Illuminates unexplored dimensions of the music-literature relationship
and the sometimes unrecognized talents of certain famous writers and
composers.
This book deals with three aspects that have been neglected in the
burgeoning field of music and literature. The "First Movement" of the
book considers writers from German Romanticism to the present who, like
Robert Schumann, first saw themselves as writers before they turned to
composition, or, like E. T. A. Hoffmann and Anthony Burgess, sought
careers in music before becoming writers. It also considers the few
operatic composers, such as Richard Wagner and Arnold Schoenberg, who
wrote their own libretti. The "Second Movement" turns to literary works
based specifically on musical compositions. This group includes, first
and more generally, prose works whose author chose a specificmusical
form such as sonata or fugue as an organizational model. And second, it
includes novels based structurally or thematically on specific
compositions, such as Bach's Goldberg Variations. The "Finale" concludes
with aunique case: efforts by modern composers to render musically the
compositions described in detail by Thomas Mann in his novel Doktor
Faustus. This book, which addresses itself to readers interested
generally in music and literature and is written in a reader-friendly
style, draws attention to unexplored dimensions of the music-literature
relationship and to the sometimes unrecognized talents of certain
writers and composers.
Theodore Ziolkowski is Professor Emeritus of German and Comparative
Literature, Princeton University.
