Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein

Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein PDF Author: Rebecca Schmid
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1648250602
Category : Musical theater
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book

Book Description
The first study to explore the crucial influence of Kurt Weill on operas and musicals by Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein. Theodor Adorno famously proclaimed that the model of Kurt Weill could not be repeated. Yet Weill's stage works set an inescapable precedent for composers on both sides of the Atlantic. Rebecca Schmid explores how Weill's formal innovations in particular laid the groundwork for operas and musicals by Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein, although both composers resisted or downplayed his aesthetic contribution to American tradition. Comparative analysis based on Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence and other modes of intertextuality reveals that the principles of Weill's opera reform would catalyze an indigenous movement in sophisticated, socially engaged music theatre. Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein: A Study of Influence focuses on works that represent different phases of Weill's mission to renew the genre of opera, evolving from Die Dreigroschenoper to the musical play Lady in the Dark and the Broadway Opera Street Scene. Blitzstein and Bernstein in turn defied formal boundaries with The Cradle Will Rock, Regina, Trouble in Tahiti, Candide, and West Side Story - part of a short-lived movement in mid-twentieth century America that coincided with a renaissance for Weill's German-period works following the premiere of Blitzstein's translation, The Threepenny Opera, under Bernstein's baton. The unpublished A Pray by Blecht, for which Bernstein rejoined Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins, his collaborators on West Side Story, deepens the connection of Bernstein's aesthetic to Weill.

Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein

Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein PDF Author: Rebecca Schmid
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1648250602
Category : Musical theater
Languages : en
Pages : 227

Get Book

Book Description
The first study to explore the crucial influence of Kurt Weill on operas and musicals by Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein. Theodor Adorno famously proclaimed that the model of Kurt Weill could not be repeated. Yet Weill's stage works set an inescapable precedent for composers on both sides of the Atlantic. Rebecca Schmid explores how Weill's formal innovations in particular laid the groundwork for operas and musicals by Marc Blitzstein and Leonard Bernstein, although both composers resisted or downplayed his aesthetic contribution to American tradition. Comparative analysis based on Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence and other modes of intertextuality reveals that the principles of Weill's opera reform would catalyze an indigenous movement in sophisticated, socially engaged music theatre. Weill, Blitzstein, and Bernstein: A Study of Influence focuses on works that represent different phases of Weill's mission to renew the genre of opera, evolving from Die Dreigroschenoper to the musical play Lady in the Dark and the Broadway Opera Street Scene. Blitzstein and Bernstein in turn defied formal boundaries with The Cradle Will Rock, Regina, Trouble in Tahiti, Candide, and West Side Story - part of a short-lived movement in mid-twentieth century America that coincided with a renaissance for Weill's German-period works following the premiere of Blitzstein's translation, The Threepenny Opera, under Bernstein's baton. The unpublished A Pray by Blecht, for which Bernstein rejoined Stephen Sondheim and Jerome Robbins, his collaborators on West Side Story, deepens the connection of Bernstein's aesthetic to Weill.

The Cradle Will Rock

The Cradle Will Rock PDF Author: Marc Blitzstein
Publisher: Hassell Street Press
ISBN: 9781013783937
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 158

Get Book

Book Description
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Mark the Music

Mark the Music PDF Author: Eric A. Gordon
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595092489
Category : Composers
Languages : en
Pages : 646

Get Book

Book Description
The recently released Tim Robbins film Cradle Will Rock reawakened worldwide audiences to composer Marc Blitzstein's runaway Broadway hit of 1937, and to the exciting times he lived in. Blitzstein went on to write Regina (based on Lillian Hellman's "The Little Foxes"), the definitive translation of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Opera, and an enormous amount of other music based squarely in American and Broadway traditions. Mark the Music is an engaging biography of this larger-than-life composer that reads like a novel. Practically every page features an illuminating and revealing pen portrait of the most important creative personalities in American culture—Orson Welles, John Houseman, Ernest Hemingway, Paul Robeson, Sean O'Casey, Agnes de Mille, Lotte Lenya, Melvyn Douglas, Shirley Both, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Earl Robinson, Rudolf Bing, and many more. A vibrant journey through mid-20th century America comes to life through the eyes and experience of Marc Blitzstein. The issues that marked Blitzstein's day—censorship, repression, war—are all with us today. This is a story of passion, defiance, glory and tragedy, and ultimately of faith in democratic American values expressed through the arts.

