Britten's Musical Language

by Philip Rupprecht

• ISBN13: 9780521031035
• ISBN10: 0521031036
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-11-23
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Blending insights from linguistic and social theories of speech, ritual and narrative with music-analytic and historical criticism, Britten's Musical Language offers interesting perspectives on the composer's fusion of verbal and musical utterance in opera and song. It provides close interpretative studies of the major scores (including Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, War Requiem, Curlew River and Death in Venice) and explores Britten's ability to fashion complex and mysterious symbolic dramas from the interplay of texted song and a wordless discourse of motives and themes. Focusing on the performative and social basis of language, Philip Rupprecht replaces traditional notions of textual 'expression' in opera with the interpretation of topics such as the role of naming and hate speech in Peter Grimes; the disturbance of ritual certainty in the War Requiem; and the codes by which childish 'innocence' is enacted in The Turn of the Screw.

Table of Contents

Britten's Musical Language	p. i
Music in the Twentieth Century	p. ii
Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: Britten's Musical Language	p. 1
Peter Grimes: the Force of Operatic Utterance	p. 32
Motive and Narrative in Billy Budd	p. 75
The Turn Ofthe Screw: Innocent Performance	p. 138
Rituals: the War Requiem and Curlew River	p. 187
Subjectivity and Perception in Death in Venice	p. 245
Notes	p. 297
Bibliography	p. 337
Index	p. 352
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.