Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 559 g
Buch, Englisch, 256 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 559 g
ISBN: 978-1-57647-010-7
Verlag: Eurospan
The Philosopher's Stone is a collection of case studies in compositional process; not so much about how the music was arrived at through its sketch stages, but more are construction of issues of form as the defining features of a genre, and structure as the individual realization in a particular work. Great musical movements and works are seen as highly creative solutions to problem-solving.
The contexts of the works differ considerably. Some were written against the background of a specific precedent or model, as with Mozart's Haydn quartets via Haydn's Op. 33 set. In other cases, as with Beethoven's middle period style, the composer reconsiders a comprehensive range of implications about style and construction, of how, after earlier successes now outworn, to make a new and significant contribution to the genre without duplicating earlier solutions.
The essays are grouped into three sections: on Beethoven studies, Mozart in retrospect, and nineteenth-century music. All the movements and works in these chapters pose in their different ways these issues of structural reinterpretation and re-formation,where the reworking of the form leads to a distinctive and higher level transformation.
