#7 in Music appreciation books
Use arrows to jump to the previous/next product
Reddit mentions of Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music (Oxford Studies in Music Theory)
Sentiment score: 2
Reddit mentions: 2
We found 2 Reddit mentions of Music as Discourse: Semiotic Adventures in Romantic Music (Oxford Studies in Music Theory). Here are the top ones.
Buying options
View on Amazon.comor
Specs:
Height | 6.2 Inches |
Length | 9.4 Inches |
Number of items | 1 |
Weight | 1.39332149584 Pounds |
Width | 1.2 Inches |
The "Dies Irae" refers to a chant used as part of the Requiem. You can hear it here. It's become emblematic in western culture as a signifier of death. Such as in the opening sequence of The Shining. Other user's are talking about pieces that "quote" the dies Irae.
How well-versed in theory are you? Do you understand chord progressions, four part Harmony, figured bass, etc? If not, I would recommend beginning with our sidebar suggestions.
If you have. Might I recommend these areas of further study: Schema theory, topic theory, and semiotics.
That's a huge field. Neo-Riemannian theory is certainly applicable to some of it (and I would point you to Richard Cohn's work), but that's hardly all there is to Romantic harmony.
The role of form in this music can't be understated. These books are the core of modern Formenlehre:
Caplin - Classical Form
Hepokoski/Darcy - Elements of Sonata Theory
Schmalfeldt - In the Process of Becoming
Caplin/Hepokoski/Webster - Musical Forms, Form and Formenlehre
Check out Caplin's response to a Schmalfeldt analysis here.
Kofi Agawu - Music as Discourse provides some semiotic perspectives on the analysis of Romantic music.
In terms of older sources, Ernst Kurth wrote on "the crisis of Romantic harmony" in the music of Wagner but little of his work has been translated from the original German. Here's a collection of Kurth's selected writings in English. Arnold Schoenberg has his own take in Structural Functions of Harmony and Style and Idea.
Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is a touchstone for the study of late 19th century harmony. In addition to the neo-Riemannian literature, Robert Bailey has an essay on the double-tonic complex that you should read. Benjamin Boretz's analysis is also influential. In terms of Neo-Riemannian theory, Laura Felicity Mason's Master's thesis is a good introduction to the most basic operations, and Mohanty helps cut through to the good stuff (even if that's not the point of the article).