Rounding Wagner's Mountain: Richard Strauss and Modern German Opera (Cambridge Studies in Opera) - Hardcover

Gilliam, Bryan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521456592 ISBN 13: 9780521456593

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2014

Synopsis

Richard Strauss' fifteen operas, which span the years 1893 to 1941, make up the largest German operatic legacy since Wagner's operas of the nineteenth century. Many of Strauss's works were based on texts by Europe's finest writers: Oscar Wilde, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Stefan Zweig, among others, and they also overlap some of the most important and tumultuous stretches of German history, such as the founding and demise of a German empire, the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic, the period of National Socialism, and the post-war years, which saw a divided East and West Germany. In the first book to discuss all Strauss's operas, Bryan Gilliam sets each work in its historical, aesthetic, philosophical, and literary context to reveal what made the composer's legacy unique. Addressing Wagner's cultural influence upon this legacy, Gilliam also offers new insights into the thematic and harmonic features that recur in Strauss's compositions.

About this title

Review:

'... [a] fine piece of work ... beautifully written, subtle, authoritative and perceptive ... elegant and important ... [This] book is refreshingly literate, learned, economical and unerringly incisive.' Leon Botstein, President, Bard College

Book Description:

Richard Strauss' fifteen operas make up the largest German operatic legacy since Wagner's operas of the nineteenth century. In the first book to discuss all of Strauss' operas, Bryan Gilliam explores the composer's response to Wagner in his discussion of Strauss's stage works and their historical contexts.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0521456592
• ISBN 13: 9780521456593
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 358