Beethoven’s vocal works are often neglected or overshadowed as a result of his prominent involvement with large-scale instrumental genres such as sonata, symphony, or string quartet. Nevertheless, he sustained throughout his life a significant interest in literature and poetry; his personal library, as well as his letters, Tagebuch, and conversation books all document this by way of numerous direct quotations from—and indirect references to—the literary materials that interested him. The numerous vocal works he produced between 1783 and 1826 are one relevant manifestation of this interest and engagement with words. Beethoven produced a significant body of vocal works, the majority of which have not received the same intensity of analytical treatment as the instrumental works. Specifically, this study examines the relationship between words and music in the solo songs and other vocal works of Beethoven. The points of intersection between literary and musical expression are evaluated within four aspects of text setting: structure, rhythm, meaning, and narrative. Firstly, elements of derivation and deviation are explored to determine the diverse ways that he deliberately constructed musical structures in response to the poetic (and semantic) structures of each source text. Secondly, and by extension, rhythm and metre—and varying degrees of derivation, deviation, and manipulation—are assessed so as to demonstrate how these works illustrate Beethoven’s awareness of the expressive possibilities for adhering to or altering the relationship between poetic and musical metre. Thirdly, various types of musical rhetoric—including Beethoven’s implementation of the conventions for affective tonality, as well as the reliance on both conventional and uniquely-Beethovenian depictive idioms and gestures—illustrate his response to various levels of semantic content. Fourthly, his response to individual (though interrelated) aspects of narrative in his selected texts are evaluated. Drawing concepts from key figures of narrative theory—including Gérard Genette, Roland Barthes, Mieke Bal, and others—this study assesses the narrative content in selected texts as a means by which to gauge Beethoven’s compositional response to aspects of temporality, focalisation, spatiality, and so forth, both individually and in combination. Ultimately, this study demonstrates that—contrary to frequently voiced opinions—Beethoven responded quite closely and deliberately to the expressive implications of his selected texts, while aspects of poetic and musical structure, rhythm, syntax, imagery, and layers of meaning coalesce within complex narrative processes. Beethoven was aware of the inherent musicality of poetic texts and the significance of forging a close compositional relationship between words and music; thus he consistently demonstrated in composing these works his ideology that within vocal works ‘words and music form a unit’.

Theis (M.A. ) --University of the North, 1999 / Refer to document

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-08T17:06:47Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 122576.pdf: 7183646 bytes, checksum: 8d73683be3d6a8ba484d21da6abccba0 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-03-25 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The purpose of this study is to analyze the musical structure of the symphonic poem Uirapuru (1917), by Heitor Villa-Lobos, and to understand how meanings are put into action by the piece through topics and narrativity. The initial hypothesis is that in Uirapuru topics are key elements of the narrative aspects of the work. The methodology is supported by the structural analysis of the musical piece, which involves harmonic, melodic, rhythmic, textural and orchestration aspects, with further interpretations of meaning based on topics and narrativity theories, and sustained by a bibliographic research of historical context. The interaction between topics in different structural levels and ad hoc elements, reveals that Villa-Lobos used an organization strategy of musical meanings, here understood as narrative, which relates to the plot of the piece´s programme and can be characterized under the concept of "external narrative program". In this work, the Brazilian Indian is represented by characteristic elements of the exotic, present in the language of modern concert music of the period and mainly in the repertoire with Debussyst heritage, with which Villa-Lobos had an open dialogue in his first compositional phase. / O objetivo deste trabalho é analisar a estrutura musical do poema sinfônico Uirapuru (1917), de Heitor Villa-Lobos, e compreender como os significados são colocados em ação pela peça através de tópicas e da narratividade. A hipótese inicial é que em Uirapuru, as tópicas são elementos determinantes dos aspectos narrativos da obra. A metodologia utilizada está apoiada na análise musical estrutural da peça, que envolve aspectos harmônicos, melódicos, rítmicos, texturais e de orquestração, com posteriores interpretações de significado fundamentadas pelas teorias das tópicas e da narratividade, e sustentadas por uma pesquisa bibliográfica de contexto histórico. A interação entre tópicas em diferentes níveis estruturais e elementos ad hoc, revela que Villa-Lobos utilizou uma estratégia de organização dos significados musicais, aqui compreendida como a narratividade, a qual se relaciona com o roteiro do argumento da peça e pode ser caracterizada sob o conceito de programa narrativo exterior . O índio brasileiro nesta obra é representado por elementos característicos do exótico presentes na linguagem da música de concerto moderna do período e, principalmente, no repertório com herança debussysta com o qual Villa-Lobos travava franco diálogo na sua primeira fase composicional.