Brahms's Elegies

The Poetics of Loss in Nineteenth-Century German Culture

Nicole Grimes (University of California, Irvine)

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English

Cambridge University Press
19 August 2021

Theory of music & musicology; Music reviews & criticism; Romantic music (c 1830 to c 1900); Individual composers & musicians, bands & groups; European history

Series: Music in Context

Nicole Grimes provides a compellingly fresh perspective on a series of Brahms's elegiac works by bringing together the disciplines of historical musicology, German studies, and cultural history. Her exploration of the expressive potential of Schicksalslied, Nänie, Gesang der Parzen, and the Vier ernste Gesänge reveals the philosophical weight of this music. She considers the German tradition of the poetics of loss that extends from the late-eighteenth-century texts by Hölderlin, Schiller and Goethe set by Brahms, and includes other philosophical and poetic works present in his library, to the mid-twentieth-century aesthetics of Adorno, who was preoccupied as much by Brahms as by their shared literary heritage. Her multifaceted focus on endings - the end of tonality, the end of the nineteenth century, and themes of loss in the music - illuminates our understanding of Brahms and lateness, and the place of Brahms in the fabric of modernist culture.

By: Nicole Grimes (University of California Irvine)
Imprint: Cambridge University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 244mm, Width: 169mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 530g
ISBN: 9781108464765
ISBN 10: 1108464769
Series: Music in Context
Pages: 293
Publication Date: 19 August 2021
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction; 1. Brahms's ascending circle: Hölderlin and Schicksalslied; 2. The ennoblement of mourning: Nänie and the death of beauty; 3. A disembodied head for mythic justice: Gesang der Parzen; 4. The last great cultural harvest: Nietzsche and the Vier ernste Gesänge; 5. The sense of an ending: music's return to the land of childhood; Epilogue.

Nicole Grimes is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Irvine. She serves on the Editorial Board of Music Analysis and is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Brahms Society. Previous works include Mendelssohn Perspectives (2012) and Rethinking Hanslick: Music, Formalism, and Expression (2013).

Reviews for Brahms's Elegies: The Poetics of Loss in Nineteenth-Century German Culture

Advance praise: 'Deftly weaving musical commentary into an elegant exploration of the broader cultural fabric of late nineteenth-century Germany, Grimes demonstrates how some of Brahms's greatest but least understood vocal compositions intersected with the intellectual, literary, and philosophical currents of his time. This compelling study represents contextual musicology at its best.' Walter Frisch, Columbia University