Bartók and the Grotesque: Studies in Modernity, the Body and Contradiction in Music (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780754657774)

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), BartÃ3k 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 BartÃ3k's concerns with stylistic hybridity (high-low, East-West, tonal-atonal-modal), the body, and the grotesque are inter-connected. While BartÃ3k 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 BartÃ3k was composing.

Author: Julie Brown
ISBN-10: 0754657779
ISBN-13: 9780754657774
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English
Published: 10/28/2007
Pages: 192
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.07lbs