Olivier Messiaen's Opera, Saint Francois d'Assise

Olivier Messiaen's Opera, Saint Francois d'Assise PDF Author: Vincent Perez Benitez
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253042909
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
In this comprehensive study of Olivier Messiaen's magnum opus, Saint François d'Assise, Vincent Perez Benitez examines the opera from both theological and musical-analytical perspectives to ask how Messiaen expresses his Catholic theology through his work. Benitez combines a close reading of the opera score with accounts from Messiaen's associates, studies of Messiaen's birdsong notebooks and other primary documents, and an examination of the religious, musical, poetic, and visual arts literature with which the composer was familiar to explore how the opera's harmonic language and sound-color relationships motivate its musical meaning and expression. Through his analysis of these diverse sources and comparisons of Saint François d'Assise with other works such as Berg's Wozzeck and Wagner's Parsifal, Benitez places Messiaen's compositional practice within larger musical perspectives and historical contexts.

Olivier Messiaen's Opera, Saint Francois d'Assise

Olivier Messiaen's Opera, Saint Francois d'Assise PDF Author: Vincent Perez Benitez
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253042909
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
In this comprehensive study of Olivier Messiaen's magnum opus, Saint François d'Assise, Vincent Perez Benitez examines the opera from both theological and musical-analytical perspectives to ask how Messiaen expresses his Catholic theology through his work. Benitez combines a close reading of the opera score with accounts from Messiaen's associates, studies of Messiaen's birdsong notebooks and other primary documents, and an examination of the religious, musical, poetic, and visual arts literature with which the composer was familiar to explore how the opera's harmonic language and sound-color relationships motivate its musical meaning and expression. Through his analysis of these diverse sources and comparisons of Saint François d'Assise with other works such as Berg's Wozzeck and Wagner's Parsifal, Benitez places Messiaen's compositional practice within larger musical perspectives and historical contexts.

Olivier Messiaen's Opera, Saint Francois d'Assise

Olivier Messiaen's Opera, Saint Francois d'Assise PDF Author: Vincent Perez Benitez
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253042895
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
In this comprehensive study of Olivier Messiaen’s magnum opus, Saint François d’Assise, Vincent Perez Benitez examines the opera from both theological and musical-analytical perspectives to ask how Messiaen expresses his Catholic theology through his work. Benitez combines a close reading of the opera score with accounts from Messiaen’s associates, studies of Messiaen’s birdsong notebooks and other primary documents, and an examination of the religious, musical, poetic, and visual arts literature with which the composer was familiar to explore how the opera’s harmonic language and sound-color relationships motivate its musical meaning and expression. Through his analysis of these diverse sources and comparisons of Saint François d’Assise with other works such as Berg’s Wozzeck and Wagner’s Parsifal, Benitez places Messiaen’s compositional practice within larger musical perspectives and historical contexts.

Messiaen the Theologian

Messiaen the Theologian PDF Author: Andrew Shenton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351558463
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
For Olivier Messiaen, music was a way of expressing his faith. He considered it his good fortune to have been born a Catholic and declared that 'the illumination of the theological truths of the Catholic faith is the first aspect of my work, the noblest and no doubt the most useful'. Messiaen is one of the most widely performed and recorded composers of the twentieth-century and his popularity is increasing, but the theological component of his music has so far largely been neglected, or dealt with superficially, and continues to provide a serious impediment to understanding and appreciating his music for some of his audience. Messiaen the Theologian makes a significant contribution to Messiaen studies by providing cultural and historical context to Messiaen's theology. An international array of Messiaen scholars cover a wide variety of topics including Messiaen's personal spirituality, the context of Catholicism in France in the twentieth century, and comparisons between Messiaen and other artists such as Dante and T.S. Eliot. Interdisciplinary methodologies such as exegesis, theological studies and analysis are used to contribute to the understanding of several major works includinglairs sur l'au-del., Sept Ha nd Saint Fran‘s d'Assise. By approaching Messiaen and his music from such important and original perspectives, this book will be of interest not only to musicians and theologians, but also to readers interested in the connection between spirituality and the arts.

