Review
"For its organization, scope, and rigorous theoretic-analytical scrutiny, the book is a landmark in multidisciplinary studies that surround the dramaturgical and musical concepts of these two Symbolist operas. It integrates insights from psychoanalysis, feminist studies, and post-tonal theory to enrich our understanding of dramatic meaning suggested by the musical symbolism. The book is remarkable for its in-depth musical approach to a variety of psychological, social, and historical issues, which the author has drawn into the aesthetic orbit of these pioneering operas."--George Perle
"This book provides new and essential technical methodology for approaching the compositional language of these operatic masterpieces. Of equal significance is the author's presentation of profound insights into their psychological issues rarely encountered in musicological literature. Not only will scholars and students acquire a deeper understanding of the radical changes in the traditional tonal language that occurred in the early twentieth century, but also the whole notion of symbolism and its reflection in both drama and its characterizations."--Benjamin Suchoff, University of California, Los Angeles
"In Musical Symbolism in the Operas of Debussy and Bartok, Elliott Antokoletz pushes our understanding of music drama to new depths as he, in collaboration with his wife, a psychologist, uses the insights of psychoanalysis to explore a close reading of character, gender relationships, and dramatic motion in music setting Maeterlinck's plays. Exploring the works as symbolic representations of trauma and related emotions, he shows how musical correspondences distinguish between the agency of humans and fate, the unfolding of internal and external processes. This unveils the modernism of these operas in original and provocative ways."--Jann Pasler, University of California, San Diego
Product Description
Two early twentieth-century operas -- Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande (1902) and Bartok's Duke Bluebeard's Castle (1911) -- transformed the traditional major/minor scale system into a new musical language. This new language was based almost exclusively on interactions between folk modalities and their more abstract symmetrical transformations. Elliott Antokoletz reveals not only the new musical language of these operas, but also the way in which they share a profound correspondence with the growing symbolist literary movement as reflected in their libretti. In the symbolist literary movement, authors reacted to the realism of nineteenth-century theatre by conveying meaning by suggestion, rather than direct statement. The symbolist conception included a new interest in psychological motivation and consciousness manifested itself in metaphor, ambiguity, and symbol.
In this groundbreaking study, Antokoletz links the new musical language of these two operas with this symbolist conception and reveals a direct connection between the Debussy and Bartok operas. He shows how the opposing harmonic extremes serve as a basis for the dramatic polarity between real-life beings and symbols of fate. He also explores how the libretti by Franco-Belgian poet Maurice Maeterlinck (Pelleas et Melisande) and his Hungarian disciple Bela Balazs (Duke Bluebeard's Castle) transform the internal concept of subconscious motivation into an external one, one in which fate controls human emotions and actions.
Using a pioneering approach to theoretical analysis, Antokoletz, explores the new musico-dramatic relations within their larger historical, social psychological, philosophical, and aesthetic contexts.
In this groundbreaking study, Antokoletz links the new musical language of these two operas with this symbolist conception and reveals a direct connection between the Debussy and Bartok operas. He shows how the opposing harmonic extremes serve as a basis for the dramatic polarity between real-life beings and symbols of fate. He also explores how the libretti by Franco-Belgian poet Maurice Maeterlinck (Pelleas et Melisande) and his Hungarian disciple Bela Balazs (Duke Bluebeard's Castle) transform the internal concept of subconscious motivation into an external one, one in which fate controls human emotions and actions.
Using a pioneering approach to theoretical analysis, Antokoletz, explores the new musico-dramatic relations within their larger historical, social psychological, philosophical, and aesthetic contexts.
