Thesis (MMus (Music))-- Stellenbosch University, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis explores the Faust legend and its musical manifestations since the 19th century. The objective is to provide a thorough background to the legend, before drawing up an account of compositions inspired by the Faust legend. Firstly, the origin of the legend is investigated, followed by a brief summary of the most important literary works on the subject of Faust. This is followed by a comprehensive outline of the story as told by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and then the most significant compositions inspired by the legend are discussed. A short section containing comparisons of the compositions and the conclusions of the study appears at the end. The legend tells the story of Faust, a scholar, philosopher and alchemist in search of divine knowledge, power and pleasure. Faust encounters the devil and makes a pact with him in which he agrees to surrender his immortal soul, if the devil can satisfy Faust’s thirst for knowledge and grant him the experience of true happiness. The Faust legend is a very popular theme among composers and artists. One of the reasons for the success of the Faust legend is its universal appeal. This has led to various composers using the material as the basis for their works. Goethe’s version of the legend has proven to be the most popular source for composers. To produce a composition that attempts to capture the drama in its entirety, including its psychological and spiritual elements, is not feasible. Works centred on a smaller section, scene or character from Goethe’s Faust were often more successful than the larger operatic compositions. Like all great universal ideas, the Faust legend lends itself to an abundance of interpretations. Similarities between works are rare. Each composer who made use of the Faust legend interpreted it subjectively, which has produced many unique and varied compositions. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In hierdie studie word die Faust legende, soos wat dit in verskeie musikale komposisies van die 19de eeu uitgebeeld is, ondersoek. Die doel van die studie is om ‘n lys van werke wat deur die Faustlegende geïnspireer is, saam te stel. Die tesis ondersoek die oorsprong van die legende en gee ‘n kort opsomming van die mees prominente litirêre werke met die Faustlegende as onderwerp. Daarna volg ‘n uiteensetting van die storielyn soos vertel deur Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. ‘n Lys, bestaande uit gesaghebbende Faust komposisies, word ingesluit en laastens volg vergelykings en gevolgtrekkings uit die studie. Die legende vertel die verhaal van Faust, die professor, filosoof en alchemis op soek na kennis, mag en plesier. Faust tree in gesprek met die duiwel en gaan met hom ‘n ooreenkoms aan om sy siel prys te gee in ruil vir kennis en ware geluk. Die Faust legende is sekerlik een van die mees gewilde literêre onderwerpe vir gebruik deur komponiste en kunstenaars. Die universaliteit van die legende dra by tot die gewildheid daarvan en om gebruik te word as onderwerp in toonsettings. Goethe se weergawe word meestal ingespan as bron van inspirasie. Om die volle omvang van die drama, met al sy sielkundige en geestelike elemente in ‘n komposisie vas te vang, is feitlik onmoontlik. Soos die meeste groot universele werke, word Faust op verskillende maniere geïnterpreteer. Gevolglik is daar min ooreenkomste tussen die verskillende toonsettings. Elke komponis se interpretasie van die legende is uniek.

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”The singer is always working through a text that in some way or another inspired the vocal line and its texture,” wrote American pianist, pedagogue, and author Thomas Grubb. But exactly how does a text inspire a composer to create this synergy between words and music? During the course of my studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, I gradually began to deepen my knowledge and awareness of Henry Purcell and Franz Schubert. I was at once astounded by their ability to seemlessly amalgamate the chosen texts to their music, and decided that this connection required greater research. The purpose of this study was thus to gain a deeper understanding of how Purcell and Schubert approached the relationship between text and music by studying the two pieces Music for a while and Erlkönig. I also wished to discover any similarities and differences between the composers’ approaches to word painting, in addition to discerning the role of the accompaniment to further illustrate the narrative. I began by reading literature about the two composers as well as John Dryden and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the poets whose texts were set to music. Once a greater understanding of them had been attained, I proceeded to analyze the texts and music for a greater comprehension of Purcell’s and Schubert’s methods. For early inspiration, I listened to numerous versions of the pieces by different musicians on YouTube. Both Purcell and Schubert used various tools in their compositional arsenals to accomplish their effortless combination of text and music. Amongst others, Purcell employed tonal ambiguity, unexpected harmonies, and repetition, while Schubert made use of vivid imagery, inventive treatment of chromaticism, and unmistakable rhythmic motifs. The analysis demonstrated that, while both composers painted lively and dramatic pictures in their compositions, their methods were strikingly different. The role of the accompaniment in Music for a while leaves much to the individual taste and ability of the instrumentalist(s) performing to assist the singer in setting the scene. In contrast, Schubert instructs the pianist in Erlkönig explicitly how they are to play, while additionally the piano personifies the fifth character in the story, the horse. Indeed, the role of the singer in the two pieces is equally at variance with the other. With Purcell, the singer portrays a priest, while the singer in Erlkönig personifies four different voices, each with their own melody, character, and tessitura. I hope this study will inspire others to delve deeper into the material with which they work to offer a more profound understanding to themselves and, ultimately, the listener.

