The Sound of Finnish Angels: Musical Signification in Five Instrumental Compositions by Einojuhani Rautavaara

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Year:
Pages:268
ISBN:1-4955-1179-0
978-1-4955-1179-0
Price:$199.95 + shipping
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"Many musicologists and music theorists investigating the music of Einojuhani Rautavaara (b. 1928) explore it through a detailed analysis only on the syntactic level, leaving the semantic content aside. Such an approach...needs to be complemented by an understanding of its wider cultural context. The present study attempts to fill this gap by focusing on five instrumental compositions whose titles refer to angels. ...The aim is to explore the link between musical phenomena and their extramusical references both in the case of the individual works and in the composer's general aesthetics." -Wojciech Stepien (Preface)

Table of Contents

Part I: Theoretical Backgrounds
Chapter 1: Musical Syntax or Semantics? Theories of Musical Representation as Methodological Tools
Chapter 2: Angels in Religions and Beliefs
Chapter 3: Musical Approaches to Angels
Chapter 4: Rautavaara's Mystical Aesthetics
Part II: Analysis
Chapter 5: Analysis of Rautavaara's Instrumental Works about Angels
Archangel Michael Fighting the Antichrist
Angels and Visitations (Angel Trilogy, Part I)
The Double Bass Concerto (Angel Trilogy, Part II)
The Seventh Symphony "Angel of Light" (Angel Trilogy, Part III)
Playgrounds for Angels
Part III: Interpretations and Associations
Chapter 6: "Angelic" Features in Rautavaara's Instrumental Works
Chapter 7: Musical Ekphrasis
Conclusion

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