The first history of keyboard improvisation in European music in the postclassical and romantic periods, Free Play: Fantasies of Improvisation in Nineteenth-Century Music documents practices of improvisation on the piano and the organ, with a particular emphasis on free fantasies and other forms of free playing. Case studies of performers such as Abbe Vogler, J. N. Hummel, Ignaz Moscheles, Robert Schumann, Carl Loewe, and Franz Liszt describe in detail the motives, intentions, and musical styles of the nineteenth century's leading improvisers. Grounded in primary sources, the book further discusses the reception and valuation of improvisational performances by colleagues, audiences, and critics, which prompted many keyboardists to stop improvising. Author Dana Gooley argues that amidst the decline of improvisational practices in the first half of the nineteenth century there emerged a strong and influential "idea" of improvisation as an ideal or perfect performance. This idea, spawned and nourished by romanticism, preserved the aesthetic, social, and ethical values associated with improvisation, calling into question the supposed triumph of the "work."
Rezensionen / Stimmen
This is an extremely interesting book on a topic that has not received as much attention as it deserves ... Highly recommended. * W. E. Grim, CHOICE * Classical improvisation is making a comeback, and in timely fashion we can now read its remarkable history. Prof. Gooley has discovered lively contemporary accounts of pianists performing free fantasies on stage for the masses, in salons for elites, and in private for personal inspiration. The big names are all there - Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn - as are dozens of names less well known but hailed as great improvisors in their own day. Through diaries, reviews, letters, and biographies we can gauge the thoughts of both sides of what were by all accounts emotionally powerful interactions between musicians and their audiences. * Robert O. Gjerdingen, Northwestern University * Gooley's fascinating book sheds new light on the musical nineteenth century, illuminating unwritten histories of improvisation at the keyboard. By focusing on the contemporaneous renown of currently neglected figures such as Vogler, Hummel, Moscheles, and Loewe, Fantasies of Improvisation provides a richly textured account of how extemporization flourished and withered. Beyond that, Gooley elucidates the complex conversion of improvisation into discursive, rhetorical, pedagogical, and ethical terms. As a result, the book not only restores an element of the unexpected to over-determined historical narratives, but also suggests how the scores of Schumann and Liszt might be played and heard afresh. * Roger Moseley, author of Keys to Play: Music as a Ludic Medium from Apollo to Nintendo *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Produkt-Hinweis
Fadenheftung
Gewebe-Einband
Illustrationen
Maße
Höhe: 241 mm
Breite: 164 mm
Dicke: 30 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-19-063358-5 (9780190633585)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Dana Gooley is Associate Professor of Music at Brown University. His research centers on European music and musical culture in the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on performance, reception, and criticism. A specialist of Franz Liszt, he has published The Virtuoso Liszt (Cambridge, 2004) and co-edited two essay collections, Franz Liszt and His World (Princeton, 2006) and Franz Liszt: Musicien Europeen (Editions Vrin, 2012). He has also published articles on music criticism, musical mediation, improvisation, cosmopolitanism, and jazz. Gooley studied classical piano at New England Conservatory and is a self-taught jazz pianist. With his quintet he hosts the Sunday night jam session at Boston's historic jazz club Wally's Cafe.
Autor*in
Associate Professor of MusicAssociate Professor of Music, Brown University
Prelude: The Virtue of Improvisation
Chapter 1: The School of Abbe Vogler: Weber and Meyerbeer
Chapter 2: The Kapellmeister Network and the Performance of Community: Hummel, Moscheles, and Mendelssohn
Chapter 3: Carl Loewe's Performative Romanticism
Chapter 4: Schumann and the Economization of Musical Labor
Chapter 5: Liszt and the Romantic Rhetoric of Improvisation
Chapter 6: Improvisatoriness: The Regime of the Improvisation Imaginary
Postlude: Improvisation and Utopia
