Aging and creativity can seem a particularly fraught relationship for
artists, who often face age-related difficulties as their audience’s
expectations are at a peak. In Four Last Songs, Linda and Michael
Hutcheon explore this issue via the late works of some of the
world’s greatest composers. Giuseppe Verdi (1813–1901), Richard
Strauss (1864–1949), Olivier Messiaen (1908–92), and Benjamin
Britten (1913–76) all wrote operas late in life, pieces that reveal
unique responses to the challenges of growing older.
Verdi’s Falstaff, his only comedic success, combated Richard
Wagner’s influence by introducing young Italian composers to a new
model of national music. Strauss, on the other hand, struggling with
personal and political problems in Nazi Germany, composed the
self-reflexive Capriccio, a “life review” of opera and his own
legacy. Though it exhausted him physically and emotionally, Messiaen
at the age of seventy-five finished his only opera, Saint François
d’Assise, which marked the pinnacle of his career. Britten,
meanwhile, suffering from heart problems, refused surgery until he had
completed his masterpiece, Death in Venice. For all four composers,
age, far from sapping their creative power, provided impetus for some
of their best accomplishments. With its deft treatment of these
composers’ final years and works, Four Last Songs provides a
valuable look at the challenges—and opportunities—that present
themselves as artists grow older.
Les mer
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780226255620
Publisert
2018
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Chicago Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter