The philosopher's stone essays in the transformation of musical structure

• Main Author: Barry, Barbara R (Author)
• Format: Unknown
• Language: English
• Published: Hillsdale Pendragon Press 2000
• Series: Pendragon Press musicological series endragon Press musicological serie
• Subjects: Musical form > usical for
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.
• Physical Description: viii, 238pages illustrations 24 cm
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index
• ISBN: 9781576470107

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.