Marc Blitzstein

Marc Blitzstein PDF Author: Howard Pollack
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199977089
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 648

Get Book

Book Description
A composer and lyricist of enormous innovation and influence, Marc Blitzstein remains one of the most versatile and fascinating figures in the history of American music, his creative output running the gamut from films scores and Broadway operas to art songs and chamber pieces. A prominent leftist and social maverick, Blitzstein constantly pushed the boundaries of convention in mid-century America in both his work and his life. Award-winning music historian Howard Pollack's new biography covers Blitzstein's life in full, from his childhood in Philadelphia to his violent death in Martinique at age 58. The author describes how this student of contemporary luminaries Nadia Boulanger and Arnold Schoenberg became swept up in the stormy political atmosphere of the 1920s and 1930s and throughout his career walked the fine line between his formal training and his populist principles. Indeed, Blitzstein developed a unique sound that drew on everything contemporary, from the high modernism of Stravinsky and Hindemith to jazz and Broadway show tunes. Pollack captures the astonishing breadth of Blitzstein's work--from provocative operas like The Cradle Will Rock, No for an Answer, and Regina, to the wartime Airborne Symphony composed during his years in service, to lesser known ballets, film scores, and stage works. A courageous artist, Blitzstein translated Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera during the heyday of McCarthyism and the red scare, and turned it into an off-Broadway sensation, its "Mack the Knife" becoming one of the era's biggest hits. Beautifully written, drawing on new interviews with friends and family of the composer, and making extensive use of new archival and secondary sources, Marc Blitzstein presents the most complete biography of this important American artist.

Marc Blitzstein

Marc Blitzstein PDF Author: Howard Pollack
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199791597
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 649

Get Book

Book Description
Award-winning music historian Howard Pollack's new biography of Marc Blitzstein deftly captures the fascinating life and career of an American composer who was openly gay and Marxist at a time when neither was acceptable to the American public. The first biographer to deal with Blitzstein's music as well as his life, Pollack delves deeply into the Blitzstein's life, uncovering new details about his marriage to novelist Eva Goldbeck and his compositional process. Beautifully written and meticulously researched, this book is a must-have for any fan of Broadway or American music.

Leonard Bernstein in Context

Leonard Bernstein in Context PDF Author: Elizabeth A. Wells
Publisher:
ISBN: 1108835708
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 381

Get Book

Book Description
A wide-ranging introduction to one of the twentieth century's most famous cultural icons: pianist, conductor, composer and educator Leonard Bernstein.

Writing to Louis Andriessen

Writing to Louis Andriessen PDF Author: Rose Dodd
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789462263079
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book

Book Description
Louis Andriessen is the Netherlands? foremost composer of contemporary music. 'Writing to Louis Andriessen: Commentaries on life in music' surveys significant works from Andriessen?s career. The book will be substantial in its commentary on the span of his work, with contributors from the UK, the Netherlands and the US contextualising his music from a European critical perspective, linking outwards to American minimalism, so too surveying his international importance. It will be in the English language.0Louis Andriessen has exerted influence not only as a teacher at the Koninklijk Conservatorium, Den Haag but also internationally in the expanse of works presented. Celebrating his eightieth birthday in 2019, former students, now also significant voices internationally, and contemporaries join together to write to Louis Andriessen in a book of critical reflection and celebration. Amongst those writing will be Donnacha Dennehy, Rose Dodd, David Dramm, Anthony Fiumara, Ron Ford, Christopher Fox, Liz Haddon, Yannis Kyriakides, Jan Nieuwenhuis, Ian Pace, Martijn Padding, Johanneke van Slooten and Julia Wolfe.0Designed by Joost Grootens, the visual presentation within the book will comprise letters from Andriessen?s personal correspondence with the iconic American mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian, music materials and programme booklets, musical score excerpts and archive photos, all in lush presentation.

Historical Dictionary of Leonard Bernstein

Historical Dictionary of Leonard Bernstein PDF Author: Paul R. Laird
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538113457
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book

Book Description
Historical Dictionary of Leonard Bernstein contains a chronology, an introduction, an appendix, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries encompassing people whom he befriended or worked with, institutions, orchestras, performance venues, cities, compositional methods, and compositions.

A Practical Guide to Choral Conducting

A Practical Guide to Choral Conducting PDF Author: Harold Rosenbaum
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 135167367X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 266

Get Book

Book Description
Rooted in the experience of a professional choral conductor, this book provides a guide to practical issues facing conductors of choral ensembles at all levels, from youth choruses to university ensembles, church and community choirs, and professional vocal groups. Paired with the discussion of practical challenges is a discussion of over fifty key works from the choral literature, with performance suggestions to aid the choral conductor in directing each piece. Dealing with often-overlooked yet vital considerations such as how to work with composers, recording, concert halls, and choral tours, A Practical Guide to Choral Conducting offers a valuable resource for both emerging choral conductors and students of choral conducting at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Dinner with Lenny

Dinner with Lenny PDF Author: Jonathan Cott
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199858446
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 192

Get Book

Book Description
Features a complete account of the author's twelve-hour interview with Bernstein one year before the classical music personality's death in 1990.