Creating Der Rosenkavalier

Creating Der Rosenkavalier

Author: Michael Reynolds

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1783270497

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A full account of the making, during 1909-10, of Der Rosenkavalier with emphasis on its derivation from a French operette of 1907, L'Ingenu libertin, which was seen in Paris by Count Harry Kessler and which formed the basis of the opera then to be written by Hofmannsthal and Strauss. Previous scholarship has credited the narrative and characters of Der Rosenkavalier to much older French sources known to and studied by Hofmannsthal, butthis book shows clearly how every element in L'Ingenu libertin is in fact taken (and transformed) by Kessler and Hofmannsthal into the work that made fortunes for Hofmannsthal and Strauss, but left Kessler on the sidelines. Michael Reynolds casts a major new light on Strauss's most popular operatic success, highlighting in particular how it was that Hofmannsthal - who had not until then had any theatrical success as an original playwright - wasadvised and empowered by Kessler to produce a work that succeeded onstage from its very first performance and went rapidly on to conquer the stages of the world. Michael Reynolds is an established writer on opera, a translator and an online music critic, an interest that he sustained throughout thirty years in the world of international diplomacy. His previous book for Boydell, About Suffolk, was an anthology of writing about his adoptedcounty.


Book Synopsis Creating Der Rosenkavalier by : Michael Reynolds

Download or read book Creating Der Rosenkavalier written by Michael Reynolds and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2016 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A full account of the making, during 1909-10, of Der Rosenkavalier with emphasis on its derivation from a French operette of 1907, L'Ingenu libertin, which was seen in Paris by Count Harry Kessler and which formed the basis of the opera then to be written by Hofmannsthal and Strauss. Previous scholarship has credited the narrative and characters of Der Rosenkavalier to much older French sources known to and studied by Hofmannsthal, butthis book shows clearly how every element in L'Ingenu libertin is in fact taken (and transformed) by Kessler and Hofmannsthal into the work that made fortunes for Hofmannsthal and Strauss, but left Kessler on the sidelines. Michael Reynolds casts a major new light on Strauss's most popular operatic success, highlighting in particular how it was that Hofmannsthal - who had not until then had any theatrical success as an original playwright - wasadvised and empowered by Kessler to produce a work that succeeded onstage from its very first performance and went rapidly on to conquer the stages of the world. Michael Reynolds is an established writer on opera, a translator and an online music critic, an interest that he sustained throughout thirty years in the world of international diplomacy. His previous book for Boydell, About Suffolk, was an anthology of writing about his adoptedcounty.

The Rough Guide to Classical Music

The Rough Guide to Classical Music

Author: Rough Guides

Publisher: Rough Guides UK

Published: 2010-05-03

Total Pages: 691

ISBN-13: 1848366779

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The Rough Guide to Classical Music is the ideal handbook, spanning a thousand years of music from Gregorian chant via Bach and Beethoven to contemporaries such as Thomas Adès and Kaija Saariaho. Both a CD buyer's guide and a who's who, the guide includes concise biographical profiles of more than 200 composers and informative summaries of the major compositions in all genres, from chamber works to operatic epics. For novices and experts alike, the fully updated fifth edition features contemporary composer Helmut Lachenmann and Widor, the 19th century organ composer of 'Toccata' wedding fame, as well as dozens more works added for existing composers. You'll find an new 'Top 10's' section with accessible introductory listings including the Top 10 operas and the Top 10 symphonies plus new essay boxes on topics such as "Baroque - a style or a period?" and "The clarinet comes of age". The Rough Guide to Classical Music features fresh and incisive reviews of hundreds of CDs, selecting the very best of the latest recordings and reissues as well as more than 150 illustrations of composers and performers, including a rare archive of photos.


