Four Last Songs

Four Last Songs PDF Author: Linda Hutcheon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022625559X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Aging and creativity can seem a particularly fraught relationship for artists, who often face age-related difficulties at a time when their audience's expectations of their talents are at a peak. In Four Last Songs, Linda and Michael Hutcheon explore this issue through close looks at those who created some of the world's most important and influential operas. Giuseppe Verdi (1813?1901), Richard Strauss (1864?1949), Olivier Messiaen (1908?92), and Benjamin Britten (1913?76) all wrote operas late in life, pieces that reveal radically individual responses to the challenges of growing older. Verdi's Falstaff, his only comedic success, combated the influence of Richard Wagner by introducing young Italian composers to a new model of national music. Strauss, on the other hand, struggling with personal and political problems in Nazi Germany, composed the self-reflexive Capriccio, a ?life review” of opera and his own musical legacy. Though it exhausted him physically and emotionally, Messiaen finished at the age of seventy-five his first and only opera, Saint François d'Assise, which marked the religious and aesthetic pinnacle of his career. Britten, meanwhile, suffered from heart problems at the end of his career and raced against time, refusing to undergo surgery until he had completed his masterpiece, Death in Venice. For all four composers, age, far from sapping the power of creativity, provided impetus for some of their most impressive accomplishments. The diverse stories presented here provide unique insight into the attitudes and cultural discourse surrounding creativity, aging, and late style. With its deft treatment of these composers' final years and works, Four Last Songs provides a valuable look at the challenges?and opportunities?that present themselves as artists grow older.

Four Last Songs

Four Last Songs PDF Author: Linda Hutcheon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022625559X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book

Book Description
Aging and creativity can seem a particularly fraught relationship for artists, who often face age-related difficulties at a time when their audience's expectations of their talents are at a peak. In Four Last Songs, Linda and Michael Hutcheon explore this issue through close looks at those who created some of the world's most important and influential operas. Giuseppe Verdi (1813?1901), Richard Strauss (1864?1949), Olivier Messiaen (1908?92), and Benjamin Britten (1913?76) all wrote operas late in life, pieces that reveal radically individual responses to the challenges of growing older. Verdi's Falstaff, his only comedic success, combated the influence of Richard Wagner by introducing young Italian composers to a new model of national music. Strauss, on the other hand, struggling with personal and political problems in Nazi Germany, composed the self-reflexive Capriccio, a ?life review” of opera and his own musical legacy. Though it exhausted him physically and emotionally, Messiaen finished at the age of seventy-five his first and only opera, Saint François d'Assise, which marked the religious and aesthetic pinnacle of his career. Britten, meanwhile, suffered from heart problems at the end of his career and raced against time, refusing to undergo surgery until he had completed his masterpiece, Death in Venice. For all four composers, age, far from sapping the power of creativity, provided impetus for some of their most impressive accomplishments. The diverse stories presented here provide unique insight into the attitudes and cultural discourse surrounding creativity, aging, and late style. With its deft treatment of these composers' final years and works, Four Last Songs provides a valuable look at the challenges?and opportunities?that present themselves as artists grow older.

Four Last Songs

Four Last Songs PDF Author: Ralph Vaughan Williams
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Songs (Medium voice) with piano
Languages : en
Pages : 24

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Book Description


Richard Strauss and His World

Richard Strauss and His World PDF Author: Bryan Randolph Gilliam
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691027623
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Strongly influencing European musical life from the 1880s through the First World War and remaining highly productive into the 1940s, Richard Strauss enjoyed a remarkable career in a constantly changing artistic and political climate. This volume presents six original essays on Strauss's musical works--including tone poems, lieder, and operas--and brings together letters, memoirs, and criticism from various periods of the composer's life. Many of these materials appear in English for the first time. In the essays Leon Botstein contradicts the notion of the composer's stylistic "about face" after Elektra; Derrick Puffett reinforces the argument for Strauss's artistic consistency by tracing in the tone poems and operas the phenomenon of pitch specificity; James Hepokoski establishes Strauss as an early modernist in an examination of Macbeth; Michael Steinberg probes the composer's political sensibility as expressed in the 1930s through his music and use of such texts as Friedenstag and Daphne; Bryan Gilliam discusses the genesis of both the text and the music in the final scene of Daphne; Timothy Jackson in his thorough source study argues for a new addition to the so-called Four Last Songs. Among the correspondence are previously untranslated letters between Strauss and his post-Hofmannsthal librettist, Joseph Gregor. The memoirs range from early biographical sketches to Rudolf Hartmann's moving account of his last visit with Strauss shortly before the composer's death. Critical reviews include recently translated essays by Theodor Adorno, Guido Adler, Paul Bekker, and Julius Korngold [Publisher description].

