A characteristic feature of Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian opera is the tendency to link scenes with numerous and often surprisingly lengthy orchestral interludes, frequently performed with the curtain closed. Often taken for granted or treated as a filler by audiences and critics, these interludes can take on very prominent roles, representing dream sequences, journeys and sexual encounters. Combining studies of individual musical texts with an investigation of the critical discourse surrounding the operas, Christopher Morris investigates the implications of these important but strangely...
A characteristic feature of Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian opera is the tendency to link scenes with numerous and often surprisingly lengthy orchestral ...
The search for the origins of language was one of the most pressing philosophical issues of the eighteenth century. It has escaped notice, however, that music figured prominently in that search. This study analyzes reflections on music and music theory as they appear within the logical and narrative structure of texts by, for example, Rousseau, Diderot, Rameau and Condillac, and considers the ways in which music facilitates links between language and meaning, between conceptions of an original society and an ideal social order.
The search for the origins of language was one of the most pressing philosophical issues of the eighteenth century. It has escaped notice, however, th...
This book examines the intellectual history of instrumental music, in particular the idea of absolute music. It tries to show how certain ideas in philosophy, theology and the sciences affect the meaning and, indeed, the existence of instrumental music, and how, in turn, instrumental music is used to resolve or exemplify certain problems in modern culture. Instead of existing in a pure and autonomous form, music is woven back into the epistemological fabric and entangled with numerous discourses, thus demonstrating the centrality of music in the construction of meaning.
This book examines the intellectual history of instrumental music, in particular the idea of absolute music. It tries to show how certain ideas in phi...
Characteristic symphonies have texts associating them with literature, politics, religion, and other aspects of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century European culture. Examining both the music and its aesthetic and social contexts, this first full-length study of the genre demonstrates how symphonies constructed individual and collective identities through their subjects, representing emotion, human bodily movement, and the passage of time. Examples discussed include the Pastoral and Eroica symphonies of Beethoven and works by Haydn, Dittersdorf, and other composers of the era. An Appendix...
Characteristic symphonies have texts associating them with literature, politics, religion, and other aspects of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centu...
This book offers new interpretations of many of Bach's late compositions which include complex musical techniques such as canon. These techniques held great significance for Bach and his contemporaries not only on account of the great skill they demanded but because of the meanings attached to them. Intricate musical devices were crucial to the Lutheran rituals of death and dying, to alchemy, to Enlightenment philosophies of stylistic change and musical progress, to musical representations of political power, and to the legacy of Bach into our own time.
This book offers new interpretations of many of Bach's late compositions which include complex musical techniques such as canon. These techniques held...
A characteristic feature of Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian opera is the tendency to link scenes with numerous and often surprisingly lengthy orchestral interludes, frequently performed with the curtain closed. Often taken for granted or treated as a filler by audiences and critics, these interludes can take on very prominent roles, representing dream sequences, journeys and sexual encounters. Combining studies of individual musical texts with an investigation of the critical discourse surrounding the operas, Christopher Morris investigates the implications of these important but strangely...
A characteristic feature of Wagnerian and post-Wagnerian opera is the tendency to link scenes with numerous and often surprisingly lengthy orchestral ...
This book explores the role of music in an early fourteenth-century French manuscript. It sets the manuscript against the wider culture of Parisian book-making, showing how in devising new systems of design and folio layout, its creators developed a new kind of materiality in music. It also illustrates how music is expressive in ways that are unperformable apart from its visual representation, and argues that the new attitudes to material music making embodied in the manuscript serve as a model for exploring other music manuscripts to emerge in late medieval France.
This book explores the role of music in an early fourteenth-century French manuscript. It sets the manuscript against the wider culture of Parisian bo...
Musicians frequently incorporated portions of works by other musicians into their own compositions and performances throughout the twentieth century. This book examines how this practice of "quotation" affected cultural dialogues regarding race, childhood, madness and the mass media. When a musician borrows from a piece, he or she draws upon not only a melody but also the cultural associations of the original piece. By working with and altering a melody, a musician also transforms those associations.
Musicians frequently incorporated portions of works by other musicians into their own compositions and performances throughout the twentieth century. ...
This book explores the role of music in an early fourteenth-century French manuscript. It sets the manuscript against the wider culture of Parisian book-making, showing how in devising new systems of design and folio layout, its creators developed a new kind of materiality in music. It also illustrates how music is expressive in ways that are unperformable apart from its visual representation, and argues that the new attitudes to material music making embodied in the manuscript serve as a model for exploring other music manuscripts to emerge in late medieval France.
This book explores the role of music in an early fourteenth-century French manuscript. It sets the manuscript against the wider culture of Parisian bo...
