks of autobiography, philosophical speculations or historical-political comments on the age in which they were written. Professor Dahlhaus dissociated himself from all such ventures. His aim is to reveal, by careful analysis of the works from Der fliegende Hollander to Parsifal, the dominant features of 'music drama' and how Wagner achieves such profound, unified effects. Professor Dahlhaus cites music examples only when they are germane to his argument and requires from his readers no more than a limited amount of technical musical knowledge. This is not, therefore, an exclusively specialist study. Rather it will help the enthusiastic beginner to come to terms with these great works of art as well as offering many valuable insights to the experienced Wagnerian. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of music history, theory, opera and philosophy.
This reprint is of the first English paperback edition of Richard Wagner's autobiography. This is a primary document of enormous importance for all Wagner enthusiasts, being virtually the sole source of information of the composer's childhood and youth. Written for Wagner's second wife, Cosima, and his patron, King Ludwig II, the autobiography runs from the composer's birth up to the eve of his fifty-first birthday in 1864. Given the intended readership and the circumstances of its composition it is hardly surprising that Wagner should either omit or distort facts from time to time: he does not linger over previous affairs, he portrays his relationship with his first wife, Minna, as a good deal more distant than it really was and he plays down his involvement in the Dresden uprising of 1849. Despite all this, the book presents a panoramic view of Wagner's times and contemporaries and offers a unique perspective on the operas themselves. This translation is of the complete edition published in Munich in 1963 and based on the manuscript in the Wagner Archives in Bayreuth. Wagner's slips of memory are noted, as are references to obscure names and events.
Originally published in 1981, this is a one-volume paperback edition of Dr von Westernhagen's distinguished biography, first published in English by Cambridge University Press as a hardcover edition in two volumes. Its distinction was that it made use of fresh archive material, and took as its starting point the supreme greatness of Wagner's artistry. Dr von Westerhagen quotes extensively from letters and diaries to throw light, for example, on Wagner's estrangement from Nietzsche. The author also consulted the contents of the composer's Dresden library and teenage composition exercises written for his teacher, Theodor Weinlig, to establish early influences upon him. Particularly useful features of this study are the appendices which include a chronological summary of Wagner's life, a complete list of his musical and literary compositions and a large bibliography. This is a definitive biography which stands beside Newman's classic work as an indispensable reference book for all studies of Wagner.
Although there are many accounts of Mozart's life, and countless descriptions and analyses of his music, this is the first attempt to portray Mozart's creative life as a composer. Küster selects forty works or groups of works covering virtually every important stage in Mozart's career, from the first keyboard compositions of the young Wunderkind to Mozart's final days and the Requiem. He draws on Mozart's letters, documentary material, and textual and musical quotations to illuminate his interpretation of Mozart's musical personality.
Many books have been written about Beethoven but it is rare to find one which seeks an alternative to the tendency of academia, on the one hand, to fragmentation, and of popular biographical writing, on the other, to a superficial overview. In this volume, the late Carl Dahlhaus combines the interpretations of individual works with excursions into the musical aesthetics of the period around 1800, an age which was not only a `classical' period in the history of the arts but also one in which aesthetics carved itself a place in the centre of philosophical attention. The theme of the book is the reconstruction of Beethoven's `musical thinking' from the evidence in the works themselves and their context in the history of ideas. A table entitled `Chronicle' places the references to biographical data in their historical context. The selective bibliography includes comments to assist readers to find their way in the labyrinth of the literature about Beethoven.
Anselm Gerhard explores the origins of "grand opera, arguing that
its aesthetic innovations (both musical and theatrical) reflected
not bourgeois tastes, but changes in daily life and psychological
outlook produced by the rapid urbanization of Paris. These larger
urban and social concerns--crucial to our understanding of
nineteenth-century opera--are brought to bear in fascinating
discussions of eight operas composed by Rossini, Auber, Meyerbeer,
Verdi, and Louise Bertin."
Mozart's unfinished Requiem has long been shrouded in mystery.
Mozart undertook the commission for an Austrian nobleman, little
knowing that he was to write a requiem for himself. Inevitably, the
secrecy surrounding the anonymous commission, the circumstances of
Mozart's death, the unfinished state of the work, and its
completion under the direction of Mozart's widow, Constanze, have
precipitated two centuries of romantic speculation and scholarly
controversy.
Carl Dahlhaus here treats Nietzsche's youthful analysis of the contradictions in Wagner's doctrine (and, more generally, in romantic musical aesthetics); the question of periodicization in romantic and neo-romantic music; the underlying kinship between Brahms's and Wagner's responses to the central musical problems of their time; and the true significance of musical nationalism. Included in this volume is Walter Kauffman's translation of the previously unpublished fragment, "On Music and Words," by the young Nietzsche.
"The History of Italian Opera" marks the first time a team of
scholars has worked together to investigate the entire Italian
operatic tradition, rather than limiting its focus to major
composers and their masterworks. Including both musicologists and
historians of other arts, the contributors approach opera not only
as a distinctive musical genre but also as a form of extravagant
theater and a complex social phenomenon.
Why do so many operas end in suicide, murder, and death? Why do many characters in large-scale operas exhibit neurotic behaviours worthy of psychoanalysis? Why are the legendary "grands operas" so seldom performed today? Anselm Gerhard argues in this text that such questions can only be answered by recognizing that daily life in rapidly urbanized mid-19th-century Paris introduced not just new social forces, but also new modes of perception and expectations of art. He attempts to provide a realistic portrayal of life in a metropolic, librettists and composers of "grand opera" developed new forms and conventions, as well as new staging performance practices. For example, the "tableau", in which the chorus typically plays the role of a destructive mob. These larger urban and social concerns are brought to bear in Gerhard's discussions of eight operas, composed by Rossini, Auber, Meyebeer, Verdi, and Louise Bertin.
Developments in medieval science that elevated sight above the
other senses found religious expression in the Christian emphasis
on miracles, relics, and elaborate structures. In his incisive
survey of Gothic art and architecture, Roland Recht argues that
this preoccupation with vision as a key to religious knowledge
profoundly affected a broad range of late medieval works.
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