Mozart's ghosts : haunting the halls of musical culture / Mark Everist.

Author/creator Everist, Mark
Format Book
Publication InfoNew York : Oxford University Press, ©2012.
Descriptionxiii, 310 pages : illustrations, music ; 25 cm
Subjects
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791--Criticism and interpretation.

Contents Introduction -- Part I: Phantoms of the opera. Phantoms of the opera ; Mozart and l'impresario ; The commendatore and the clavier -- Part II: Holy spirits ; Case closed? ; Enshrining Mozart: Don Giovanni and the Viardot Circle -- Part III: Specters at the feast. Mozart in two worlds: the writings on music of Blaze de Bury ; Speaking with the supernatural: E.T.A. Hoffmann, George Bernard Shaw and Die Oper aller Opern ; The Specter at the feast: Elvira Madigan and its legacy ; Conclusion: The Mozart Effect.
Abstract This book traces the many lives of this great composer that emerged following his early death in 1791. Crossing national boundaries and traversing two hundred years-worth of interpretation and reception, author Mark Everist investigates how Mozart's past status can be understood as part of today's veneration. The author forges new paths to reach the composer, examining a number of ways in which Western culture has absorbed the idea of Mozart, how various cultural agents have appropriated, deployed, and exploited Mozart toward both authoritarian and subversive ends, and how the figure of Mozart and his impact illuminate the cultural history of the last two centuries in Europe, England, and America. Modern reverence for the composer is conditioned by earlier responses to his music, and the author argues that such earlier responses are more complex than allowed by a simple "reception studies" model. Closely linking nine case studies in an innovative cultural and theoretical framework, the book approaches the developing reputation of the composer from death to the present day along three paths: "Phantoms of the Opera" deals with stage music, "Holy Spirits" addresses the trope of the sacred, and "Specters at the Feast" considers the impact of Mozart's music in literature and film. This book adeptly moves the study of Mozart reception away from hagiography and closer to cultural and historical criticism, and will be avidly read by Mozart scholars and students of eighteenth-century music history, as well as literary critics, historians of philosophy and aesthetics, and cultural historians in general.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 277-300) and index.
LCCN 2012015749
ISBN9780195389173 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN0195389174 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Music Music Stacks ML410.M9 E946 2012 ✔ Available Place Hold