Paul Bekker's Musical Ethics

ISBN-13: 9781472486226 / Angielski / Twarda / 2017 / 242 str.

Nanette Nielsen

Opis

German music critic and opera producer Paul Bekker (1882-1937) is a rare example of a critic granted the opportunity to turn his ideas into practice. In this first full-length study of Bekker in English, Nanette Nielsen investigates Bekker's theory and practice in light of ethics and aesthetics, in order to uncover the ways in which these intersect in his work and contributed to the cultural and political landscape of the Weimar Republic. By linking Beethoven's music to issues of freedom and individuality, and emphasising its potential to unify the masses, Bekker constructed already in 1911 an ethical framework for his musical sociology that would pervade the rest of his oeuvre.

Spis treści

1. Paul Bekker: critical scope, life, and writings 2. Intersections of ethics and aesthetics in Bekker’s early writings on music 3. Bekker as cultural critic 4. The burden of utopia: tensions between the metaphysical and the physical 5. Bekker’s ethical aesthetics of opera 6. Bekker as opera practitioner

O autorze

Nanette Nielsen is an Associate Professor at the University of Oslo, having previously held positions as Associate Professor and Lecturer at the University of Nottingham (2009–2015) and the University of East Anglia (2005–2009). Her publications include the co-authored book Music and Ethics (Ashgate, 2012), and the article 'Ernst Krenek’s problem of freedom in Jonny spielt auf' (Twentieth-Century Music, March 2013), for which she was awarded the 2014 Jerome Roche Prize. She co-edited a special Opera Quarterly issue on 'Opera and Philosophy' (April 2014), and another special issue for The Journal of Sonic Studies on 'Pervasive Drama', for which she also contributed two co-authored articles (May 2015). She is furthermore co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Western Music and Philosophy.