Willard Spiegelman
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195368130
- eISBN:
- 9780199852192
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368130.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
This chapter criticizes English composer Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes. It examines how audiences viewed and partly misunderstood the character of Peter Grimes and discusses the problems ...
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This chapter criticizes English composer Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes. It examines how audiences viewed and partly misunderstood the character of Peter Grimes and discusses the problems concerning the recreation of a literary character in another medium and the dilemma of making retrospective connections along a literary lineage. It suggests that Peter Grimes' embedding of his identity in the life of the community is similar to Britten's own communal life which demonstrates a commitment to the social relationships upon which all identity depends.Less
This chapter criticizes English composer Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes. It examines how audiences viewed and partly misunderstood the character of Peter Grimes and discusses the problems concerning the recreation of a literary character in another medium and the dilemma of making retrospective connections along a literary lineage. It suggests that Peter Grimes' embedding of his identity in the life of the community is similar to Britten's own communal life which demonstrates a commitment to the social relationships upon which all identity depends.
Eric Salzman and Thomas Desi
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195099362
- eISBN:
- 9780199864737
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195099362.003.0016
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter discusses the work of British composers including Benjamin Britten, Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and ...
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This chapter discusses the work of British composers including Benjamin Britten, Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Andrew Toovey. British performing institutions have included the Pierrot Players and the Almeida Theatre. Also discussed are Louis Andriessen from The Netherlands (and his influence on younger British composers) and Per Nørgård from Denmark. Institutions mentioned are NewOp, Musiktheater Transparant in Antwerp, Die Munt (Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie) in Brussels, and Den Anden Opera in Copenhagen.Less
This chapter discusses the work of British composers including Benjamin Britten, Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle, Cornelius Cardew, Gavin Bryars, Michael Nyman, Mark-Anthony Turnage, and Andrew Toovey. British performing institutions have included the Pierrot Players and the Almeida Theatre. Also discussed are Louis Andriessen from The Netherlands (and his influence on younger British composers) and Per Nørgård from Denmark. Institutions mentioned are NewOp, Musiktheater Transparant in Antwerp, Die Munt (Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie) in Brussels, and Den Anden Opera in Copenhagen.
Philip Kitcher
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231162647
- eISBN:
- 9780231536035
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231162647.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
This book provides a philosophical analysis of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and connects the predicament of the novella's central character to Western thought's most compelling questions. The book ...
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This book provides a philosophical analysis of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and connects the predicament of the novella's central character to Western thought's most compelling questions. The book explains that Mann's work is one of the most widely read novellas in any language. It considers both the novella and a number of other works of art that have been adapted from it, including Benjamin Britten's opera and Luchino Visconti successful film. It describes the main themes of Mann's story, in which the character Gustav von Aschenbach becomes captivated by an adolescent boy, first seen on the lido in Venice, the eventual site of Aschenbach's own death. It explains how Mann uses the story to work through central concerns about how to live, themes that had been explored by his German predecessors, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The book considers how Mann's, Britten's, and Visconti's treatments illuminate the tension between social and ethical values and an artist's sensitivity to beauty. It shows how each work asks whether a life devoted to self-sacrifice in the pursuit of lasting achievements can be sustained and whether a breakdown of discipline undercuts its worth. The book also highlights that Aschenbach's story helps us reflect on whether it is possible to achieve anything in full awareness of our finitude and in knowing our successes are always incomplete.Less
This book provides a philosophical analysis of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and connects the predicament of the novella's central character to Western thought's most compelling questions. The book explains that Mann's work is one of the most widely read novellas in any language. It considers both the novella and a number of other works of art that have been adapted from it, including Benjamin Britten's opera and Luchino Visconti successful film. It describes the main themes of Mann's story, in which the character Gustav von Aschenbach becomes captivated by an adolescent boy, first seen on the lido in Venice, the eventual site of Aschenbach's own death. It explains how Mann uses the story to work through central concerns about how to live, themes that had been explored by his German predecessors, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. The book considers how Mann's, Britten's, and Visconti's treatments illuminate the tension between social and ethical values and an artist's sensitivity to beauty. It shows how each work asks whether a life devoted to self-sacrifice in the pursuit of lasting achievements can be sustained and whether a breakdown of discipline undercuts its worth. The book also highlights that Aschenbach's story helps us reflect on whether it is possible to achieve anything in full awareness of our finitude and in knowing our successes are always incomplete.
