Bartók and the Grotesque: Studies in Modernity, the Body and Contradiction in Music / Edition 1

by Julie Brown

Overview

The grotesque is one of art's most puzzling figures - transgressive, comprising an unresolveable hybrid, generally focussing on the human body, full of hyperbole, and ultimately semantically deeply puzzling. In Bluebeard's Castle (1911), The Wooden Prince (1916/17), The Miraculous Mandarin (1919/24, rev. 1931) and Cantata Profana (1930), Bartók engaged scenarios featuring either overtly grotesque bodies or closely related transformations and violations of the body. In a number of instrumental works he also overtly engaged grotesque satirical strategies, sometimes - as in Two Portraits: 'Ideal' and 'Grotesque' - indicating this in the title. In this book, Julie Brown argues that Bartók's concerns with stylistic hybridity (high-low, East-West, tonal-atonal-modal), the body, and the grotesque are inter-connected. While Bartók developed each interest in highly individual ways, and did so separately to a considerable extent, the three concerns remained conceptually interlinked. All three were thoroughly implicated in cultural constructions of the Modern during the period in which Bartók was composing.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780754657774
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/28/2007
Series:	Royal Musical Association Monographs , #16
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.88(w) x 9.62(h) x (d)

About the Author

Julie Brown is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.

Table of Contents

Contents: Introduction; Bartók and the19th century grotesque; Bartók and the body; The Mandarin's miraculous body: 'expressly for our vexation'?; The 3rd String Quartet as grotesque; Conclusion and coda: on Adorno and the grotesque; Select bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

This volume is a valuable contribution to the literature that provides thought-provoking material for future research, especially regarding the interpretation of bodily meanings. ... Julie Brown has opened up a hugely fascinating area of musical modernism that remains largely unexplored. Music and Letters

From the Publisher