Book Synopsis The Rough Guide to Classical Music by : Rough Guides

Download or read book The Rough Guide to Classical Music written by Rough Guides and published by Rough Guides UK. This book was released on 2010-05-03 with total page 691 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rough Guide to Classical Music is the ideal handbook, spanning a thousand years of music from Gregorian chant via Bach and Beethoven to contemporaries such as Thomas Adès and Kaija Saariaho. Both a CD buyer's guide and a who's who, the guide includes concise biographical profiles of more than 200 composers and informative summaries of the major compositions in all genres, from chamber works to operatic epics. For novices and experts alike, the fully updated fifth edition features contemporary composer Helmut Lachenmann and Widor, the 19th century organ composer of 'Toccata' wedding fame, as well as dozens more works added for existing composers. You'll find an new 'Top 10's' section with accessible introductory listings including the Top 10 operas and the Top 10 symphonies plus new essay boxes on topics such as "Baroque - a style or a period?" and "The clarinet comes of age". The Rough Guide to Classical Music features fresh and incisive reviews of hundreds of CDs, selecting the very best of the latest recordings and reissues as well as more than 150 illustrations of composers and performers, including a rare archive of photos.

The Rest Is Noise

The Rest Is Noise

Author: Alex Ross

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Published: 2007-10-16

Total Pages: 640

ISBN-13: 1429932880

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Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.


Book Synopsis The Rest Is Noise by : Alex Ross

Download or read book The Rest Is Noise written by Alex Ross and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

The Cambridge Companion to the Singer-Songwriter

The Cambridge Companion to the Singer-Songwriter

Author: Katherine Williams

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-02-25

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1107063647

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This Companion explores the historical and theoretical contexts of the singer-songwriter tradition, and includes case studies of singer-songwriters from Thomas d'Urfey through to Kanye West.


Book Synopsis The Cambridge Companion to the Singer-Songwriter by : Katherine Williams

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to the Singer-Songwriter written by Katherine Williams and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-02-25 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Companion explores the historical and theoretical contexts of the singer-songwriter tradition, and includes case studies of singer-songwriters from Thomas d'Urfey through to Kanye West.

Richard Strauss in Context

Richard Strauss in Context

Author: Morten Kristiansen

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-10-29

Total Pages: 653

ISBN-13: 1108386490

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Richard Strauss in Context offers a distinctive approach to the study of a composer in that it places the emphasis on contextualizing topics rather than on biography and artistic output. One might say that it inverts the relationship between composer and context. Rather than studies of Strauss's librettists that discuss the texts themselves and his musical settings, for instance, this book offers essays on the writers themselves: their biographical circumstances, styles, landmark works, and broader positions in literary history. Likewise, Strauss's contributions to the concert hall are positioned within the broader development of the orchestra and trends in programmatic music. In short, readers will benefit from an elaboration of material that is either absent from or treated only briefly in existing publications. Through this supplemental and broader contextual approach, this book serves as a valuable and unique resource for students, scholars, and a general readership.


Book Synopsis Richard Strauss in Context by : Morten Kristiansen

Download or read book Richard Strauss in Context written by Morten Kristiansen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-10-29 with total page 653 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Strauss in Context offers a distinctive approach to the study of a composer in that it places the emphasis on contextualizing topics rather than on biography and artistic output. One might say that it inverts the relationship between composer and context. Rather than studies of Strauss's librettists that discuss the texts themselves and his musical settings, for instance, this book offers essays on the writers themselves: their biographical circumstances, styles, landmark works, and broader positions in literary history. Likewise, Strauss's contributions to the concert hall are positioned within the broader development of the orchestra and trends in programmatic music. In short, readers will benefit from an elaboration of material that is either absent from or treated only briefly in existing publications. Through this supplemental and broader contextual approach, this book serves as a valuable and unique resource for students, scholars, and a general readership.