Philip Brett
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520246096
- eISBN:
- 9780520939127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520246096.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
The association of Britten and E. M. Forster is one of the more interesting in the annals of opera. Britten's opera Albert Herring was dedicated to Forster quite appropriately, for it contains whiffs ...
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The association of Britten and E. M. Forster is one of the more interesting in the annals of opera. Britten's opera Albert Herring was dedicated to Forster quite appropriately, for it contains whiffs of Forsterian social comedy and a good dose of the message of the early novels. Forster had written sympathetically about Melville in his Aspects of the Novel, but the story offered him more than purely critical delight. For Britten, Billy Budd must have seemed a logical and necessary further exploration of themes he had already broached, most notably in Peter Grimes and Albert Herring. In Billy Budd, the setting is still a hostile, uncomfortable environment dominated by oppressive forces. The musical language of Budd as a whole is less demonstrative and colorful, subtler than that of Grimes, suggesting most convincingly a certain gray monotony of life at sea, as well as the inner grayness of a character such as Claggart, in whom it dwells.Less
The association of Britten and E. M. Forster is one of the more interesting in the annals of opera. Britten's opera Albert Herring was dedicated to Forster quite appropriately, for it contains whiffs of Forsterian social comedy and a good dose of the message of the early novels. Forster had written sympathetically about Melville in his Aspects of the Novel, but the story offered him more than purely critical delight. For Britten, Billy Budd must have seemed a logical and necessary further exploration of themes he had already broached, most notably in Peter Grimes and Albert Herring. In Billy Budd, the setting is still a hostile, uncomfortable environment dominated by oppressive forces. The musical language of Budd as a whole is less demonstrative and colorful, subtler than that of Grimes, suggesting most convincingly a certain gray monotony of life at sea, as well as the inner grayness of a character such as Claggart, in whom it dwells.
W. Anthony Sheppard
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520223028
- eISBN:
- 9780520924741
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520223028.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Performing Practice/Studies
This book explores ritualized performance in twentieth-century music, uncovering the range of political, didactic, and aesthetic intents that inspired the creators of modernist music theater. The ...
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This book explores ritualized performance in twentieth-century music, uncovering the range of political, didactic, and aesthetic intents that inspired the creators of modernist music theater. The book focuses especially in the use of the “exotic” in techniques of masking and stylization, identifying Japanese Noh, medieval Christian drama, and ancient Greek theater as the most prominent exotic models for the creation of “total theater.” Drawing on a diverse range of music theater pieces, it cites the work of Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Honegger, Peter Maxwell Davies, Harry Partch, and Leonard Bernstein, as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Madonna. Artists in literature, theater, and dance—such as William Butler Yeats, Paul Claudel, Bertolt Brecht, Isadora Duncan, Ida Rubenstein, and Edward Gordon Craig—also play a significant role in this study. The book poses challenging questions that will interest readers beyond those in the field of music scholarship. For example, what is the effect on the audience and the performers of depersonalizing ritual elements? Does borrowing from foreign cultures inevitably amount to a kind of predatory appropriation? The book shows that compositional concerns and cultural themes manifested in music theater are central to the history of twentieth-century Euro-American music, drama, and dance.Less
This book explores ritualized performance in twentieth-century music, uncovering the range of political, didactic, and aesthetic intents that inspired the creators of modernist music theater. The book focuses especially in the use of the “exotic” in techniques of masking and stylization, identifying Japanese Noh, medieval Christian drama, and ancient Greek theater as the most prominent exotic models for the creation of “total theater.” Drawing on a diverse range of music theater pieces, it cites the work of Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, Arthur Honegger, Peter Maxwell Davies, Harry Partch, and Leonard Bernstein, as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber and Madonna. Artists in literature, theater, and dance—such as William Butler Yeats, Paul Claudel, Bertolt Brecht, Isadora Duncan, Ida Rubenstein, and Edward Gordon Craig—also play a significant role in this study. The book poses challenging questions that will interest readers beyond those in the field of music scholarship. For example, what is the effect on the audience and the performers of depersonalizing ritual elements? Does borrowing from foreign cultures inevitably amount to a kind of predatory appropriation? The book shows that compositional concerns and cultural themes manifested in music theater are central to the history of twentieth-century Euro-American music, drama, and dance.
