Lorraine Byrne Bodley

Julian Horton

A thematic exploration of Schubert's style, applied in readings of his instrumental and vocal literature by international scholars.

History, Theory, Style

Schubert's Late Music

In Rethinking Schubert, today's leading Schubertians offer fresh perspectives on the composer's importance and our perennial fascination with him. Subjecting recurring issues in historical, biographical and analytical research to renewed scrutiny, the twenty-two chapters yield new insights into Schubert, his music, his influence and his legacy, and broaden the interpretative context for the music of his final years. With close attention to matters of style, harmonic and formal analysis, and text setting, the essays gathered here explore a significant portion of the composer's extensive output across a range of genres. The most readily explicable aspect of Schubert's appeal is undoubtedly our continuing engagement with the songs. Schubert will always be the first port of call for scholars interested in the relationship between music and the poetic text, and several essays in Rethinking Schubert offer welcome new inquiries into this subject. Yet perhaps the most striking feature of modern scholarship is the new depth of thought that attaches to the instrumental works. This music's highly protracted dissemination has combined with a habitual critical hostility to produce a reception history that is hardly congenial to musical analysis. Empowered by the new momentum behind theories of nineteenth-century harmony and form and recently-published source materials, the sophisticated approaches to the instrumental music in Rethinking Schubert show decisively that it is no longer acceptable to posit Schubert's instrumental forms as flawed lyric alternatives to Beethoven. What this volume provides, then, is not only a fresh portrait of one of the most loved composers of the nineteenth century but also a conspectus of current Schubertian research. Whether perusing unknown repertoire or refreshing canonical works, Rethinking Schubert reveals the extraordinary methodological variety that is now available to research, painting a contemporary portrait of Schubert that is vibrant, plural, trans-national and complex.

Rethinking Schubert

Barbara M. Reul

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) is now rightly recognized as one of the greatest and most original composers of the nineteenth century. Schubert steadily graced Viennese musical life with his songs, piano music and chamber compositions. Throughout his career he experimented constantly with technique and in his final years began experiments with form. The resultant fascinating works were never performed in his lifetime, and only in recent years have the nature of his experiments found scholarly favor. In The Unknown Schubert contributors explore Schubert's radical modernity from a number of perspectives by examining both popular and neglected works. Chapters by renowned scholars describe the historical context of his work, its relation to the dominant artistic discourses of the early nineteenth century, and Schubert's role in the paradigmatic shift to a new perception of song.

The Unknown Schubert

Frontcover -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Contributors -- Acknowledgements -- Abbreviations Used in the Notes -- Introduction. Rhapsody and Rebuke: Goethe's Faust in Music -- Part I Goethe's Faust: Content and Context -- 1 The Redress of Goethe's Faust in Music History -- 2 Wagering on Modernity: Goethe's Eighteenth-Century Faust -- 3 Reflectivity, Music and the Modern Condition: Thoughts on Goethe's Faust -- 4 Music and Metaphorical Thinking in Goethe's Faust: The Example of Harmony -- 5 Faust: The Instrumentalisation of an Icon -- Part II Legacies: Goethe's Faust in the Nineteenth Century -- 6 Faust's Schubert: Schubert's Faust -- 7 The Musical Novel as Master-genre: Schumann's Szenen aus Goethes Faust -- 8 The Psychology of Schumann's Faust: Developing the Human Soul -- 9 A Life with Goethe: Wagner's Engagement with Faust in Music and in Words -- 10 Wagner's Ninth: Reading Beethoven with Faust -- 11 Linking Christian and Faustian Utopias: Mahler's Setting of the Schlußszene in his Eighth Symphony -- Part III Topographies: Stagings and Critical Reception -- 12 Operatic Translation and Adaptation: Gounod's Faust, with a Tribute to Ken Russell -- 13 'Adapters, Falsifiers and Profiteers': Staging La Damnation de Faust in Monte Carlo and Paris, 1893-1903 -- 14 Faust in the Trenches: Busoni's Doktor Faust -- Part IV New Directions: Recent Productions and Appropriations -- 15 As Goethe Intended? Max Reinhardt's Faust Productions and the Aesthetics of Incidental Music in the Early Twentieth Century -- 16 Music and the Rebirth of Faust in the GDR -- 17 Music, Text and Stage: Peter Stein's Production of Goethe's Faust -- 18 'Devilishly good': Rudolf Volz's Rock Opera Faust and 'Event Culture' -- Select Bibligraphy -- Index

Goethe's Faust in Music

Music in Goethe's Faust

The contributions to this Festschrift, honouring the distinguished Irish musicologist Harry White on his sixtieth birthday, have wide repercussions and span a broad timeframe. But for all its variety, this volume is built around two axes: on the one hand, attention is focussed on the history of music and literature in Ireland and the British Isles, and on the other, topics of the German and Austrian musical past. In both cases it reflects the particular interest of a scholar, whose playful, sometimes unconventional way of approaching his subject is so refreshing and time and again leads to innovative, surprising insights. It also reflects a scholar, who – for all the broadening of his perspectives that has taken place over the years – has always adhered to the strands of his scholarly preoccupations that have become dear to him: the music of the 'Austro-Italian Baroque', and Irish musical culture first and foremost. An international cast of authors announces the sustaining influence of Harry White's wide-ranging research. Professor Dr Thomas Hochradner Chair of the Department of Musicology University of Music and Dramatic Arts Mozarteum Salzburg

Lorraine Byrne Bodley

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