Musical Humor and Antonín Dvořák's Comic Operas
Musical Humor and Antonín Dvořák's Comic Operas
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Author(s): Adams, Julia
ISBN No.: 9783631874783
Pages: 386
Year: 202205
Format: Trade Cloth (Hard Cover)
Price: $ 102.76
Dispatch delay: Dispatched between 7 to 15 days
Status: Available

Antonín Dvorák was a clever and highly communicative humorist and musical dramatist. His masterful compositional strategies underscore, heighten, and construct sonic humor in his six (!!) comic operas. He crafts musical slapstick, satire, parody, and merriment using sudden breaks in rhythmic patterns, explosive harmonic shifts, excessive repetition, and startling pauses, as well as incongruous tempi, dynamics, range, and instrumentation. Dvorák also gives the orchestra its own "voice," breaking the metaphorical "fourth wall" to reveal humor outside of the characters' awareness. Narrative description and comprehensive music examples guide the reader through all six of Dvorák's works in this genre, revealing a significantly under-appreciated side of the composer's immense creative skills.


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