Le 1er juillet 2017
de 11h30 à 12h00
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3203
Séance - Teaching and Pedagogy (II)
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Alon Schab
There seems to be a sweeping consensus among music historians regarding Henry Purcell’s superb command over the craft of composition: authors refer to him as “the Restoration genius” who “made of the superficialities of his age a profound work of art” (M. Bukofzer) and “as close to an all-round musical genius […] as England has ever produced” (R. Taruskin). His mastery as contrapuntist, as a ground-bass composer, and as a profound dramatic thinker is often mentioned in music history books.
By contrast, 20th- and 21st-century books on harmony and counterpoint ignore Purcell. Even when excerpts from his works are quoted, it is often for their occasional harmonic surprises (still rubbing shoulders with earlier modal practice) rather than for the genuine compositional achievement they exhibit – Purcell’s superb handling of counterpoint is ignored in counterpoint books, his handling of large-scale form is unmentioned in books on form.
My paper overviews several case studies from textbooks where excerpts from Purcell’s music are used to demonstrate various musical phenomena. These case studies will help to assess (and criticize) some peculiarities in theorists’ treatment of seventeenth-century works.