W. Anthony Sheppard
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520223028
- eISBN:
- 9780520924741
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520223028.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, Performing Practice/Studies
With the creation of new forms of ritual music theater in twentieth-century Europe and America came a radical reconceptualization of the audience's role and of the performance space itself. A basic ...
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With the creation of new forms of ritual music theater in twentieth-century Europe and America came a radical reconceptualization of the audience's role and of the performance space itself. A basic trend toward increased audience participation, and away from the notion of performance as commercialized entertainment, reached one extreme in the “happenings” of the 1950s and '60s. These events were based on the premise that everyone present was a participant and that all sound and movement within the performance space constituted the performance. Occasions during which some Euro-American audience members would be accustomed to participate significantly include the religious services of Christianity. In the Catholic Mass, for example, there is a clearly defined audience/congregation and performer/celebrant space. Benjamin Britten is the most prominent twentieth-century composer to have created works of music theater specifically intended to be performed in church.Less
With the creation of new forms of ritual music theater in twentieth-century Europe and America came a radical reconceptualization of the audience's role and of the performance space itself. A basic trend toward increased audience participation, and away from the notion of performance as commercialized entertainment, reached one extreme in the “happenings” of the 1950s and '60s. These events were based on the premise that everyone present was a participant and that all sound and movement within the performance space constituted the performance. Occasions during which some Euro-American audience members would be accustomed to participate significantly include the religious services of Christianity. In the Catholic Mass, for example, there is a clearly defined audience/congregation and performer/celebrant space. Benjamin Britten is the most prominent twentieth-century composer to have created works of music theater specifically intended to be performed in church.
W. Anthony Sheppard
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520223028
- eISBN:
- 9780520924741
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520223028.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, Performing Practice/Studies
The phenomenon of domesticating the exotic is common to many examples of cross-cultural appropriation or (more neutrally) of influence in the twentieth century. Modernist Euro-American composers ...
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The phenomenon of domesticating the exotic is common to many examples of cross-cultural appropriation or (more neutrally) of influence in the twentieth century. Modernist Euro-American composers repeatedly discovered what they had been looking for in their exotic models and tended to adopt only those prevalued elements. Such exotic features then took on a special fluid status: having been extracted from their specific native environment they became “exotic” in general and lost their particular meanings. Stripped of their original context, they were routinely cloaked with new meanings, and they were readily combined with traits from other exotic sources. Like Yeats, who had moved from three plays based on Japanese Noh models to an entirely Christian context with his final dance play Calvary, Britten moved progressively away from his exotic source both in the composition of Curlew River and in the evolution of the Church Parables. This departure from the exotic toward the security of a “comparable setting” was of paramount importance to Britten's creation of this genre.Less
The phenomenon of domesticating the exotic is common to many examples of cross-cultural appropriation or (more neutrally) of influence in the twentieth century. Modernist Euro-American composers repeatedly discovered what they had been looking for in their exotic models and tended to adopt only those prevalued elements. Such exotic features then took on a special fluid status: having been extracted from their specific native environment they became “exotic” in general and lost their particular meanings. Stripped of their original context, they were routinely cloaked with new meanings, and they were readily combined with traits from other exotic sources. Like Yeats, who had moved from three plays based on Japanese Noh models to an entirely Christian context with his final dance play Calvary, Britten moved progressively away from his exotic source both in the composition of Curlew River and in the evolution of the Church Parables. This departure from the exotic toward the security of a “comparable setting” was of paramount importance to Britten's creation of this genre.
Howard Pollack
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199791590
- eISBN:
- 9780199949625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199791590.003.0019
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Popular
This chapter discusses Blitzstein’s work as director, translator, and adapter from 1950 to the end of his life. This includes his supervision of a production of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan for which ...
