Claude Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande / Roger Nichols and Richard Langham Smith.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nichols, Roger.

Contributor:

Smith, Richard Langham.

Series:

Cambridge opera handbooks

Cambridge opera handbooks.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

Debussy, Claude.

Physical Description:

viii, 209 pages : illustrations, music ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Summary:

This is the first comprehensive guide to Pelleas et Melisande, Debussy's only completed opera, written by three of the leading authorities on French music of the period.

As a background to the opera Richard Langham Smith discusses the play, by the Belgian playwright Maeterlinck, and considers its literary roots. David Grayson then traces the genesis and composition of the opera, examining also the sketches and rejected versions in order to illuminate Debussy's compositional strategies. A detailed synopsis by Roger Nichols, which considers carefully Debussy's musical response to the text, forms a central chapter. Following this, the book moves on to consider more detailed aspects of the style and language of the opera. The relationship between symbols and musical motives forms the basis of a chapter by Richard Langham Smith and his subsequent chapter considers the crucial themes of darkness and light and the key-schemes used to portray them.

Two chapters by Roger Nichols on the various performances since 1902 and on the ideas of interpreters and commentators complete the text. The book concludes with a detailed bibliography and a discography.

Contents:

1 The play and its playwright / Richard Langham Smith 1

2 The opera: genesis and sources / David A. Grayson 30

3 Synopsis / Roger Nichols 62

4 Motives and symbols / Richard Langham Smith 78

5 Tonalities of darkness and light / Richard Langham Smith 107

6 Pelleas in performance I - a history / Roger Nichols 140

7 Pelleas in performance II - ideals and enigmas / Roger Nichols 169.

Notes:

Includes index.

Bibliography: pages 198-203.

Discography: pages 204-205.

ISBN:

0521307147

0521314461

OCLC:

17981493