Documents found
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1271.More information
With Maurice Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande, Claude Debussy encountered a play that, in many respects, aligned with his expectations as expressed during his composition training. However, beyond his only completed opera, it was finding or conceiving of a new libretto that proved more challenging than anticipated. In fact, Debussy's creative process included an “imaginary theater”, populated by dozens of musical dramas that existed only in his dreams, never to be fully composed or realized. This article aims to explore the remnants of Debussy's work as a librettist, with a particular focus on the sources of The Devil in the Belfry and The Fall of the House of Usher, based on Edgar Allan Poe's works. This study draws upon methods of genetic criticism to unravel, through the successive transformations of the librettos, the specific artistic needs that drove Debussy to shape a form that seamlessly integrated literary, dramatic, and musical elements.
Keywords: Claude Debussy, critique génétique, livret, librettologie, Edgar Allan Poe, Claude Debussy, genetic criticism, libretto, librettology, Edgar Allan Poe
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1272.More information
The “songe” (dream) is an element found in several musical dramatic works in the late 17th century. Yet, its function and staging are subject to different factors. The study corpus for this research is constituted of Renaud's dreams in the Armide (Jean-Baptiste Lully, 1686), those of Atys (in the Lullian work of the same name, 1689) and those of Ulysses in Circe (Henri Desmarets, 1694).
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1275.More information
Guillaume Couture (1851-1915) is an important figure in the musical history of Quebec. The author analyzes this complex personality and his actions in the socio-cultural context of late nineteenth-century Quebec in an attempt to answer the question raised by Arthur Laurendeau in 1950 concerning the difficulty of evaluating the role of this musician.
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1276.
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1278.
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1279.More information
In this article, Bozzini Quartet violinist Clemens Merkel discusses the characteristics of the quintessential, unique musical form that has existed for 250 years: the string quartet. It is immutable (always the same four instruments, never more) and democratic, in stark contrast to other traditional ensembles like the symphony orchestra, with its strongly hierarchical, socially outmoded structure. After surveying the symbolism of the number four, Merkel undertakes a brief history, including the grand master of the form, Beethoven, and the great innovators of the 20th century. After the explosive transgressions of Kagel and Crumb, Merkel feels that the form remains strong and healthy, and he concludes with a discussion of the form's chances of surviving the next 250 years.
Keywords: formation musicale, genre musical, histoire, sociologie, quatuor à cordes, instrumentation, musical genre, history, sociology, string quartet