Musical symbolism in the operas of Debussy and Bartok : trauma, gender, and the unfolding of the unconscious / Elliott Antokoletz with the collaboration of Juana Canabal Antokoletz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Antokoletz, Elliott.

Contributor:

Antokoletz, Juana Canabal.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Debussy, Claude, 1862-1918. Pelléas et Mélisande.

Debussy, Claude.

Bartók, Béla, 1881-1945. Kékszakállú herceg vára.

Bartók, Béla.

Symbolism in music.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 346 p. ) ill.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Musical Symbolism in the Operas of Debussy and BartOk explores the means by which two early 20th century operas - Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande^R (1902) and BartOk's Duke Bluebeard's Castle (1911) - transformed the harmonic structures of the traditional major/minor scale system into a new musical language. It also looks at how this language reflects the psychodramatic symbolism of the Franco-Belgian poet, Maurice Maeterlinck, and his Hungarian disciple, Bela Balazs. These two operas represent the first significant attempts to establish more profound correspondences between the symbolist dramatic conception and the new musical language. Duke Bluebeard's Castle is based almost exclusively on interactions between pentatonic/diatonic folk modalities and their more abstract symmetrical transformations (including whole-tone, octatonic, and other pitch constructions derived from the system of the interval cycles). The opposition of these two harmonic extremes serve as the basis for dramatic polarity between the characters as real-life beings and as instruments of fate. The book also explores the new musico-dramatic relations within their larger historical, social psychological, philosophical, and aesthetic contexts.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

1. Backgrounds and Development: The New Musical Language and Its Correspondence with Psycho-Dramatic Principles of Symbolist Opera

2. The New Musical Language

3. Trauma, Gender, and the Unfolding of the Unconscious

4. Pelléas et Mélisande: Polarity of Characterizations: Human Beings as Real-Life Individuals and Instruments of Fate

5. Pelléas et Mélisande: Fate and the Unconscious: Transformational Function of the Dominant Ninth Chord

Symbolism of Sonority

6. Pelléas et Mélisande: Musico-Dramatic Turning Point: Intervallic Expansion as Symbol of Dramatic Tension and Change of Mood

7. Pelléas et Mélisande: Mélisande as Christ Symbol-Life, Death, and Resurrection-and Motivic Reinterpretations of the Whole-Tone Dyad

8. Pelléas et Mélisande: Circuity of Fate and Resolution of Mélisande's Dissonant Pentatonic-Whole-Tone Conflict

9. Duke Bluebeard's Castle: Psychological Motivation: Symbolic Interaction of Diatonic, Whole-Tone, and Chromatic Extremes

10. Duke Bluebeard's Castle: Toward Character Reversal: Reassignment of Pentatonic and Whole-Tone Spheres

11. Duke Bluebeard's Castle: The Nietzschean Condition and Polarity of Characterizations: Diatonic-Chromatic Extremes

12. Duke Bluebeard's Castle: Final Transformation and Retreat into Eternal Darkness: Synthesis of Pentatonic/Diatonic and Whole-Tone Spheres

13. Symbolism and Expressionism in Other Early Twentieth-Century Operas

Epilogue

Notes

Works Cited

Index

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Y

Z.

Notes:

Originally published: 2004.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-340) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-280-45250-1

9786610452507

0-19-535595-4

1-4237-2631-6

1-60256-109-5

OCLC:

640069775