250 research outputs found

    Man and Idea: Complexity and Duality in the Hero of Wagner\u27s Ring

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    The character Siegfried, much like the whole of Richard Wagner\u27s The Ring of the Nibelung, is open to interpretation by scholars and critics from a variety of different perspectives. Although these interpretations often reflect the historical, political, and cultural circumstances of their times, they nevertheless claim some legitimacy by appealing to the musical and dramatic texts of the Ring for evidence. This thesis examines Wagner\u27s conception of Siegfried and different historical perceptions of the character, discusses ambiguity both in the drama and in the music itself, and suggests a reading of Siegfried as having a dual purpose: that of a concrete, free-willed agent (the Man) and that of an idealized hero serving a necessary role in the larger context of the drama (the Idea). The thesis concludes with a four-part analysis of Siegfried Act III, Scene ii that compares four readings of the character, three supporting different historical readings and one grounded in the Man/Idea duality

    Young Nietzsche and the Wagnerian Experience

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    Using previously unpublished and neglected sources, this 1963 study of the critical decade in the philosopher's development that culminated in The Birth of Tragedy in 1871 fully exploited for the first time the extensive record of Nietzsche's musical compositions and clarifies his traditionally obscure relations to Wagner

    T.S. Eliot and the music of poetry

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    This thesis is a study of T.S. Eliot's poetry in the light of the different ways in which it can be considered 'musical'. Two concerns central to the thesis are: (1) Eliot's enduring interest in the musical quality of poetry; (2) the critical usefulness and viability of drawing analogies between his poetry and music. The thesis considers three important related topics: (1) Eliot's preoccupation with language, its inevitability and its inadequacy; (2) the figure of the seeker in his poetry; (3) his interest in mysticism. The thesis begins by exploring affinities between music and literature in the context of Wagner’s ideal of the 'Gesamtkunstwerk' and its influence on French Symbolist writers. It goes on to trace the development of T.S. Eliot's poetic style as influenced by the French Symbolist poets, by Dante and the mediaeval mystics, and by the music of Wagner, Stravinsky and other composers. Throughout, Eliot's poetry presents variations on the theme of detachment and involvement in relation to the figure of the seeker: consciousness is most engaged and challenged when it journeys. In the early poetry, music serves to emphasize failed relationships: the closer the physical proximity between protagonists, the greater the psychological distance. From The Waste Land on, Eliot makes use of myth and leitmotif to portray consciousness in the role of seeker urged on by the need for meaning. After his conversion to Anglo-Catholicism in 1927, Eliot's characters embark on a journey inward, where music, now "unheard", no longer signifies neurosis and despair, but becomes the only language for the ineffable

    The Subversion of Wagnerian Gender Dynamics in James Joyce’s Ulysses

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    To the uninitiated, the works of James Joyce can descend into endless and impenetrable obscurity, but one thinker provides a key to deciphering Joyce’s writing: German operatic composer Richard Wagner. Wagner dominated nineteenth-century culture and Joyce could not escape his omnipotent influence. Whereas many artists tried to adopt aspects of Wagner’s artistic philosophy as their own, Joyce’s works reveal an inherent kinship with the composer. Allusions to Wagner’s radical “music dramas” are evident across Joyce’s œuvre. Wagner’s influence is not only found in the implicit and explicit allusions in Ulysses,—as Timothy Martin and other scholars have noted—but also in Joyce’s adoption of Wagner’s artistic philosophy and literary techniques. Specifically, Joyce expands on Wagner’s aesthetic philosophy and emphasizes drama and myth to explore gender relations in Ulysses. I argue that in Ulysses, Joyce modifies Wagner’s artist-hero and self-sacrificing woman to complicate and critique the cultural expectation for the male protagonist’s reliance on female love for absolution. Joyce’s women—specifically Marion “Molly” Bloom and Gerty MacDowell—undermine the artist-hero’s redemption by blending the barrier between the two misogynist feminine archetypes: the Virgin and the Temptress. Whereas Wagner’s female characters are either the virginal redeemers, like Elisabeth from Tannhäuser, or fatal temptresses, like Kundry from Parsifal, Joyce’s female characters blur the barrier between the two archetypes. Molly and Gerty inhabit both the Virgin and Temptress archetypes, thereby wholly fulfilling neither. Thus, they disrupt the fixed gender roles necessary to propel the artist-hero towards salvation

    The Songs of Elsa Respighi Olivieri Sangiacomo.