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This chapter discusses Blitzstein’s work as director, translator, and adapter from 1950 to the end of his life. This includes his supervision of a production of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan for which Leonard Bernstein had written the music; his adaptation of Benjamin Britten’s Let’s Make an Opera for American audiences; his adaptations of Verdi’s La Traviata, Offenbach’s L’îsle de Tulipatan, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, and Brecht’s Mother Courage, among other works. The adaptation of The Threepenny Opera, which starred Lotte Lenya and Scott Merrill, enjoyed special success; by the time of its close in 1961, it had broken the record for New York’s longest-running musical, while one of its songs, “Mack the Knife,” proved one of the great hits of the time, with recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, and Ella Fitzgerald.Less
This chapter discusses Blitzstein’s work as director, translator, and adapter from 1950 to the end of his life. This includes his supervision of a production of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan for which Leonard Bernstein had written the music; his adaptation of Benjamin Britten’s Let’s Make an Opera for American audiences; his adaptations of Verdi’s La Traviata, Offenbach’s L’îsle de Tulipatan, Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, and Brecht’s Mother Courage, among other works. The adaptation of The Threepenny Opera, which starred Lotte Lenya and Scott Merrill, enjoyed special success; by the time of its close in 1961, it had broken the record for New York’s longest-running musical, while one of its songs, “Mack the Knife,” proved one of the great hits of the time, with recordings by Louis Armstrong, Bobby Darin, and Ella Fitzgerald.
Judith Peraino
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520215870
- eISBN:
- 9780520921740
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520215870.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This book investigates how music has been used throughout history to call into question norms of gender and sexuality. Beginning with a close examination of the mythology surrounding the sirens—whose ...
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This book investigates how music has been used throughout history to call into question norms of gender and sexuality. Beginning with a close examination of the mythology surrounding the sirens—whose music seduced Ulysses into a state of mind in which he would gladly sacrifice everything for the illicit pleasures promised in their song —it goes on to consider the musical creatures, musical gods and demigods, musical humans, and music-addled listeners who have been associated with behavior that breaches social conventions. The author employs a reading of Foucault as an organizational principle as well as a philosophical focus to survey seductive and transgressive queerness in music from the Greeks through the Middle Ages and to the contemporary period. The book analyzes the musical ways in which queer individuals express and discipline their desire, represent themselves, build communities, and subvert heterosexual expectations. It covers a wide range of music including medieval songs; works by Handel, Tchaikovsky, and Britten; women's music and disco; performers such as Judy Garland, Melissa Etheridge, Madonna, and Marilyn Manson; and the movies The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.Less
This book investigates how music has been used throughout history to call into question norms of gender and sexuality. Beginning with a close examination of the mythology surrounding the sirens—whose music seduced Ulysses into a state of mind in which he would gladly sacrifice everything for the illicit pleasures promised in their song —it goes on to consider the musical creatures, musical gods and demigods, musical humans, and music-addled listeners who have been associated with behavior that breaches social conventions. The author employs a reading of Foucault as an organizational principle as well as a philosophical focus to survey seductive and transgressive queerness in music from the Greeks through the Middle Ages and to the contemporary period. The book analyzes the musical ways in which queer individuals express and discipline their desire, represent themselves, build communities, and subvert heterosexual expectations. It covers a wide range of music including medieval songs; works by Handel, Tchaikovsky, and Britten; women's music and disco; performers such as Judy Garland, Melissa Etheridge, Madonna, and Marilyn Manson; and the movies The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
Philip Brett
George Haggerty (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520246096
- eISBN:
- 9780520939127
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520246096.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This book gathers together essays on the great British composer. These essays opened the door to gay studies in music, reinvigorated the study of Britten's work, and inspired a generation of scholars ...
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This book gathers together essays on the great British composer. These essays opened the door to gay studies in music, reinvigorated the study of Britten's work, and inspired a generation of scholars to imagine “the new musicology.” Addressing questions of how an artist's sexual, cultural, and personal identity feeds into specific musical texts, the author examines most of Britten's operas as well as his role in the British cultural establishment of the mid-twentieth century. Some of these essays appear here for the first time. The book develops a complex understanding of Britten's musical achievement and highlights the many ways that the author expanded the borders of his field.Less
This book gathers together essays on the great British composer. These essays opened the door to gay studies in music, reinvigorated the study of Britten's work, and inspired a generation of scholars to imagine “the new musicology.” Addressing questions of how an artist's sexual, cultural, and personal identity feeds into specific musical texts, the author examines most of Britten's operas as well as his role in the British cultural establishment of the mid-twentieth century. Some of these essays appear here for the first time. The book develops a complex understanding of Britten's musical achievement and highlights the many ways that the author expanded the borders of his field.