Messiaen's Interpretations of Holiness and Trinity

Messiaen's Interpretations of Holiness and Trinity PDF Author: Siglind Bruhn
Publisher: Siglind Bruhn
ISBN: 157647139X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
Three of Olivier Messiaen's later works, La Transfiguration de Notre-Seigneur Jésus-Christ, Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité, and Saint François d'Assise, are linked by the fact that the composer refers to and quotes from Thomas Aquinas. The composer's reception of Thomistic texts is one of the principles guiding the interpretations in this study. On the one hand, Messiaen had been pondering Thomas's thoughts on the role of music in the life of a Christian and on music's possible spiritual content all through his professional life; on the other hand, the oratorio, the organ meditations, and the opera are the only works in which Messiaen quotes extensive Thomistic sentences addressing purely theological subject matter. The first aspect, Messiaen's appropriation of or felicitous congruence with the medieval theologian's views on music underlies all analyses as a kind of background fabric. The second aspect, Messiaen's quotations from the Summa theologica and their musical translation, determines segments of a larger discussion that, in the book's three main chapters, attempts to do justice to the compositions as a whole. While Thomas' theological aesthetics appears as a thread woven through a texture in a way that brings it only periodically to the foreground, the statements from Thomas's writings provide essential foundations determining the works' content and its musical rendering. This book is part of Siglind Bruhn's Messiaen Trilogy.

Messiaen Studies

Messiaen Studies PDF Author: Robert Sholl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521174534
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The French composer Olivier Messiaen is one of the major figures of twentieth-century music. This collection of scholarly essays offers new cultural, historical, biographical and analytical perspectives on Messiaen's musical oeuvre from 1941 to 1992. The volume includes: a fascinating snapshot of Messiaen's life in occupied France; a study of the Surrealist poetics of Messiaen's song cycle Harawi; a chapter on Messiaen's iconoclastic path to the avant-garde heritage that he bequeathed to his pupils; discussion on Messiaen's place in twentieth-century music; and detailed analysis of specific works, including his opera St François d'Assise. The chapters provide fresh insights on the origins, style and poetics of Messiaen's music, and therefore provide an inspiration and foundation for future scholarship. Reflecting and expanding upon the broad range of Messiaen's own interdisciplinary interests, the book will be of interest to students and scholars of music, art, literature and theology.

Olivier Messiaen

Olivier Messiaen PDF Author: Vincent Benitez
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135871310
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Olivier Messiaen: A Research and Information Guide is a unique bibliographical resource that presents the reader with the most significant and helpful resources on Olivier Messiaen, one of the twentieth century's greatest composers, published between 1930 and 2007. An introductory chapter offers a short biography of Messiaen, a consideration of his musical style and works, and a discussion of Messiaen studies. Chapters 2 and 3 concentrate on the primary literature, organized around manuscript collections, articles and reviews, pedagogical works, lectures and librettos, prefaces, interviews, correspondence, and documentaries and filmed performances. Chapters 4 through 9 focus on the secondary literature, namely, biographical and stylistic studies, topical examinations, discussions of particular works, accounts of Messiaen in works devoted to other topics, reviews of books and significant performances of Messiaen's music, and examinations of source materials on the Internet. A list of works and a selected discography conclude the book.

Sacred Views of Saint Francis

Sacred Views of Saint Francis PDF Author: Cynthia O. Ho
Publisher: punctum books
ISBN: 1950192776
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
Overlooking Lago di Orta in the foothills of the Northern Italian Alps, the Renaissance-era Sacro Monte di Orta (a UNESCO World Heritage site) is spectacle and hagiography, theme park and treatise. Sacro Monte di Orta is a sacred mountain complex that extolls the life of St. Francis of Assisi through fresco, statuary, and built environment. Descending from the vision of the 16th-century Archbishop Carlo Borromeo, the design and execution of the chapels express the Catholic Church's desire to define, or, perhaps redefine itself for a transforming Christian diaspora. And in the struggle to provide a spiritual and geographical front against the spread of Protestantism into the Italian peninsula, the Catholic Church mustered the most powerful weapon it had: the widely popular native Italian saint, Francis of Assisi.Sacred Views of Saint Francis: The Sacro Monte di Orta examines this important pilgrimage site where Francis is embraced as a ne plus ultra saint. The book delves into a pivotal moment in the life of the Catholic Church as revealed through the artistic program of the Sacro Monte's twenty-one chapels, providing a nuanced understanding of the role the site played in the Counter-Reformation.The Sacro Monte di Orta was, in its way, a new hagiographical text vital to post-Tridentine Italy. Sacred Views provides research and analysis of this popular, yet critically neglected Franciscan devotional site. Sacred Views is the first significant scholarly work on the Sacro Monte di Orta in English and one of the very few full-length treatments in any language. It includes a catalogue of artists, over one hundred photographs, maps, short essays on each chapel, and longer essays that examine some of the most significant chapels in greater detail.

Modernism and Opera

Modernism and Opera PDF Author: Richard Begam
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421420627
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 391

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Book Description
A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- X -- Y -- Z

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.

Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'oiseaux

Olivier Messiaen's Catalogue D'oiseaux PDF Author: Roderick Chadwick
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107000319
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
This book charts Messiaen's transformation of birdsong into music and its development into a major work of the twentieth century.