The Shadow of the Empress

The Shadow of the Empress

Author: Larry Wolff

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2023-05-02

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 1503635651

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A beguiling exploration of the last Habsburg monarchs' grip on Europe's historical and cultural imagination. In 1919 the last Habsburg rulers, Emperor Karl and Empress Zita, left Austria, going into exile. That same year, the fairy-tale opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow), featuring a mythological emperor and empress, premiered at the Vienna Opera. Viennese poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal and German composer Richard Strauss created Die Frau ohne Schatten through the bitter years of World War I, imagining it would triumphantly appear after the victory of the German and Habsburg empires. Instead, the premiere came in the aftermath of catastrophic defeat. The Shadow of the Empress: Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy explores how the changing circumstances of politics and society transformed their opera and its cultural meanings before, during, and after the First World War. Strauss and Hofmannsthal turned emperors and empresses into fantastic fairy-tale characters; meanwhile, following the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy after the war, their real-life counterparts, removed from political life in Europe, began to be regarded as anachronistic, semi-mythological figures. Reflecting on the seismic cultural shifts that rocked post-imperial Europe, Larry Wolff follows the story of Karl and Zita after the loss of their thrones. Karl died in 1922, but Zita lived through the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the Cold War. By her death in 1989, she had herself become a fairy-tale figure, a totem of imperial nostalgia. Wolff weaves together the story of the opera's composition and performance; the end of the Habsburg monarchy; and his own family's life in and exile from Central Europe, providing a rich new understanding of Europe's cataclysmic twentieth century, and our contemporary relationship to it.


Book Synopsis The Shadow of the Empress by : Larry Wolff

Download or read book The Shadow of the Empress written by Larry Wolff and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-02 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beguiling exploration of the last Habsburg monarchs' grip on Europe's historical and cultural imagination. In 1919 the last Habsburg rulers, Emperor Karl and Empress Zita, left Austria, going into exile. That same year, the fairy-tale opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow), featuring a mythological emperor and empress, premiered at the Vienna Opera. Viennese poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal and German composer Richard Strauss created Die Frau ohne Schatten through the bitter years of World War I, imagining it would triumphantly appear after the victory of the German and Habsburg empires. Instead, the premiere came in the aftermath of catastrophic defeat. The Shadow of the Empress: Fairy-Tale Opera and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy explores how the changing circumstances of politics and society transformed their opera and its cultural meanings before, during, and after the First World War. Strauss and Hofmannsthal turned emperors and empresses into fantastic fairy-tale characters; meanwhile, following the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy after the war, their real-life counterparts, removed from political life in Europe, began to be regarded as anachronistic, semi-mythological figures. Reflecting on the seismic cultural shifts that rocked post-imperial Europe, Larry Wolff follows the story of Karl and Zita after the loss of their thrones. Karl died in 1922, but Zita lived through the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the Cold War. By her death in 1989, she had herself become a fairy-tale figure, a totem of imperial nostalgia. Wolff weaves together the story of the opera's composition and performance; the end of the Habsburg monarchy; and his own family's life in and exile from Central Europe, providing a rich new understanding of Europe's cataclysmic twentieth century, and our contemporary relationship to it.

Operas in German

Operas in German

Author: Margaret Ross Griffel

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-01-23

Total Pages: 1046

ISBN-13: 1442247975

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With nearly three thousand new entries, the revised edition of Operas in German: A Dictionary is the most current encyclopedic treatment of operas written specifically to a German text from the seventeenth century through 2016. Musicologist Margaret Ross Griffel details the operas’ composers, scores, librettos, first performances, and bibliographic sources. Four appendixes then list composers, librettists, authors whose works inspired or were adapted for the opera librettos, and a chronological listing of the entries in the A–Z section. The bibliography details other dictionaries and encyclopedias, performance studies, collections of plot summaries, general studies on operas, sources on locales where opera premieres took place, works on the history of operas in German, and selective volumes on individual opera composers, librettists, producers, directors, and designers. Finally, two indexes list the main characters in each opera and the names of singers, conductors, producers, composers, directors, choreographers, and arrangers. The revised edition of Operas in German provides opera historians, musicologists, performers, and opera lovers with an invaluable resource for continued study and enjoyment. As the most current encyclopedic collection of German opera from the seventeenth century through the twenty-first, Operas in German is an invaluable resource for opera historians, musicologists, performers, and opera lovers.