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    This monograph includes limited biographical and historical data intended to show Elsa Respighi\u27s chronological and technical relationship within the sphere of twentieth-century vocal music. The poets who provided text for her music are reviewed, and a discussion of her treatment of the text is summarized. This study deals with twelve solo songs of Elsa Respighi. Each song was inspected for the following: melody, harmony, form, and piano accompaniment. These elements were discussed from the viewpoint of the performer. The survey yielded the following information about each song. Seven songs list the name of a poet, five songs do not. Six songs are written in stanzaic form, five are in free form and one is in a narrative/dialogue form. Elsa Respighi\u27s compositional style is planned. Her musical form evolves from the form of the poetry. The accent of the text is the structure by which she creates her melodies. The poetry and the melodic line serve as ways to sectionalize the songs. The tonal shifts define the sections and support the poetic mood changes. The piano accompaniment enhances the melodies and promotes text painting. The typical song of Elsa Respighi shows standard tonic/dominant functions, chromatic mediant motion, modal mixture and an independent piano accompaniment. Elsa Respighi\u27s songs reveal lyricism, tonal expansion, and sensitivity to poetic content, all resulting in a variety of musical styles

    Myth, Music & Modernism: the Wagnerian dimension in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and the waves and James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake

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    The study of Wagner's influence on the modernist novel is an established field with clear room for further contributions. Very little of the criticism undertaken to date takes full cognizance of the philosophical content of Wagner's dramas: a revolutionary form of romanticism that calls into question the very nature of the world, its most radical component being Schopenhauer's version of transcendental idealism. The compatibility of this doctrine with Wagner's earlier work, with its already marked privileging of myth over history, enabled his later dramas, consciously influenced by Schopenhauer, to crown a body of work greater than the sum of its parts. In works by Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, the "translation" of Wagnerian ideas into novelistic form demonstrates how they might be applied in "real life". In Mrs Dalloway, the figure of Septimus can be read as partly modelled on Wagner's heroes Siegfried and Tristan, two outstanding examples of the opposing heroic types found throughout his oeuvre, whose contrasting attributes are fused in Septimus's bipolar personality. The Wagnerian pattern also throws light on Septimus's transcendental "relationship" with a woman he does not even know, and on the implied noumenal identity of seemingly isolated individuals. In The Waves, the allusions to both Parsifal and the Ring need to be reconsidered in light of the fact that these works' heroes are all but identical (a fact overlooked in previous criticism); as Wagner's solar hero par excellence, Siegfried is central to the novel's cyclical symbolism. The Waves also revisits the question of identity but in a more cosmic context – the metaphysical unity of everything. In Finnegans Wake, the symbolism of the cosmic cycle is again related to the Ring, as are Wagner's two heroic types to the Shem / Shaun opposition (the Joyce / Woolf parallels here have also been overlooked in criticism to date). All three texts reveal a fascination with the two contrasting faces of a Wagnerian hero who embodies the dual nature of reality, mirroring in himself the eternal rise and fall of world history and, beyond them, the timeless stasis of myth

    Two shadows in the moonlight : music in British film melodrama of the 1940s

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    Includes bibliographical references (p. 135-140).In this thesis I examine the differences between music in the two cinemas. Concentrating on exemplary films from the late 1930s to the early 1950s, I show how the apparent differences are manifested, and by analysing a number of key British films, I illustrate the modes of musical expression used. There are many ways to approach film music. My own interest lies in the connection between music of the romantic period of the 19th century and what became of it during the 20th. "Serious" music from Schoenberg onwards became increasingly dissonant, but the rich melodic tones of romantic music appear to have found a new home in the cinema, and in this thesis I explore how film composers kept the previous traditions alive

    Hidden in Plain Sight: Musical Subtext in Drama

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    This dissertation explores the manner in which music (songs, instrumental underscoring, and sound cues) support, reflect, and advance dramatic action. The dramaturgical analysis, employing Freytags model, is applied to selected dramatic repertoire to reveal the impact and influence of music on the dramatic structure of these works. The analysis considers how the musical nature of works by William Shakespeare, August Strindberg, George Bernard Shaw, Tom Stoppard and Simon Stephens also contributes to them becoming major sources for adaptations and for musicals on the modern stage. The importance of looking at authors, function, intended effects, production, context, message, and transmission modes must be stressed, as well as how to code/decode music and how musical meanings are generated through effective stimulation or through semiotics. The argument maintains that text and music cannot be separated without causing serious damage to the authors creative vision and that the total structure of a play exists as an expression of artistic unity similar to Wagners concept of Gesamtkunstwerk. The text and music exist in a symbiotic relationship, sometimes as leitmotifs, with the non-diegetic music supporting emotions to reflect the inner world of their characters. The use of musical leitmotifs or music as thematic material clearly contributes in driving forward the dramatic action. Among the main findings are how the musical references made by any of the five playwrights determines the dramaturgical interpretation of their plays. Each author is extremely precise with respect to their musical references. Four out of five playwrights discussed had a strong musical background, which enabled them to make well-informed musical choices to underpin their plays. Some even chose to replace traditional dramatic structure with a musical one. Finally, it can be said that music functions as an important and often overlooked subtext that enhances the entire dramatic experience by supporting the situation and narrative. Music influences the audiences ultimate perception of character and emotion

    A semiotic evaluation of musical meaning in the works of Igor Stravinsky : decoding syntax and markedness and prototypicality theory.

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