Researching the Song: A Lexicon

ISBN-13: 9780195373103 / Angielski / Miękka / 2008 / 528 str.

Shirlee Emmons; Wilbur Watking Lewis

Opis

Singers are faced with a unique challenge among musicians: they must express not just the music, but the lyrics too. To effectively communicate the meaning behind these words, singers must understand the many references embedded in the vast international repertoire of great art songs. They must deal with the meaning of the lyrics, frequently in a language not their own and of a culture unfamiliar to them.
From Zelter and Schubert to Rorem and Musto, Researching the Song serves as an invaluable guide for performers, teachers, and enthusiasts to the art song repertoire. Its more than 2,000 carefully researched entries supply information on most of the mythological, historical, geographical, and literary references contained in western art song. The authors explain the meaning of less familiar literary terms, figures, and authors referenced in song while placing songs in the context of larger literary sources. Readers will find entries dealing with art songs from the German, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, South American, Greek, Finnish, Scandinavian, and both American and British English repertoires. Sources, narratives, and explanations of major song cycles are also given. Organized alphabetically, the lexicon includes brief biographies of poets, lists of composers who set each poet's work, bibliographic materials, and brief synopses of major works from which song texts were taken, including the plots of all Restoration theater works containing Purcell's vocal music.
The more performers know and understand the literary elements of a song, the richer their communication will be. Researching the Song is a vital aid for singers and teachers in interpreting art songs and building song recital programs.

Recenzje

The authors of this encyclopedia of song have offered a labor of love in explaining every conceivable reference, allusion, and personage found in the song repertory, each with bibliographic citation. This book will replace a whole shelf of reference works for singers, accompanists, and their teachers and is a Dictionary of Cultural Literacy for the song lover. Our deepest thanks.

O autorze

Shirlee Emmons is a voice teacher of considerable renown and has taught at Columbia, Princeton, Boston, and Rutgers Universities. She is an Obie award winning singer and the first and only female Chair of the prestigious American Academy of Teachers of Singing. Wilbur Watkin Lewis is a music educator and performer. He maintains a private studio and teaches General and Vocal Music in the Elizabeth, NJ Public Schools and has taught at Rutgers-Newark University and Bergen Community College. He began his studies of art songs twenty-five years ago while a student of Shirlee Emmons and Stanley Sonntag.