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Offers a major new contribution to understanding Schubert's creative approach and the gothic imagination more generally.
This book illuminates Franz Schubert's engagement with gothic discourse at the intersection of music, literature and the visual arts. Ideas of the gothic provide a framework for contextualizing the myriad ways in which Schubert's music evokes the blurring of past and present, life and death, and for situating strangeness in relation to a cross-disciplinary phenomenon that captivated the imagination of the time.
The study traces the gothic from Schubert's early songs, where its presence is well established, to the instrumental music of his final years. These dialogues speak to shifting associations across chronological boundaries; their traces undergo change, returning in altered contexts - from fleeting disturbances, a rhythmic shudder or a tremolo figuration, to prolonged outbursts and disjuncture. The gothic is at times linked explicitly to death, as in Schubert's graveyard settings, and at other times implied through doubles and distortion, nocturnal imagery, or hybridity and metamorphosis.
The Gothic Imagination in the Music of Franz Schubert offers new interpretations, grounded in close reading of musical and poetic material, that move beyond the ghostly and macabre towards a world wherein death, the sublime and grotesquerie are intricately entwined. The book therefore provides for a major new contribution to understanding Schubert's creative approach and the gothic imagination more generally.
This book illuminates Franz Schubert's engagement with gothic discourse at the intersection of music, literature and the visual arts. Ideas of the gothic provide a framework for contextualizing the myriad ways in which Schubert's music evokes the blurring of past and present, life and death, and for situating strangeness in relation to a cross-disciplinary phenomenon that captivated the imagination of the time.
The study traces the gothic from Schubert's early songs, where its presence is well established, to the instrumental music of his final years. These dialogues speak to shifting associations across chronological boundaries; their traces undergo change, returning in altered contexts - from fleeting disturbances, a rhythmic shudder or a tremolo figuration, to prolonged outbursts and disjuncture. The gothic is at times linked explicitly to death, as in Schubert's graveyard settings, and at other times implied through doubles and distortion, nocturnal imagery, or hybridity and metamorphosis.
The Gothic Imagination in the Music of Franz Schubert offers new interpretations, grounded in close reading of musical and poetic material, that move beyond the ghostly and macabre towards a world wherein death, the sublime and grotesquerie are intricately entwined. The book therefore provides for a major new contribution to understanding Schubert's creative approach and the gothic imagination more generally.
Price: $120.00
Pages: 196
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Inc.
Imprint: Boydell Press
Publication Date:
12 March 2024
Trim Size: 9.21 X 6.14 in
ISBN: 9781837651627
Format: Hardcover
BISACs:
MUSIC / History & Criticism, Music, MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Classical, PHILOSOPHY / Aesthetics, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / German, Composers and songwriters, Art music, orchestral and formal music
It is a masterclass in Schubert's affinity for this cultural movement, an awareness of which could benefit many a musician's interpretations.
— BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
This study represents an invaluable guide to understanding [the gothic] world [of Schubert's music].
— THE SCHUBERTIAN
Davies treats the gothic as a congeries of unsettling sights, sounds and sensations, which form something greater and more profound than the sum of its parts. [...] The idea bears fruit across four analytical chapters that draw liberally on Schubert's vocal and instrumental music and that dart back and forth along the timeline of his compositional output. The gothic, Davies shows, lurks in all these quarters.
— NINETEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC REVIEW
Overall, Joe Davies's analysis is consistently stimulating, and it deconstructs some aspects of the current discourse on lateness, while leaving fertile ground for further inquiry. The book stands as a valuable contribution to the hermeneutics of Schubert's music and will undoubtedly draw a broad readership into the fascinating intersection of gothic and Romantic sensibilities in Schubert's oeuvre, offering insights of interest to both scholars and performers.
— MUSIC AND LETTERS
— BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
This study represents an invaluable guide to understanding [the gothic] world [of Schubert's music].
— THE SCHUBERTIAN
Davies treats the gothic as a congeries of unsettling sights, sounds and sensations, which form something greater and more profound than the sum of its parts. [...] The idea bears fruit across four analytical chapters that draw liberally on Schubert's vocal and instrumental music and that dart back and forth along the timeline of his compositional output. The gothic, Davies shows, lurks in all these quarters.
— NINETEENTH-CENTURY MUSIC REVIEW
Overall, Joe Davies's analysis is consistently stimulating, and it deconstructs some aspects of the current discourse on lateness, while leaving fertile ground for further inquiry. The book stands as a valuable contribution to the hermeneutics of Schubert's music and will undoubtedly draw a broad readership into the fascinating intersection of gothic and Romantic sensibilities in Schubert's oeuvre, offering insights of interest to both scholars and performers.
— MUSIC AND LETTERS
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Nina Scolnik
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Schubert and the Gothic
1 Songs of the Grave
2 Doubles and Distortions
3 Songs of the Night
4 Grotesquerie
Epilogue
Select Bibliography
Foreword
Nina Scolnik
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Schubert and the Gothic
1 Songs of the Grave
2 Doubles and Distortions
3 Songs of the Night
4 Grotesquerie
Epilogue
Select Bibliography