Glenn Watkins
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520231580
- eISBN:
- 9780520927896
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520231580.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
This book investigates the variable roles of the music of the Great War, primarily from the angle of the Entente nations' perceived threat of German hegemony in matters of intellectual and artistic ...
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This book investigates the variable roles of the music of the Great War, primarily from the angle of the Entente nations' perceived threat of German hegemony in matters of intellectual and artistic accomplishment—a principal concern not only for Europe but also for the United States. It shows that each nation gave “proof through the night”—ringing evidence during the dark hours of the war—not only of its nationalist resolve in the singing of national airs but also of its power to recall home and hearth on distant battlefields and to reflect upon loss long after the guns had been silenced. It argues that twentieth-century modernism was not launched full force with the advent of the Great War but rather was challenged by a new set of alternatives to the prewar avant-garde. The book's central focus on music as a cultural marker during World War I exposes its relationship to the other arts, national institutions, and international politics. From wartime scores by Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky to telling retrospective works by Alban Berg, Maurice Ravel, and Benjamin Britten; from La Marseillaise to The Star-Spangled Banner, from It's a Long Way to Tipperary to Over There, music reflected society's profoundest doubts and aspirations. The book concludes with a consideration of the post-Armistice period when, on the classical music front, memory and distance forged a musical response that was frequently more powerful than in wartime.Less
This book investigates the variable roles of the music of the Great War, primarily from the angle of the Entente nations' perceived threat of German hegemony in matters of intellectual and artistic accomplishment—a principal concern not only for Europe but also for the United States. It shows that each nation gave “proof through the night”—ringing evidence during the dark hours of the war—not only of its nationalist resolve in the singing of national airs but also of its power to recall home and hearth on distant battlefields and to reflect upon loss long after the guns had been silenced. It argues that twentieth-century modernism was not launched full force with the advent of the Great War but rather was challenged by a new set of alternatives to the prewar avant-garde. The book's central focus on music as a cultural marker during World War I exposes its relationship to the other arts, national institutions, and international politics. From wartime scores by Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky to telling retrospective works by Alban Berg, Maurice Ravel, and Benjamin Britten; from La Marseillaise to The Star-Spangled Banner, from It's a Long Way to Tipperary to Over There, music reflected society's profoundest doubts and aspirations. The book concludes with a consideration of the post-Armistice period when, on the classical music front, memory and distance forged a musical response that was frequently more powerful than in wartime.
Richard Miller
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780195098259
- eISBN:
- 9780190268374
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780195098259.003.0093
- Subject:
- Music, Performing Practice/Studies
This chapter examines vowel differentiation and modification in a professional tenor voice using a spectrograph. Spectral analysis supplies information regarding technical maneuvers during singing. ...
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This chapter examines vowel differentiation and modification in a professional tenor voice using a spectrograph. Spectral analysis supplies information regarding technical maneuvers during singing. What the ear can hear, the eye then simultaneously verifies. Comparative studies of phonations can provide clues to common practices among singers of similar vocal category, and can point out individual differences that contribute to the unique characteristic of each singing voice. This study considers phonations from Benjamin Britten's Sonnets of Michelangelo, sung in the original Italian. Spectral analysis confirms what the practical pedagogical ear discerns: in a male voice, vowel modification is possible for registration purposes in upper range, so as to maintain desirable harmonic balance in a mounting scale without destroying vowel integrity. This is in accordance with vocal pedagogy based on the Italian School model.Less
This chapter examines vowel differentiation and modification in a professional tenor voice using a spectrograph. Spectral analysis supplies information regarding technical maneuvers during singing. What the ear can hear, the eye then simultaneously verifies. Comparative studies of phonations can provide clues to common practices among singers of similar vocal category, and can point out individual differences that contribute to the unique characteristic of each singing voice. This study considers phonations from Benjamin Britten's Sonnets of Michelangelo, sung in the original Italian. Spectral analysis confirms what the practical pedagogical ear discerns: in a male voice, vowel modification is possible for registration purposes in upper range, so as to maintain desirable harmonic balance in a mounting scale without destroying vowel integrity. This is in accordance with vocal pedagogy based on the Italian School model.