In this thesis I examine Schelling’s construction of symbolic language in §73 of his Philosophie der Kunst. I approach this construction in three ways. First, I compare Schellingian symbolic language to other contemporary theories of the symbol and language (in particular, those of Goethe, Kant and A.W. Schlegel). While Schelling’s theory of symbolic language possesses properties similar to these other theories (the identity of being and meaning, organic wholeness, the co-existence of opposites), I show that it differs in how they are interpreted. Second, I excavate the metaphysical and epistemological principles from Schelling’s philosophy of the period which underlie this theory of language. Three tenets from the Identitätssystem (as it is called) are crucial: formation, quantitative differentiation and construction. They illuminate why Schelling interprets symbolic language very differently to his contemporaries. Third, I consider the theological significance of Schellingian symbolic language. This significance is twofold. First, his theory gives rise to a conception of discourse without reference, and so to the notion of a theology without reference. On this basis, Schelling criticises Christian theology for remaining too concerned with referring to God, when what is at stake is rather the degree of intensity to which it produces God. Theology therefore stands in need of reformation. Second, the way in which theology is utilised by Schelling in order to construct symbolic language in §73 of the Philosophie der Kunst itself provides a model for reformed theological practice. I argue that Schelling conceives of traditional theology as material for intensifying the production of God. In this way, an ‘absolute theology’ is engendered which has no concern for reference or for the integrity of the theological tradition.

My dissertation, titled Hanging-Together: Kant, Goethe, and the Theory of Aesthetic Modernism, observes that many of the composers, artists, and writers working in the early twentieth century developed theories of aesthetic coherence (Zusammenhang) that contradict the canonical interpretation of the period in terms of discontinuity and fragmentation. I show that the modernists drew on Goethe’s morphology in order to conceive of the inner coherence of the work of art as neither an aggregate (in which the parts precede the whole), nor as a system (in which an idea of the whole precedes its parts), but as a morphological nexus of formal variations. My thesis is that aesthetic modernism negates the ‘outer coherence’ of the work of art in order to reveal its ‘inner coherence,’ and that this morphological concept of inner coherence does not entail the totalizing ideal maintained by the poetic and aesthetic tradition from Aristotle to Kant. I develop this argument over the course of five chapters: the first examines Kant’s concept of systematic unity; the second focuses on Goethe’s critical response to Kant’s philosophy of nature; while the last three trace Goethe’s morphology through the theoretical reflections of a modernist composer, painter, and writer—Arnold Schönberg, Wassily Kandinsky, and Alfred Döblin. What emerges is a theory of aesthetic modernism that takes into account the historical specificity of the period without reducing its significance to the ‘break’ it supposedly effects with tradition.

