Unmasking Ravel: New Perspectives on the Music (Eastman Studies in Music) - Hardcover

Peter Kaminsky

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1580463371 ISBN 13: 9781580463379

Publisher: University of Rochester Press, 2011

Synopsis

Unmasking Ravel: New Perspectives on the Music fills a unique place in Ravel studies by combining critical interpretation and analytical focus. From the premiere of his works up to the present, Ravel has been associated with masks and the related notions of artifice and imposture. This has led scholars to perceive a lack of depth in his music and, consequently, to discourage investigation of his musical language. This volume balances and interweaves these modes of inquiry. Part 1, "Orientations and Influences," illuminates the sometimes contradictory aesthetic, biographical, and literary strands comprising Ravel's artistry and our understanding of it. Part 2, "Analytical Case Studies," engages representative works from Ravel's major genres using a variety of methodologies, focusing on structural process and his complex relation to stylistic convention. Part 3, "Interdisciplinary Studies," integrates musical analysis and art criticism, semiotics, and psychoanalysis in creating novel methodologies.

About this title

Review:

A superb, unique contribution to Ravel scholarship. . . . Provide(s) both in-depth analysis and critical interpretation. SUMMING UP: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. CHOICE --Choice

This substantial and authoritative work contains state-of-the-art contributions in both the critical-historical and theoretical-analytical spheres. --Arnold Whittall, professor emeritus, King's College, London; author of Romantic Music: A Concise History from Schubert to Sibelius and coauthor of Music Analysis: In Theory and Practice.

This is an ambitious publication, and one that, most admirably in the present musicological climate, runs the risk of being criticized for its theoretical and analytical intensity. But this very intensity is the result of its determination to take musical art in general, and that of Ravel in particular, as seriously as it deserves. --Julian Rushton, professor emeritus, University of Leeds; author of The Music of Berlioz and Classical Music: A Concise History.

About the Author:

Contributors include prominent scholars of Ravel's and fin-de-siècle music: Elliott Antokoletz, Gurminder Bhogal, Sigrun B. Heinzelmann, Volker Helbing, Steven Huebner, Peter Kaminsky, Barbara Kelly, David Korevaar, Daphne Leong, Michael Puri, and Lauri Suurpää. Peter Kaminsky is Professor of music at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Rochester Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1580463371
• ISBN 13: 9781580463379
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352
• Editor: Peter Kaminsky