Philip Brett
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520246096
- eISBN:
- 9780520939127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520246096.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Leaving England for America at the commencement of the war, Benjamin Britten eventually returned to his homeland, realizing the essence of an artists' being in the vicinity of his roots. This chapter ...
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Leaving England for America at the commencement of the war, Benjamin Britten eventually returned to his homeland, realizing the essence of an artists' being in the vicinity of his roots. This chapter appraises the proclaimed proximate connection between Britten's decision to retract to England and the opera, Peter Grimes. It was in Southern California in summer 1941 that Britten picked up an issue of The Listener to which E. M. Forster had contributed an chapter on the Suffolk poet, George Crabbe. This seems to have been the turning point in Britten's assumption not only about nationality but also locality. Crabbe's Peter Grimes is one of the poor of the Borough, and though the poet grew up among the poor, he did not like them. His portrait of the man whose cruelty leads to the death of three boy apprentices from the workhouse and whose guilty conscience drives him to madness and death is alleviated by few redeeming features; a bold and unusual choice for the central figure of a musical drama in the tradition of grand opera.Less
Leaving England for America at the commencement of the war, Benjamin Britten eventually returned to his homeland, realizing the essence of an artists' being in the vicinity of his roots. This chapter appraises the proclaimed proximate connection between Britten's decision to retract to England and the opera, Peter Grimes. It was in Southern California in summer 1941 that Britten picked up an issue of The Listener to which E. M. Forster had contributed an chapter on the Suffolk poet, George Crabbe. This seems to have been the turning point in Britten's assumption not only about nationality but also locality. Crabbe's Peter Grimes is one of the poor of the Borough, and though the poet grew up among the poor, he did not like them. His portrait of the man whose cruelty leads to the death of three boy apprentices from the workhouse and whose guilty conscience drives him to madness and death is alleviated by few redeeming features; a bold and unusual choice for the central figure of a musical drama in the tradition of grand opera.
Philip Brett
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520246096
- eISBN:
- 9780520939127
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520246096.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
One of the sure tests of a composer's stature is how Grimes reacts to success. The furore over Peter Grimes both at home and abroad after its premiere in 1945 was possibly more remarkable than that ...
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One of the sure tests of a composer's stature is how Grimes reacts to success. The furore over Peter Grimes both at home and abroad after its premiere in 1945 was possibly more remarkable than that accorded any other opera this century. Grimes was a success from the start, and the sort of success that might have tempted a lesser composer to continue in the same vein. The Rape of Lucretia, first performed a little more than a year after Grimes, represents a radical departure from the earlier work in more ways than one. The chamber proportions and scoring of Lucretia can of course be explained by practical considerations, which were always a creative challenge for Britten. Indeed, it led to the withdrawal of Peter Grimes from the repertory after a surprisingly small number of performances.Less
One of the sure tests of a composer's stature is how Grimes reacts to success. The furore over Peter Grimes both at home and abroad after its premiere in 1945 was possibly more remarkable than that accorded any other opera this century. Grimes was a success from the start, and the sort of success that might have tempted a lesser composer to continue in the same vein. The Rape of Lucretia, first performed a little more than a year after Grimes, represents a radical departure from the earlier work in more ways than one. The chamber proportions and scoring of Lucretia can of course be explained by practical considerations, which were always a creative challenge for Britten. Indeed, it led to the withdrawal of Peter Grimes from the repertory after a surprisingly small number of performances.
Linda Hutcheon and Michael Hutcheon
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226255590
- eISBN:
- 9780226255620
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226255620.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Later life is a fraught topic in our commercialized, anti-aging, death-denying culture. Where does creativity fit in? The canonical composers whose stories are told here—Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), ...
