The emergence of Danish national opera, 1779--1846.
Item
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Title
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The emergence of Danish national opera, 1779--1846.
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Identifier
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AAI3306977
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identifier
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3306977
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Creator
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Shore, Dan.
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Contributor
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Includes supplementary digital materials | Adviser: Ora Frishberg Saloman
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Date
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2008
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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 | Literature, Scandinavian and Icelandic | Theater
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Abstract
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In a reflection of the political turmoil of the first half of the nineteenth century, opera composers in Denmark consciously and purposely worked to develop a national dramaturgy that was anti-German. Inspired by new collections of Danish folk music published between 1812 and 1842, these composers created a new musical language by synthesizing elements that had been an intermittent part of the vocabulary of Danish theater music as far back as 1779. Among these characteristics are a simple, lyrical, and mainly syllabic vocal line; gently dotted 6/8 rhythms; a strong modal inflection of otherwise classical harmony; a reliance on ballad and folksong material; an eschewing of any sort of orchestral word-painting; and a particular type of rhythmic cadence unique to Scandinavia. Ironically, the majority of musicians working in Denmark were German themselves; they had simply moved to Copenhagen, learned the new language, and tried to accommodate the taste of their new audience. The gradual emergence of genuinely Danish opera offers a model of the ways in which a body of work designed for public consumption helped define a country's growing sense of nationalism in the Romantic era.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
