The charles eliot norton lectures

Volume 12 in this series. Volume 9 in this series. Eric Maclagan. Volume 4 in this series. Volume 2 in this series. Linda Nochlin. Linda Nochlin explores the contradictions and dissonances that mark experience as well as art. Her book confronts the issues posed in representations of the body in the art of impressionists, modern masters, and contemporary realists and post-modernists.

Through a twist of fate that the author of Labyrinths himself would have relished, these lost lectures given in English at Harvard in — by Jorge Luis Borges return to us now, a recovered tale of a life-long love affair with literature and the English language. Harold Bloom. Bloom surveys with majestic view the literature of the West from the Old Testament to Samuel Beckett.

She is the author of several novels, including The Bluest Eye, Beloved made into a major film , and Love. She is the Robert F. Goheen Professor at Princeton University. Kindle Edition. Kindle Audiobook Hardcover Paperback.

The charles eliot norton lectures

In his —57 Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, the Russian-born American painter Ben Shahn sets down his personal views of the relationship of the artist—painter, writer, composer—to his material, his craft, and his society. He talks of the creation of the work of art, the importance of the community, the problem of communication, and the critical theories governing the artist and his audience.

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Please try again. Books in this series 7 books. Hide books you have in your Kindle library. We see, hear, and feel Umberto Eco, the passionate reader who has gotten lost over and over again in the woods, loved it, and come back to tell the tale, The Tale of Tales. Eco tells us how fiction works, and he also tells us why we love fiction so much. This is no deconstructionist ripping the veil off the Wizard of Oz to reveal his paltry tricks, but the Wizard of Art himself inviting us to join him up at his level, the Sorcerer inviting us to become his apprentice.

Hardcover See all buying options. See product details for: Kindle See all buying options. See all buying options. Customers who bought from this series also bought. The William E. Massey Sr. Hyland, John Llewelyn, Edward S. Davis, Brian Schroeder, Jason M. Wirth, Burt C. Hopkins, Avery Goldman, Dennis J. Dahlstrom, John van Buren, Andrew J.

Metcalf, Mark B. Decker, Ryan T. Walgreen Foundation Lectures 4 books David M. Potter, George F. Shakespeare's Personalities 5 books Harold Bloom. Venture of Islam 3 books Marshall G. Cultural Memory in the Present books Linda J. Kosky, James K. Smith, Paul B. B DeBevoise. Palmer, W. Auden, George M. Kirsch, N. Lawrence, Vladimir Nabokov, F. With countless overlapping and simultaneous metaphors, Bernstein argues that one hearing of the music alone is sufficient information to perceive all of them, and thus all humans can innately understand music.

Obviously, this perception must happen subconsciously, because few could point out the metaphors individually, but surely many of these metaphors in music pass by undetected. Bernstein provides two distinct meanings of the term ambiguity. The first is "doubtful or uncertain" and the second, "capable of being understood in two or more possible senses" p.

In terms of musical ambiguity, Bernstein discusses ambiguity predominantly in terms of tonality and increasing chromaticism. He traces the use of tonality through Berlioz , Wagner , and Debussy , focusing on the new ways in which composers obscured tonality and how these modifications ultimately affected ambiguity. In part one of this lecture, Bernstein names three different types of musical ambiguity: 1 phonological ambiguity, or uncertainty of the key , 2 syntactic ambiguity, or uncertainty of meter , and 3 semantic ambiguity, or uncertainty of the meaning.

Beethoven's sixth symphony represents a semantic ambiguity, because it could mean either the musical notes performed or the extramusical associations of a pastoral pp. He details Berlioz's depiction of the balcony scene, using musical ambiguity to identify extrinsic metaphors, such as the contrast between music depicting the dance and Romeo's "lovesick sighs" p.

The key is another example of ambiguity, because it ambles between two different key areas as Romeo deliberates about a decision p. Wagner's work is a metaphor for Berlioz's for several reasons beyond the choice of similar plots; therefore Bernstein examines three significant transformations within Tristan to show how the work can be viewed as a rewriting of Berlioz's piece.

A phonological transformation occurs through increased chromaticism, including ambiguous key areas, ambiguous chords, and chromatic melodies. Next, a syntactic transformation heightens metrical ambiguity through the loss of a pulse and clear rhythmic distinctions p. Lastly, Tristan ' s semantic transformation, or "its true semantic quality" is Wagner's strong reliance upon musical metaphor.

The piece "is one long series of infinitely slow transformations, metaphor upon metaphor, from the mysterious first phrase through to the climactic heights of passion or of transfiguration, right to the end" p. Bernstein indicates that the phonological transformation, or the extreme chromaticism of Tristan , is at a breaking point for tonality, so part 3 examines the next step in twentieth-century ambiguity: atonality.

This work uses a whole-tone scale, which is atonal but entails sufficient unambiguous containment, according to Bernstein. In his analysis, Bernstein commends the use of atonality in Afternoon of a Faun partially because of the presence of tonality. Bernstein notes, "throughout its course it is constantly referring to, reverting to, or flirting with E major" and "the ending of this piece finally confirms that it was all conceived in the key of E major, right from the beginning" p.