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Later life is a fraught topic in our commercialized, anti-aging, death-denying culture. Where does creativity fit in? The canonical composers whose stories are told here—Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), Richard Strauss (1864–1949), Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992), and Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)—offer radically individual responses to that question. In their late years, each of these national icons wrote an opera around which coalesced for them major issues about their creativity and aging. While these and other late works helped them explore creatively their own aging and mortality, the composers nonetheless had to face a variety of challenges that came with their own aging—ranging from health issues to the critical expectations that accompany success. They also had to deal with the social, political and aesthetic changes of their times, including World Wars and the rise of musical modernism. By investigating their own attitudes to their aging and their creativity, their late compositions, and the critical reception of them, this book tells the stories of their different but creative ways of dealing with those changes, Each composer began his career in an individual manner; each also ended it in a unique way. It is the complexity of the interrelationship of aging and creativity in all its individuality that this book investigates.Less
Later life is a fraught topic in our commercialized, anti-aging, death-denying culture. Where does creativity fit in? The canonical composers whose stories are told here—Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), Richard Strauss (1864–1949), Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992), and Benjamin Britten (1913–1976)—offer radically individual responses to that question. In their late years, each of these national icons wrote an opera around which coalesced for them major issues about their creativity and aging. While these and other late works helped them explore creatively their own aging and mortality, the composers nonetheless had to face a variety of challenges that came with their own aging—ranging from health issues to the critical expectations that accompany success. They also had to deal with the social, political and aesthetic changes of their times, including World Wars and the rise of musical modernism. By investigating their own attitudes to their aging and their creativity, their late compositions, and the critical reception of them, this book tells the stories of their different but creative ways of dealing with those changes, Each composer began his career in an individual manner; each also ended it in a unique way. It is the complexity of the interrelationship of aging and creativity in all its individuality that this book investigates.
Christopher Mark
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199794805
- eISBN:
- 9780199345243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794805.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter focuses on Britten's music of the late 1960s. In the Songs and Proverbs of William Blake (1965), short phrases generate agitation (in “London”) and fragile textures draw out the ...
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This chapter focuses on Britten's music of the late 1960s. In the Songs and Proverbs of William Blake (1965), short phrases generate agitation (in “London”) and fragile textures draw out the expressive force of individual intervallic gestures (“The Chimney-Sweeper”). The rhythmic freedom of heterophony is apt for the “Nightmare” evoked in a 1969 William Soutar setting. The chapter analyzes the many subtleties of Britten's harmonic idiom: the achievement of A major, chromatically enriched, late in Children's Crusade (1969), for example, offers the possibility of transcendence in a score whose sound world is startlingly acerbic.Less
This chapter focuses on Britten's music of the late 1960s. In the Songs and Proverbs of William Blake (1965), short phrases generate agitation (in “London”) and fragile textures draw out the expressive force of individual intervallic gestures (“The Chimney-Sweeper”). The rhythmic freedom of heterophony is apt for the “Nightmare” evoked in a 1969 William Soutar setting. The chapter analyzes the many subtleties of Britten's harmonic idiom: the achievement of A major, chromatically enriched, late in Children's Crusade (1969), for example, offers the possibility of transcendence in a score whose sound world is startlingly acerbic.
Danielle Ward-Griffin
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199794805
- eISBN:
- 9780199345243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794805.003.0011
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter explores the television opera Owen Wingrave, which premiered on 16 May 1971 as a BBC-filmed production broadcast simultaneously across Europe and the United States. Britten's interest in ...
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This chapter explores the television opera Owen Wingrave, which premiered on 16 May 1971 as a BBC-filmed production broadcast simultaneously across Europe and the United States. Britten's interest in specifically televisual possibilities, such as intense close-ups and quick scene changes, found support in Brian Large's camera directing and David Myerscough-Jones' visual design. Owen Wingrave often blurs boundaries between the living and the dead, as when Owen imagines the Hyde Park Horse Guards riding to their destruction, or when the Wingrave family portraits walk out of their gilt frames.Less
This chapter explores the television opera Owen Wingrave, which premiered on 16 May 1971 as a BBC-filmed production broadcast simultaneously across Europe and the United States. Britten's interest in specifically televisual possibilities, such as intense close-ups and quick scene changes, found support in Brian Large's camera directing and David Myerscough-Jones' visual design. Owen Wingrave often blurs boundaries between the living and the dead, as when Owen imagines the Hyde Park Horse Guards riding to their destruction, or when the Wingrave family portraits walk out of their gilt frames.
