Rounding Wagner's mountain : Richard Strauss and modern German opera / Bryan Gilliam.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gilliam, Bryan Randolph, author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in opera.

Cambridge studies in opera

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Strauss, Richard, 1864-1949. Operas.

Strauss, Richard.

Strauss, Richard, 1864-1949--Criticism and interpretation.

Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883--Influence.

Wagner, Richard.

Operas--Analysis, appreciation.

Operas.

Opera--Germany--19th century.

Opera.

Opera--Germany--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 340 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Richard Strauss' fifteen operas, which span the years 1893 to 1941, make up the largest German operatic legacy since Wagner's operas of the nineteenth century. Many of Strauss's works were based on texts by Europe's finest writers: Oscar Wilde, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Stefan Zweig, among others, and they also overlap some of the most important and tumultuous stretches of German history, such as the founding and demise of a German empire, the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic, the period of National Socialism, and the post-war years, which saw a divided East and West Germany. In the first book to discuss all Strauss's operas, Bryan Gilliam sets each work in its historical, aesthetic, philosophical, and literary context to reveal what made the composer's legacy unique. Addressing Wagner's cultural influence upon this legacy, Gilliam also offers new insights into the thematic and harmonic features that recur in Strauss's compositions.

Contents:

Guntram and the crisis of German musical metaphysics

Elan vital : Feuersnot, Salome, and radical individualism

The way to the social : Elektra and Der Rosenkavalier

Intermezzo : Ariadne and her transformations

The marriage operas : Die Frau ohne Schatten, Intermezzo, and Die ägyptische Helena

Composing without Hofmannsthal : Arabella and Die schweigsame Frau

The politics of peace : Friedenstag and Daphne

Opera in time of war : Die liebe der Danae and Capricci.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-108-46478-5

1-316-12097-X

1-316-11985-8

1-316-13187-4

1-316-12969-1

1-316-12751-6

0-511-97969-X

1-316-13078-9

1-316-12860-1