Encrypted Messages in Alban Berg's Music

by Siglind Bruhn (Editor)

Overview

The 12 new essays in this volume explore the relationship between text and music in Alban Berg's works. The book examines the biographical issues that made such expressive choices attractive to the composer, and explores ways in which works not involving explicit verbal texts create signification, allusion, and reference.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780815324805
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	02/01/1998
Series:	Border Crossings , #1
Pages:	324
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Introduction, Siglind Bruhn * On Messages and Codes, Shared and Private Balzacian Mysticism, Palindromic Design, and Heavenly Tim in Berg's Music, John Covach * Alban Berg and the History of the Commentary, Wolfgang Gratzer * Encoding in Berg's Instrumental Compositions * More on Secret Programs in Berg's Instrumental Music, Gottfried Scholz * Berg's Kammerkonzert and Franz Werfel's Spiegelmensch: Mirror Images in Music and Literature, David Schroeder * Two Reigen: Berg, Schnitzler, and Cyclic Form, Robert Falck * Sleep and the Inner Journey: Berg's Song Cycles * The Representation of Sleep and Death in Berg's Piano Songs, op. 2, Magnar Breivik * The Other Altenberg Song Cycle: A Document of Viennese Fin-de-Si cle Aeshetics, Christoph Khittl * Symbolism and Self-Quotation in Berg's Picture Postcard Songs, Siglind Bruhn * Singing the Aphoristic Text: Berg's Altenberg-Lieder, Arved Ashby * Subtext and Subliminal Characteriziation in Berg's Operas * Tonality and Unreality in Berg's Wozzeck, Erika Reiman * The Death Leitmotif in Wozzeck and Lulu, Mark DeVoto * Femme Fatale and Lesbian Representation in alban Berg's Lulu, Karen Pegly * A Jungian Analysis of Berg's Alwa, Heather Platt

Editorial Reviews

Begins a series on the interaction, and frequent clashing, between different art forms within the Modernist school. A dozen original essays explore hidden messages in the work of Viennese composer Berg (1885-1035). They look at biographical factors shaping his choices; how his instrumental works create signification and allusion referring both to people and literary works; how the musical language of his song cycles interprets a given text, comments on it, and sometimes expands on it; and how musical speech contributes to or heightens characterization in his two operas. No index. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

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