Christopher Wintle
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199794805
- eISBN:
- 9780199345243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794805.003.0012
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter demonstrates the sheer intensity of Britten's creative process as he completed his last opera in a state of declining health. The dye-line scores document closely how composer and singer ...
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This chapter demonstrates the sheer intensity of Britten's creative process as he completed his last opera in a state of declining health. The dye-line scores document closely how composer and singer shaped the role of Aschenbach before the opera's premiere in June 1973. Pears' input is most evident in the refracted, ironic diction of Aschenbach's recitatives, refining details of stage movement, diction, and rhythm. In Britten's scores, meanwhile, the overarching concern with dramatic continuity is often achieved by cutting, or with multiple attempts at a given transition.Less
This chapter demonstrates the sheer intensity of Britten's creative process as he completed his last opera in a state of declining health. The dye-line scores document closely how composer and singer shaped the role of Aschenbach before the opera's premiere in June 1973. Pears' input is most evident in the refracted, ironic diction of Aschenbach's recitatives, refining details of stage movement, diction, and rhythm. In Britten's scores, meanwhile, the overarching concern with dramatic continuity is often achieved by cutting, or with multiple attempts at a given transition.
Paul Kildea
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199794805
- eISBN:
- 9780199345243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794805.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter examines the conflict between disclosure and concealment common to Britten's life and his art. Britten's development of an operatic technique coincided precisely with his personal ...
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This chapter examines the conflict between disclosure and concealment common to Britten's life and his art. Britten's development of an operatic technique coincided precisely with his personal acknowledgment of his own homosexuality. The chapter illustrates how ambiguities of presentation and interpretation run through all Britten's staged dramas, by examining specific libretto changes required by the Lord Chamberlain's censor before The Rape of Lucretia could be approved for stage production. In all of his operas, Britten's technique was necessarily one of camouflage, leaving the precise motivations and behavior of those represented onstage meaningfully open.Less
This chapter examines the conflict between disclosure and concealment common to Britten's life and his art. Britten's development of an operatic technique coincided precisely with his personal acknowledgment of his own homosexuality. The chapter illustrates how ambiguities of presentation and interpretation run through all Britten's staged dramas, by examining specific libretto changes required by the Lord Chamberlain's censor before The Rape of Lucretia could be approved for stage production. In all of his operas, Britten's technique was necessarily one of camouflage, leaving the precise motivations and behavior of those represented onstage meaningfully open.
Stephen Arthur Allen
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199794805
- eISBN:
- 9780199345243
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794805.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter examines three major concert works of Britten's early maturity. The Auden song cycle Our Hunting Fathers is the seminal work of 1936, the year of Britten's official break with the ...
More
This chapter examines three major concert works of Britten's early maturity. The Auden song cycle Our Hunting Fathers is the seminal work of 1936, the year of Britten's official break with the Christianity of both his youth and his mother. The Violin Concerto (1939) constitutes an aural snapshot of the fêted spot itself, one in which Britten's new compositional voice articulates in wordless instrumental sonority the terms of a metaphysical drama, most notably in the Passacaglia finale. Finally the Sinfonia da Requiem (1940) shows Britten's quasiliturgical reframing of the dramaturgy of his spiritual fall, anticipating the language of the opera Peter Grimes and of his mature aesthetic—in which Death ultimately underpins all.Less
This chapter examines three major concert works of Britten's early maturity. The Auden song cycle Our Hunting Fathers is the seminal work of 1936, the year of Britten's official break with the Christianity of both his youth and his mother. The Violin Concerto (1939) constitutes an aural snapshot of the fêted spot itself, one in which Britten's new compositional voice articulates in wordless instrumental sonority the terms of a metaphysical drama, most notably in the Passacaglia finale. Finally the Sinfonia da Requiem (1940) shows Britten's quasiliturgical reframing of the dramaturgy of his spiritual fall, anticipating the language of the opera Peter Grimes and of his mature aesthetic—in which Death ultimately underpins all.
