Berlioz And Debussy: Sources, Contexts And Legacies

Description:
This collection of essays by scholars of nineteenth and early twentieth-century French music has been assembled in homage to the influential and inspirational French musicologist Francois Lesure who died in 2001. Lesure's immense erudition was legendary and spanned music from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. Two French composers who were particular foci in his scholarship were Berlioz and Debussy and this collection is based on scholarship around these two composers and the sources, contexts and legacies relating to their work.

Table of Contents:
Preface: In honour of Francois Lesure, Jeanice Brooks; Introduction: Barbara Kelly and Kerry Murphy. Part One Berloz and his Time: Berlioz, Dalayrac and Song, David Charlton; Mozartian undercurrents in Berlioz; appreciation, resistance and unconscious appropriation, Benjamin Perl; Oratorium eines Zukunftsmusiker? The pre-history of L'enfance du Christ, Julian Rushton; A new source for Berlioz's Les Troyens, Hugh Macdonald; Berlioz and the piano at the Great Exhibition; the challenge of impartiality, Kerry Murphy. Part Two Debussy and his Contemporaries: Taming two Spanish women: reflections on editing opera, Richard Langham-Smith; Grieg, the societe nationale, and the origins of Debussy's string quartet, Mike Strasser; Symbolism as a compositional agent in Act IV Scene 4 of Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande, Marie Rolf; A sociology of the Apaches: 'Sacred Battalion' for 'Pelleas' Jann Pasler; Ravel after Debussy: inheritance, influences and style, Barbara Kelly; Index.

Author Biography:
Dr Barbara L. Kelly is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Music at Keele University, UK. Kerry Murphy is Associate Professor for the Faculty of Music at the University of Melbourne, Australia.