Robert Schumann's "Genoveva" and the creation of a German opera
Item
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Title
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Robert Schumann's "Genoveva" and the creation of a German opera
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:ebfb9acf06d1:10732
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identifier
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11011
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Creator
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Wright, Elizabeth A.,
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Contributor
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Richard Kramer | Thomas Grey | Allan Atlas
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Date
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2011
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Music | 19th-century opera | Clara Schumann | Germany | Musical culture | Robert Schumann
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Abstract
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History tells us that Wagner, in the 1840s, was attempting to put his stamp on a modern German operatic tradition. Schumann too, in his only opera Genoveva (1847--49), was preoccupied with many similar issues. His aim was not so much to create something completely new, but something truly German, devoid of all foreign influence. His criticisms and correspondence attest to just how important the idea of a national German musical identity was to him. While a complete break with the surrounding musical world was unrealistic, Schumann did incorporate significant elements that can be identified as incontrovertibly progressive: the use of an almost continuous arioso style of vocal writing; the eschewal of conventional recitative and coloratura; a rudimentary leitmotif technique; and an almost unbroken through composition, where each number flows effortlessly into the next.;Schumann's text was an amalgam of several different literary sources (chiefly those of Ludwig Tieck and Friedrich Hebbel), but the finished libretto was very much dictated by Schumann's own literary predilections. Contemporary criticism largely read Schumann's characters as flat and undifferentiated but, in actuality, the individuation of his characters and their resonance in the tension of the Schumann household have left us with a stronger view of the composer's personality. In particular, closer attention to Schumann's treatment of characterization, in his libretto as well as in the details of the composition, supply evidence of the need for a critical reexamination of the work.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Music
