Harrison Birtwistle's Operas and Music Theatre
eBook - PDF

Harrison Birtwistle's Operas and Music Theatre

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Harrison Birtwistle's Operas and Music Theatre

About this book

David Beard presents the first definitive survey of Harrison Birtwistle's music for the opera house and theatre, from his smaller-scale works, such as Down by the Greenwood Side and Bow Down, to the full-length operas, such as Punch and Judy, The Mask of Orpheus and Gawain. Blending source study with both music analysis and cultural criticism, the book focuses on the sometimes tense but always revealing relationship between abstract musical processes and the practical demands of narrative drama, while touching on theories of parody, narrative, pastoral, film, the body and community. Each stage work is considered in terms of its own specific musico-dramatic themes, revealing how compositional scheme and dramatic conception are intertwined from the earliest stages of a project's genesis. The study draws on a substantial body of previously undocumented primary sources and goes beyond previous studies of the composer's output to include works unveiled from 2000 onwards.

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Yes, you can access Harrison Birtwistle's Operas and Music Theatre by David Beard in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Media & Performing Arts & Opera Music. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Harrison Birtwistle’s Operas and Music Theatre
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. Plates
  8. Acknowledgements
  9. A note on the text
  10. 1 The roots of Birtwistle’s theatrical expression: from Pantomime to Down by the Greenwood Side
  11. 2 Punch and Judy: parody, allusion and the grotesque
  12. 3 The Mask of Orpheus : ‘lyrical formalism’, time and narrative
  13. 4 Yan Tan Tethera: pastoral labyrinths and the scene-agent ratio
  14. 5 The shadow of opera: dramatic narrative and musical discourse in Gawain
  15. 6 ‘A face likemusic’: shaping images into sound in The Second Mrs Kong
  16. 7 Corporeal music: Bow Down, The Io PassionThe Corridor
  17. 8 The Last Supper and TheMinotaur : eyes ‘half filled and half deserted’
  18. Bibliography
  19. Index