Britten's Musical Language [Paperback]

Examines Britten's fusion of verbal and musical sound in opera and song.Britten's music enjoys popular success and high critical regard in equal measure and his works communicate at a number of different levels. Through its recognisable sense of key, the music retains an audible link with earlier traditions; and yet there is always something more subversive in his music. It is this elusive quality that gives the music its expressive 'edge'. This book provides an analytic account of Britten's musical language focussing on the provisional and evanescent nature of tonality in his music.Britten's music enjoys popular success and high critical regard in equal measure and his works communicate at a number of different levels. Through its recognisable sense of key, the music retains an audible link with earlier traditions; and yet there is always something more subversive in his music. It is this elusive quality that gives the music its expressive 'edge'. This book provides an analytic account of Britten's musical language focussing on the provisional and evanescent nature of tonality in his music.Blending insights from linguistic and social theories of speech, ritual and narrative with music-analytic and historical criticism,Britten's Musical Language offers fresh perspectives on the composer's fusion of verbal and musical utterance in opera and song. It provides close interpretative studies of the major scores (including Peter Grimes, Billy Budd, The Turn of the Screw, War Requiem, Curlew River and Death in Venice) and explores Britten's ability to fashion complex and mysterious symbolic dramas from the interplay of texted song and wordless discourse of motives and themes.Acknowledgments; 1. Introduction: Britten's musical language; 2. Peter Grimes: the force of operatic utterance; 3. Motive and narrative in Billy Budd; 4. The Turn of the Screw: innocent performance; 5. Rituals: the War Requiem and Curlew River; 6. Subjectivity and perception in Death in Venice; NoteslCé