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‘The Heaviest Weight’: Circularity and Repetition in a Song by Hugo Wolf.
- Source :
-
Music Analysis . Oct2006, Vol. 25 Issue 3, p289-314. 26p. - Publication Year :
- 2006
-
Abstract
- The songs of Hugo Wolf continue to intrigue music theorists, not least because of their characteristic fusion of traditional tonal conventions with sophisticated chromatic processes. This article analyses a particularly intricate example: ‘Mühvoll komm ich und beladen’ from the Spanisches Liederbuch. The song projects a complex pattern of tonal relationships that reinforces an obsessive sense of repetition and circularity – issues that are explicit in the song's poetic text. The present reading engages a number of external sources, including the philosophy of Nietzsche, the operatic figure of Kundry and the myth of Sisyphus. These elements provide a series of cultural co-ordinates that together serve to illuminate primary facets of the song's structure, including its formal design and distinctive harmonic syntax. Each of these topics is considered in the service of a larger, overriding purpose: to reveal the ways in which the composer seeks to characterise sin and spiritual torment using techniques of cyclic organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *MUSIC theorists
*MUSIC theory
*MUSICAL analysis
*REPETITION in music
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 02625245
- Volume :
- 25
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Music Analysis
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 27397181
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2249.2006.00244.x