Arias for Soprano, Volume 2

Arias for Soprano, Volume 2 PDF Author: Robert L. Larsen
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 1480319961
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
(Vocal Collection). The G. Schirmer Opera Anthology series revolutionized opera aria study after its release in 1991. There are so many wonderful soprano arias that a second volume was warranted. The music is predominantly for lyric soprano. As in the original volumes, these are new, clean editions, with historical and plot information about each of the 32 arias included.

Four Fish

Four Fish PDF Author: Paul Greenberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101442298
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
“A necessary book for anyone truly interested in what we take from the sea to eat, and how, and why.” —Sam Sifton, The New York Times Book Review Acclaimed author of American Catch and The Omega Princple and life-long fisherman, Paul Greenberg takes us on a journey, examining the four fish that dominate our menus: salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna. Investigating the forces that get fish to our dinner tables, Greenberg reveals our damaged relationship with the ocean and its inhabitants. Just three decades ago, nearly everything we ate from the sea was wild. Today, rampant overfishing and an unprecedented biotech revolution have brought us to a point where wild and farmed fish occupy equal parts of a complex marketplace. Four Fish offers a way for us to move toward a future in which healthy and sustainable seafood is the rule rather than the exception.

Song on Record: Volume 2

Song on Record: Volume 2 PDF Author: Alan Blyth
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521027984
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
Once again Alan Blyth has brought together a distinguished group of contributors to provide a valuable and informed discussion of interpretation. Indispensable for record collectors, it is also fascinating reading for all musicians and music lovers with an interest in song.

The First Four Notes

The First Four Notes PDF Author: Matthew Guerrieri
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0804170193
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
A TIME Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2012 A New Yorker Best Book of the Year Los Angeles Magazine's #1 Music Book of the Year This revelatory book of music history examines what is perhaps the best known and most-popular symphony ever written—and its famous four-note opening. Reaching back before Beethoven’s time, Matthew Guerrieri uncovers premonitions of the opening notes in the rhythms of ancient Greek poetry and the music of the French Revolution. He discusses the Fifth’s impact when it premiered, tracing the artistic, philosophical, and political reverberations across Europe to China, Russia, and the United States, from Romanticism to ring tones, from propaganda to pop. This fascinating piece of musical detective work is a treat for music lovers of every stripe.

The Last Five Years (The Applause Libretto Library)

The Last Five Years (The Applause Libretto Library) PDF Author:
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1476850585
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
John Willis' Screen World has become the definitive reference for any film library. Each volume includes every significant U.S. and international film released during that year as well as complete filmographies capsule plot summaries cast and characters credits production company month released rating and running time. You'll also find biographical entries ä a prices reference for over 2 000 living stars including real name school place and date of birth. A comprehensive index makes this the finest film publication that any film lover could own.

Life

Life PDF Author: Keith Richards
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 0316178721
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
The long-awaited autobiography of Keith Richards, guitarist, songwriter, singer, and founding member of the Rolling Stones. With The Rolling Stones, Keith Richards created the songs that roused the world, and he lived the original rock and roll life. Now, at last, the man himself tells his story of life in the crossfire hurricane. Listening obsessively to Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters records, learning guitar and forming a band with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones. The Rolling Stones's first fame and the notorious drug busts that led to his enduring image as an outlaw folk hero. Creating immortal riffs like the ones in "Jumping Jack Flash" and "Honky Tonk Women." His relationship with Anita Pallenberg and the death of Brian Jones. Tax exile in France, wildfire tours of the U.S., isolation and addiction. Falling in love with Patti Hansen. Estrangement from Jagger and subsequent reconciliation. Marriage, family, solo albums and Xpensive Winos, and the road that goes on forever. With his trademark disarming honesty, Keith Richard brings us the story of a life we have all longed to know more of, unfettered, fearless, and true.

50 from the Fifties - Rock 'n' Roll Guitar Songbook

50 from the Fifties - Rock 'n' Roll Guitar Songbook PDF Author: Jez Quayle
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781794798373
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description