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SIMPLICITY and POETRY (Literary form)

This reappraisal of “Begegnung,” a seldom discussed Hugo Wolf setting of the eponymous poem by Eduard Mörike, shows that despite its ostensible simplicity, the poem, typically for Mörike, harbours a wealth of ambivalent meanings, which are only further enriched in Wolf ’s setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MUSIC theorists, MUSIC theory, MUSICAL analysis, and REPETITION in music

The songs of Hugo Wolf continue to intrigue music theorists, not least because of their characteristic fusion of traditional tonal conventions with sophisticated chromatic processes. This article analyses a particularly intricate example: ‘Mühvoll komm ich und beladen’ from the Spanisches Liederbuch. The song projects a complex pattern of tonal relationships that reinforces an obsessive sense of repetition and circularity – issues that are explicit in the song's poetic text. The present reading engages a number of external sources, including the philosophy of Nietzsche, the operatic figure of Kundry and the myth of Sisyphus. These elements provide a series of cultural co-ordinates that together serve to illuminate primary facets of the song's structure, including its formal design and distinctive harmonic syntax. Each of these topics is considered in the service of a larger, overriding purpose: to reveal the ways in which the composer seeks to characterise sin and spiritual torment using techniques of cyclic organisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CRITICISM

Presents the criticism of composer Hugo Wolf to the `Lieder' of composer Johannes Brahms. Criticism for Brahms to appear in `Wiener Salonblatt'; Comment of Wolf to the Lieder to be based on different conceptions; Failure to acknowledge the impact of Lieder.

MUSICAL settings

SONG cycles, COMPOSERS, and MUSICIANS

The Michelangelo-Lieder are Hugo Wolf's only songs that the composer himself considered as a song cycle. The relative lack of popular and critical attention paid these works is undue: they are challenging to listeners, and music is first an aural art. The concept of "late work" as explored by Theodor Adorno, and by Edward Said after him, is a useful one that allows us to better contextualize these late songs. The present analysis offers a way of listening to these works within a more familiar aural framework: identifying elements of unity within the cycle and situating the Michelangelo- Lieder within Wolf's substantial oeuvre creates familiarity and thereby breeds appreciation and personal understanding. Following a brief analysis of musical characteristics of late style as Said identifies them in his book, On Late Style, the essay turns to the genesis of the Michelangelo-Lieder. Each of the three songs is addressed in turn, with an aim to address the text, the music, and their intersections. Although considered outdated in some circles, the catalogue of musical motives throughout Wolf's vocal oeuvre is employed judiciously to help. to reintegrate the Michelangelo -Lieder within the composer's total output. Elements of textual and musical unity are highlighted, and drawn together at the end, retrospectively. In addition to textual and musical ties among the three songs, "lateness" is shown to provide unity to the set and to give modern analytical weight to Wolf's assertion that the Michelangelo-Lieder be considered a cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SONGS, MUSIC & literature, IMPRESSIONISM in music, and MUSICAL composition

The article describes songs by Hugo Wolf done in the Joseph von Eichendorff settings. In order to avoid comparing his Eichendorff works to Robert Schumann, Wolf selected settings mainly of the "Rollengedichte" kind wherein poems of a dramatic nature are filled with characters that describe themselves and their existence through the words that they say. Drawing inspiration from the genre, the poems inspired Wolf to compose songs of the musico-dramatic kind. Wolf's and Pfitzner's works are discussed.

LITERARY form and SONGS

Reflects the nature and genre in Hugo Wolf's setting of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Der Sanger. Highlights on the myths surrounding the myths of the early writing of Wolf; Underestimation on the complexity of the Lieder; Disturbance of Romantic conceptions of the luric.

SONGS

Evaluates the song `Anakreons Grab,' by Hugo Wolf. Implication of the contents of the song; Analysis on the last line of the texts.