
Debussy's 'Iberia'
Matthew Brown(Author)
Oxford University Press
Published on 2. October 2003
Book
Hardback
194 pages
978-0-19-816199-8 (ISBN)
Description
For well over a century musicologists have been fascinated by composers' manuscripts and by the insights they might reveal about the nature of musical composition. This book suggests ways in which Debussy's sketches and drafts may be used to explain how he composed one of his last great symphonic scores: Iberia (from Images for orchestra, 1903-10). Part 1 shows how we might understand the process of musical composition as a form of expert problem solving; it describes the compositional history of the work, the various intentional goals and historical constraints that guided Debussy's thinking, and some of the technical problems Debussy faced while composing this remarkable score. Part 2 reconstructs the genesis of each of the three movements in turn.
Reviews / Votes
Brown's insights into Iberia prove highly illuminating; his book is lucidly written and extremely generous with examples and documentation. It helps to have a score at hand , but even the most involved parts of the analysis flow easily, and one need not be either a specialist in Schenker or sketch studies to follow it. * Notes *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
numerous music examples and figures
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 161 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
464 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-816199-8 (9780198161998)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Born in London, Matthew Brown studied at the Royal College of Music Preparatory Division and later at King's College London. He pursued a Ph.D. in musicology at Cornell University. From 1983-1986 he was a junior fellow at Harvard University. Since then, he has taught musicology at the Eastman School of Music and theory at Louisiana State University. He has served on the council of the American Musicological Society and the executive board of the Society for Music Theory. He is currently Associate Professor of Music Theory at the Eastman School of Music.
Author
, Associate Professor of Music Theory, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, New York
Content
EDITOR'S PREFACE; PREFACE; MUSICAL COMPOSITION AND PROBLEM SOLVING; 1. COMPOSITION HISTORY AND MUSICAL SOURCES; 4. 'PAR LES RUES E LES CHEMINS'; SKETCH STUDIES AND MUSICAL ANALYSIS; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX