Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Kevin C. Karnes (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780691198293
- eISBN:
- 9780691198736
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691198293.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter contains a transcript of a conversation between Erich Korngold and an unidentified person. It opens with suspension points and is studded with them throughout, alternating with fragments ...
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This chapter contains a transcript of a conversation between Erich Korngold and an unidentified person. It opens with suspension points and is studded with them throughout, alternating with fragments of text that range in length from complete sentences to just four or five German words. Nowhere is the interviewer named or is the slightest hint at a location provided. Indeed, it is not even clear if the interview ever took place at all, or if the document records instead an imagined exchange between Korngold and an ideal interlocutor, perhaps in a kind of typed rehearsal for a conversation he anticipated upon his return to Austria. (Even his parenthetical notes indicating where recorded examples are to be played relay indecision, sometimes followed by one or even two question marks.) For all of its ambiguity, however, this document is invaluable, for it records what are probably Korngold's most extensive surviving statements on the concert and operatic music composed by his contemporaries, and of the sounds of avant-garde modernism, with which his own music was widely contrasted.Less
This chapter contains a transcript of a conversation between Erich Korngold and an unidentified person. It opens with suspension points and is studded with them throughout, alternating with fragments of text that range in length from complete sentences to just four or five German words. Nowhere is the interviewer named or is the slightest hint at a location provided. Indeed, it is not even clear if the interview ever took place at all, or if the document records instead an imagined exchange between Korngold and an ideal interlocutor, perhaps in a kind of typed rehearsal for a conversation he anticipated upon his return to Austria. (Even his parenthetical notes indicating where recorded examples are to be played relay indecision, sometimes followed by one or even two question marks.) For all of its ambiguity, however, this document is invaluable, for it records what are probably Korngold's most extensive surviving statements on the concert and operatic music composed by his contemporaries, and of the sounds of avant-garde modernism, with which his own music was widely contrasted.
Abramo Basevi
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226094915
- eISBN:
- 9780226095073
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226095073.003.0022
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter presents some final thoughts about Verdi's work. It argues that in the sixteen years during which Verdi's operas have reigned, no notable transformation of operatic music has taken ...
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This chapter presents some final thoughts about Verdi's work. It argues that in the sixteen years during which Verdi's operas have reigned, no notable transformation of operatic music has taken place. While Verdi had several manners, these cannot be considered as new steps forward, only as detours in the direction of various schools and various composers. Italy looks to Verdi for the greatest possible improvement in theatrical music, but it also demands from him a school that may protect it from the otherwise inevitable decadence of that art in which it has for so long retained primacy.Less
This chapter presents some final thoughts about Verdi's work. It argues that in the sixteen years during which Verdi's operas have reigned, no notable transformation of operatic music has taken place. While Verdi had several manners, these cannot be considered as new steps forward, only as detours in the direction of various schools and various composers. Italy looks to Verdi for the greatest possible improvement in theatrical music, but it also demands from him a school that may protect it from the otherwise inevitable decadence of that art in which it has for so long retained primacy.