Book Synopsis Operas in German by : Margaret Ross Griffel

Download or read book Operas in German written by Margaret Ross Griffel and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 1046 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With nearly three thousand new entries, the revised edition of Operas in German: A Dictionary is the most current encyclopedic treatment of operas written specifically to a German text from the seventeenth century through 2016. Musicologist Margaret Ross Griffel details the operas’ composers, scores, librettos, first performances, and bibliographic sources. Four appendixes then list composers, librettists, authors whose works inspired or were adapted for the opera librettos, and a chronological listing of the entries in the A–Z section. The bibliography details other dictionaries and encyclopedias, performance studies, collections of plot summaries, general studies on operas, sources on locales where opera premieres took place, works on the history of operas in German, and selective volumes on individual opera composers, librettists, producers, directors, and designers. Finally, two indexes list the main characters in each opera and the names of singers, conductors, producers, composers, directors, choreographers, and arrangers. The revised edition of Operas in German provides opera historians, musicologists, performers, and opera lovers with an invaluable resource for continued study and enjoyment. As the most current encyclopedic collection of German opera from the seventeenth century through the twenty-first, Operas in German is an invaluable resource for opera historians, musicologists, performers, and opera lovers.

Empire and Identity

Empire and Identity

Author: Fredrik Lindström

Publisher: Purdue University Press

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1557534640

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Examines questions of identity and self-understanding in six life-careers in the Austrian intellectual and political elite. This title also presents fresh perspective on the six examined individuals, whose scholarly, artistic, and bureaucratic careers are placed in a political context.


Book Synopsis Empire and Identity by : Fredrik Lindström

Download or read book Empire and Identity written by Fredrik Lindström and published by Purdue University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines questions of identity and self-understanding in six life-careers in the Austrian intellectual and political elite. This title also presents fresh perspective on the six examined individuals, whose scholarly, artistic, and bureaucratic careers are placed in a political context.

A Companion to the Works of Hugo Von Hofmannsthal

A Companion to the Works of Hugo Von Hofmannsthal

Author: Thomas A. Kovach

Publisher: Camden House

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 9781571132154

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The Viennese poet, dramatist, and prose writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) was among the most celebrated men of letters in the German language at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. His early poems established his reputation as the `child prodigy' of German letters, and a few remain among the most anthologized in the German language. His early lyric dramas prompted no less a judge than T. S. Eliot to pronounce him, along with Yeats and Claudel, one of the three European writers who had done the most to revive verse drama in modern times. His critical essays attest to the subtle powers of discrimination that marked him as one of the most discerning literary critics of the day. And yet he underwent a crisis of cognition and language around 1900, and from then on turned away from poetry and lyric drama almost entirely, concentrating instead on more public forms of drama such as the libretti for Richard Strauss's operas, the plays written for the Salzburg Festival (of which he was a co-founder), and on discursive and narrative prose. The body of work that Hofmannsthal left behind at his premature death is matched in its variety, breadth, and quality by that of only a handful of German writers. And yet posterity has not been kind to his reputation: those who admired the early work for its aesthetic refinement disdained his turn to more popular forms, whereas many of those who might have been receptive to the more committed and public stance of his later work were put off by his conservative politics. This volume of new essays by top Hofmannsthal scholars re-examines his extraordinarily rich and complex body of work, assessing his stature in German and world literature in the new century. Contributors: Katherine Arens, Judith Beniston, Benjamin Bennett, Nina Berman, Joanna Bottenberg, Douglas A. Joyce, Thomas A. Kovach, Ellen Ritter, Hinrich C. Seeba, Andreas Thomasberger, W. Edgar Yates. Professor Thomas Kovach is Head of the Department of German Studies at the University of Arizona.