Similar to the serial passages in his own third symphony and his admiration of Ives' The Unanswered Question , Bernstein's lauding of these works stems not from the use of atonality, but the presence of tonality. In this lecture, some issues arise in the description of Wagner's transformational skills. Again, Bernstein's definition of deep structure is inconsistently applied, because example number 77 on page is not a deep structure.

This does not fulfill deep structure's requirement of containing musical prose. Instead, these five or six notes could be more accurately described as the underlying elements composers chose before constructing deep structure. In addition, the transformative processes he demonstrates with this example are not entirely clear, because he takes a few liberties with note alterations which are not explained.

Lecture 5 picks up at the early twentieth century with an oncoming crisis in Western Music. As these lectures have traced the gradual increase and oversaturation of ambiguity, Bernstein now designates a point in history that took ambiguity too far. Twelve-tone music emerges as one potential solution to the crisis, but Bernstein considers this idiom so ambiguous that it destroys the all-important balance between clarity and ambiguity.

He takes issue with the increasing preference among composers for twelve-tone music, because even though at its core it rejects tonality, twelve-tone is nonetheless unquestionably tied to the tonal system. This unintended connection to tonality can be explained by the harmonic series and musical phonology. First of all, tonality is innate, and twelve-tone music systematically fights with this innate process.

Overtones are present whether the music is tonal or twelve-tone, so the importance of a perfect fifth within the overtone series, and by extension, the circle of fifths, is contrary to twelve-tone writing. Also, because of the natural hierarchy of musical pitches, truly equalizing all notes is impossible. As long as the composer is working within the Western Music tradition of twelve notes per octave, tonal relationships still exist.

Despite the attempt at establishing a new organization of pitches, composers will inevitably write with tonal implications. In order to see how composers dealt with the twentieth century crisis, Bernstein discusses two composers, Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg. He sets up the dichotomy by referencing Theodor Adorno's statements in The Philosophy of Modern Music [ clarification needed ] about the superiority of Schoenberg's music and the inferiority of Stravinsky's.

Bernstein uses Alban Berg as an example of twelve-tone writing which he designates as successful, namely the violin concerto. The row itself simulates traditional tonality slightly, so by acknowledging the presence of inevitable tonal hierarchies, Berg's work is more effective than other twelve-tone pieces. This piece, like several of Bernstein's other favorite pieces, ends on a tonal chord, B-flat major.

Part 2 of this lecture focuses on Mahler. After introducing Mahler's prophetic skills, Bernstein presents his ninth symphony as a death march for tonality. He plays the Adagio from this work, and instead of listening for intrinsic musical meanings as he did in previous lectures, he assigns an extrinsic meaning, the metaphor of death. Instead of the previously established format based on meticulous analysis, this section is purely an emotional appeal.

This format is not consistent with the "quasi-scientific" approach taken thus far. The incorporation of opinion, however, may be significant, as they serve as a glimpse into Bernstein's opinions about Mahler, a composer he championed throughout his career. Bernstein moderates his interpretation over the music in order to depict the ultimate triumph of tonality, represented by a held G major chord in the strings, held "into eternity".

Bernstein does not discuss Keats' poem directly in this chapter, but he provides his own definition of the poetry of earth, which is tonality. Tonality is the poetry of earth because of the phonological universals discussed in lecture 1. This lecture discusses predominantly Stravinsky, whom Bernstein considers the poet of earth. Stravinsky kept tonality alive through the use of free dissonance, and more specifically, polytonality p.

Stravinsky, therefore, is the poet of earth, because his contributions to music have the potential to save tonality. He used free dissonance and rhythmic complexities to enliven tonality after it had reached the chromatic brink of collapse at the hands of Mahler and Debussy. Stravinsky's semantic ambiguity arises from his objective treatment of styles outside of his direct life experience and training as a composer.

These styles include folk music, "prehistoric" music, French music, jazz, etc. Bernstein explores the concept of sincerity in music to explain that Adorno's preference for Schoenberg arose out of a belief in his sincerity. Bernstein indicates, however, that Stravinsky's use of neoclassicism is, in fact, a matter of sincerity. By keeping an emotional distance, Stravinsky achieves "objective expressivity".

Syntactically, in this lecture he again coins a new type of structure, this one a combination of surface-structure music and super-surface structure poetry. This level is found in music with text, and he explores 1 the relationships between text and music and 2 the new artistic material that results from their combination. He designates this combination of text and music as the "X-factor" p.

At the end of the lecture, Bernstein adds his final thoughts on the state of music and its future. Here he combines the "quasi-scientific" format established in lecture 1 with an emotional appeal to make a case for continuing the use of tonality. Although he spends a lot of time arguing for neoclassicism and new ways to write tonal music, Bernstein ultimately makes a case for eclecticism, where various compositional techniques — twelve-tone, tonality, polytonality — are all welcome, so long as tonality predominates p.

Some terminological issues arise in this lecture between the definitions previously established by Bernstein and their continued use. For instance, the X-factor is not used the same way in this lecture as it is in lecture 3. This Harvard University related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. Contents move to sidebar hide.

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