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About This Book
Since the 1840s, critics have lambasted Wagner for lacking the ability to compose melody. But for him, melody was fundamental - 'music's only form'. This incongruity testifies to the surprising difficulties during the nineteenth century of conceptualizing melody. Despite its indispensable place in opera, contemporary theorists were unable even to agree on a definition for it. In Wagner's Melodies, David Trippett re-examines Wagner's central aesthetic claims, placing the composer's ideas about melody in the context of the scientific discourse of his age: from the emergence of the natural sciences and historical linguistics to sources about music's stimulation of the body and inventions for 'automatic' composition. Interweaving a rich variety of material from the history of science, music theory, music criticism, private correspondence and court reports, Trippett uncovers a new and controversial discourse that placed melody at the apex of artistic self-consciousness and generated problems of urgent dimensions for German music aesthetics.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- A note on presentation
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 German melody
- 2 Melodielehre?
- 3 Wagner in the melodic workshop
- Excursus: Belliniâs Sinnlichkeit and Wagnerâs Italy
- 4 Hearing voices: Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient and the Lohengrin ârecitativesâ
- 5 Vowels, voices, and âoriginal truthâ
- 6 Wagnerâs material expression
- Epilogue: Turning off the lights
- Appendix A: Books on language in Wagnerâs Dresden library
- Appendix B: Books on language in Wagnerâs Wahnfried library
- Select bibliography
- Index