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Text-music relations in Richard Strauss's Im Abendrot

University of British Columbia

This thesis examines in detail the ways in which music and text relate to and condition each other in Richard Strauss's Im Abendrot (1948), the first of the Vier letzte Iieder. The first chapter consists of an analysis and interpretation of the text itself, a poem written by Joseph von Eichendorff. Interpretation of the poem is based on its place in the context of Eichendorff’s other poetry, as well as on internal details of imagery and structure. An ostensibly slight alteration which Strauss made in the poem produces a significant change of Perspective and tone : in the last line of Eichendorff’s poem--Ist das etwa der Tod?--death is contemplated from adistance; in Strauss's version--Ist dies etwa der Tod?--the narrator stands at its very threshold, anticipating with mixed emotions the profound metamorphosis which is imminent. This reading of the poem is further suggested by Im Abendrot's relation to the texts of the three remaining songs in the cycle, and also by the connections, conceptual as well asmusical, between the Vier letzte Iieder and Strauss's early tone poem, Tod und Verklarung. Subsequent chapters deal with aspects of Strauss’s musical setting as they relate to the text, specifically in the areas of formal/motivic, harmonic, melodic, and metric/rhythmic structure. The concluding material raises some questions, arising as a result of this specific analysis, about the nature of text-music relations in general, and points to potential areas of further. study.

Text

2012-04-18

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/42069

Music - Theory

University of British Columbia

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