Book Synopsis A Companion to the Works of Hugo Von Hofmannsthal by : Thomas A. Kovach

Download or read book A Companion to the Works of Hugo Von Hofmannsthal written by Thomas A. Kovach and published by Camden House. This book was released on 2002 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Viennese poet, dramatist, and prose writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) was among the most celebrated men of letters in the German language at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. His early poems established his reputation as the `child prodigy' of German letters, and a few remain among the most anthologized in the German language. His early lyric dramas prompted no less a judge than T. S. Eliot to pronounce him, along with Yeats and Claudel, one of the three European writers who had done the most to revive verse drama in modern times. His critical essays attest to the subtle powers of discrimination that marked him as one of the most discerning literary critics of the day. And yet he underwent a crisis of cognition and language around 1900, and from then on turned away from poetry and lyric drama almost entirely, concentrating instead on more public forms of drama such as the libretti for Richard Strauss's operas, the plays written for the Salzburg Festival (of which he was a co-founder), and on discursive and narrative prose. The body of work that Hofmannsthal left behind at his premature death is matched in its variety, breadth, and quality by that of only a handful of German writers. And yet posterity has not been kind to his reputation: those who admired the early work for its aesthetic refinement disdained his turn to more popular forms, whereas many of those who might have been receptive to the more committed and public stance of his later work were put off by his conservative politics. This volume of new essays by top Hofmannsthal scholars re-examines his extraordinarily rich and complex body of work, assessing his stature in German and world literature in the new century. Contributors: Katherine Arens, Judith Beniston, Benjamin Bennett, Nina Berman, Joanna Bottenberg, Douglas A. Joyce, Thomas A. Kovach, Ellen Ritter, Hinrich C. Seeba, Andreas Thomasberger, W. Edgar Yates. Professor Thomas Kovach is Head of the Department of German Studies at the University of Arizona.

Music on Stage Volume 2

Music on Stage Volume 2

Author: Luis Campos

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2020-11-11

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 1527562018

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Performance by its very nature embraces many constituents, the theories of which have developed into discreet disciplines as on-going research deepens our understanding and knowledge of each one of them. Concomitantly, there continues to grow a greater interlinking, fusion and blurring of discreet boundaries between traditional genres – features highlighted in the seventeen papers presented here. Topics explored in this volume include: the intermedial performance of the Irrepressibles and electronically controlled sounds on the concert platform; the ways in which the physical body dictates movement and character and how the embodiment of the voice goes beyond character stereotypes; how Romeo Catellucci legitimized the audience’s gaze whilst staging brain-damaged patients; interculturalism in a new operatic work focusing on the current Israeli-Palestinian crisis; interrogating transgenerational depictions of Otherness in the Rocky Horror Show; musical speech in Iannis Xenakis’ reworking of ancient Greek in his Oresteia; genre conflation in terms of unaccompanied monodrama; trans-genre adaptation in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Philip Glass’s “Cocteau trilogy”; and textual and musical comedy in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, among others.


Book Synopsis Music on Stage Volume 2 by : Luis Campos

Download or read book Music on Stage Volume 2 written by Luis Campos and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-11 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Performance by its very nature embraces many constituents, the theories of which have developed into discreet disciplines as on-going research deepens our understanding and knowledge of each one of them. Concomitantly, there continues to grow a greater interlinking, fusion and blurring of discreet boundaries between traditional genres – features highlighted in the seventeen papers presented here. Topics explored in this volume include: the intermedial performance of the Irrepressibles and electronically controlled sounds on the concert platform; the ways in which the physical body dictates movement and character and how the embodiment of the voice goes beyond character stereotypes; how Romeo Catellucci legitimized the audience’s gaze whilst staging brain-damaged patients; interculturalism in a new operatic work focusing on the current Israeli-Palestinian crisis; interrogating transgenerational depictions of Otherness in the Rocky Horror Show; musical speech in Iannis Xenakis’ reworking of ancient Greek in his Oresteia; genre conflation in terms of unaccompanied monodrama; trans-genre adaptation in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier and Philip Glass’s “Cocteau trilogy”; and textual and musical comedy in Ligeti’s Le Grand Macabre, among others.