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| Publications [#15588] of Elizabeth Paley
Books
- E. Paley. Dungeons, Demons, and Dreams: Music and the Supernatural in German Melodrama. . (In progress; chapter outline above)
(last updated on 2003/12/12)
Abstract:
Melodrama, the combination of spoken declamation and
instrumental accompaniment, captivated composers and
audiences alike in 19th-century Germany, yet audiences
today are largely unfamiliar with this once popular and
influential compositional technique. Dramatic scenes that
motivated melodramas provided sites for radical experiments
in chromaticism, instrumentation, and fragmentary forms,
and often stretched the musical imagination in surprising
ways. Through detailed musical and textual analyses of
melodrama in Benda's Medea (1775), Weber's Der Freischütz
(1821), Beethoven's Fidelio (1804-05) and Egmont (1809-10),
Schumann's Manfred (1848), Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire
(1912), and Knieper's soundtrack to Wim Wenders' film
Himmel über Berlin (1987), Dungeons, Demons, and Dreams
considers questions of narrative voice, compositional
authority, performance practice, and critical reception to
give melodrama its much deserved due.
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