Britten''s Unquiet Pasts - Sound and Memory in Postwar Reconstruction

Examining the intersections between musical culture and a British project of reconstruction from the 1940s to the early 1960s, this study asks how gestures toward the past negotiated issues of recovery and renewal. In the wake of the Second World War, music became a privileged site for re-enchanting notions of history and community, but musical recourse to the past also raised issues of mourning and loss. How was sound figured as a historical object and as a locus of memory and magic? Wiebe addresses this question using a wide range of sources, from planning documents to journalism, public ceremonial and literature. Its central focus, however, is a set of works by Benjamin Britten that engaged both with the distant musical past and with key episodes of postwar reconstruction, including the Festival of Britain, the Coronation of Elizabeth II and the rebuilding of Coventry Cathedral.

Sommario

Introduction; 1. Music and cultural renewal; 2. 'Today on Earth the Angels Sing': carols in wartime; 3. Realizing Purcell; 4. Gloriana and the 'new Elizabethans'; 5. Noye's Fludde and the rituals of lost faith; 6. Ghosts in the ruins: the War Requiem at Coventry.

Info autore

Heather Wiebe is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of Virginia. A member of the editorial board of The Opera Quarterly, she has published widely on twentieth-century music, British musical culture and opera.

Riassunto

Heather Wiebe's book examines educational, occasional and religious works of Benjamin Britten that engage both with the distant past and with key episodes of postwar reconstruction, elucidating the role of music in mid-century British culture while exploring issues of memory, enchantment and cultural citizenship.

Testo aggiuntivo

'Unfailingly readable ' Musical Times

Dettagli sul prodotto

• Autori: Heather Wiebe, Heather (University of Virginia) Wiebe, Wiebe Heather
• Editore: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Lingue: Inglese
• Formato: Tascabile
• Pubblicazione: 05.03.2015
• EAN: 9781107507821
• ISBN: 978-1-107-50782-1
• Pagine: 250
• Serie: Music Since 1900; Music Since 1900
• Categorie: Libri scolastici > Corsi per adulti / università popolare; Scienze umane, arte, musica > Musica > Storia della musica; Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups, MUSIC / Individual Composer & Musician, MUSIC / Genres & Styles / Classical, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, Composers and songwriters, 20th Century & Contemporary Classical Music, Art music, orchestral and formal music