Nosso estudo busca apresentar as etapas da formação do método morfológico de Goethe: do nascimento de sua empreitada em relação às ciências naturais, ainda ligado ao signo de Espinosa, até a tentativa de formação de um método que se pretendesse objetivo. Dada a sua intenção de estudar as formas e as formações do mundo orgânico o poeta se viu confrontado com as etapas de desenvolvimento do olhar, para depois lançar-se numa investigação acerca do espírito, devido à distância existente entre nós e os fenômenos. Da viagem à Itália, onde Goethe aprendeu a respeitar as formas da natureza de uma maneira despojada da ligação afetiva da subjetividade, até seus últimos anos, Goethe nunca abandonou a intenção de abordar os seres vivos, mas o processo de formação do método morfológico se formulou como um organismo que gera sempre novas formas de se buscar conhecer a natureza como algo que, como ele mesmo descreveu, ela é vida e desenvolvimento desde um centro desconhecido até uma desconhecível periferia. Neste caminho intentou uma abordagem simbólica da natureza e de suas formas: como a natureza não é algo que possamos evocar como um mundo secreto que se apresente imediatamente nas nossas representações, temos de encontrar o caminho de abordagem dos entes particulares ligados ao universal e como ponto de contração do caminho morfológico.Este não é um método acabado; trata-se, antes, de um método que se encontra em perpétuo fazer. / This study aims to present the steps of Goethes Morphological method, from its birth in relation to the natural sciences, still linked with the sign of Spinoza, to the trial of forming an objective method. As his intention was to study the forms and the formation in the organic world, the poet has found himself in confrontation with the stages of the development from seeing, and afterwards in an investigation of the spirit in terms of the distance that exists between us and the phenomenon. From the Italian journey, when Goethe learned to respect the forms in its nature without linking them with the subjectivity, to his last years of life, Goethe never gave up the intention of an approach to the natural beings. But this process was formulated as an organism, searching new forms to try to know the nature as something as he described, that acts it is life and development from an unknown center to an unknowledgeable boundary. In this way he tried to figure out an attempt to a symbolic knowledge of the world of nature and its forms, as nature is not a thing that we can evoke as an open secret, or as a thing that presents itself directly in our forms of representing. We need to find a way that attempts to these particularities and this is the concentrating point of the goethean´s morphological way. As can be seen, it is not a made method, instead, it is a method in perpetual making.

by Liu Hoi-ying April. / Thesis submitted in: December 2003. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 111-113). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Preface --- p.i-v / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter 1. --- Chapter one: The History of the Romantic Lied --- p.7 / Chapter 2. --- Chapter two: Literature Review --- p.24 / Chapter 3. --- Chapter three: Lieder Analyses --- p.46 / Chapter 4. --- Chapter four: Summary and Conclusion --- p.100 / Chapter 5. --- Selected Bibliography --- p.110 / Chapter 6. --- Appendix A: Statistics / Chapter - --- Table w: Lieder set by Schubert from 1811-1828; statistical information on setting method (strophic vs through-composed) --- p.113 / Chapter - --- Table x: Schubert's Lieder settings from 1811-1828 of Goethe's poems; statistical information on setting method (strophic vs through-composed) --- p.114 / Chapter - --- Table y: Chronological statistical analysis for setting method (strophic vs through-composed) and related poet for all Schubert's Lieder from 1811-1828. --- p.115 / Chapter - --- Table z: Loewe's strophic Lieder settings collected in Max Runze's edition4 --- p.124 / Chapter 7. --- Appendix B: English Translation of Goethe's poems --- p.127

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This dissertation examines Goethe’s portrayal of femininity in Die Wahlver-wandtschaften and how his depiction of all three central female characters relates to feminine ideals that were promoted through the theoretical gender debate of the late 1700s in Germany and Western Europe. I analyze Charlotte’s, Luciane’s, and Ottilie’s actions and interactions in various triadic character constellations in order to offer new insights into Goethe’s portrayal of femininity. In so doing, I argue that Goethe’s depiction of Charlotte holds the key to understanding how far Die Wahlverwandtschaften functions as (critical) commentary on the late Enlightenment gender discourse. I maintain that the actions and interactions of these three women show them as at times ‘unfit’ and/or unwilling to meet feminine ideals promoted in the late Enlightenment. I apply central concepts of Julia Kristeva’s psychoanalytic theory from the 1970s and 1980s as analytical tools to examine how far Goethe’s Wahlverwandt-schaften can be viewed as a critique of the norms and expectations commonly expressed in the late Enlightenment. I primarily focus on Kristeva’s concepts of subjectivity formation, semiotic and symbolic modalities, abjection, and her theorizing of motherhood. Kristeva’s emphasis on the pivotal role of the maternal function in the child’s identity formation and her representation of femininity as alterity allow me to explore the significance of Charlotte’s prevalence among the characters and to approach Goethe’s ambiguous and complex portrayal of unsteady, constantly shifting, and interrelated models of femininity in Charlotte, Luciane, and Ottilie as a narrative experiment in which he tests the viability of such models within the surrounding social discourse. In the main body of this dissertation, I begin by concentrating on Charlotte’s partnerships with men, and then I focus on her maternal role in relation to Luciane, Ottilie, and Otto. By making Charlotte the ‘epicenter’ of this investigation, I explore how far Goethe shapes her, Luciane, and Ottilie as characters who transgress late Enlightenment gender boundaries and thus deviate from what were considered ‘feminine ideals’ in order to underscore the arbitrary and contradictory nature of the prevalent social order.

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