Purloined Poetics: The Grotesque in the Music of Maurice Ravel
Issue Date
2009-04-28Author
Fillerup, Jessie
Publisher
University of Kansas
Format
370 pages
Type
Dissertation
Degree Level
Ph.D.
Discipline
Music and Dance
Rights
This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this thesis/dissertation is held by the author.
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Show full item recordAbstract
Since Ravel's death, both critics and scholars have questioned why a composer with his gifts would cling to convention--conservative forms, tertian harmonies--in an era of musical revolution. The grotesque, an aesthetic phenomenon characterized by unity among disjunction, engages this strand of criticism in three specific ways: 1) it provides an aesthetic framework for interpreting Ravel's diverse musical styles; 2) it offers a new context for his long-standing appreciation of Poe; and 3) it unveils transgressive elements within conventional musical structures. To differentiate the French grotesque from other varieties, I examine discourses by Hugo, Gautier, Baudelaire, and Berlioz before turning to the tales and criticism of Poe--a juncture where Ravel and the French grotesque meet. Four Ravel works--Sérénade grotesque, L'Heure espagnole, Daphnis et Chloé, and La Valse--manifest disjunctive relationships between music, text, rhythm and meter, gesture; these, combined with the works' reception histories, evoke the grotesque.
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