LITMIR.BIZ

In his early twenties Goethe wrote Proserpina for the Weimar court singer Corona Schröter to perform. His interest in presenting Weimar’s first professional singer-inresidence in a favourable light was not the only reason why this monologue with music (now lost) by Seckendorff is important. Goethe’s memories of his sister Cornelia, who had recently died in childbirth, were in fact the real catalyst: through this work Goethe could level accusations against his parents about Cornelia’s marriage, of which he had not approved. Goethe used the melodramatic form to transform private and cultural issues for women of the time into public discourses and so to manipulate public opinion. His work reveals an astute understanding of musical melodrama and the important impact it had on the cultural dynamics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Whatever the source of inspiration, it is clear that Goethe was very preoccupied with Proserpina. When he returned to this melodrama forty years later he collaborated closely with Carl Eberwein, the court, theatre, and church music director, who composed a new setting which accords with Goethe’s clear understanding of musical declamation in 19th century melodrama. In the intensive collaboration which took place while the production was being prepared in January 1815, Goethe was already anticipating the idea of a Gesamtkunstwerk. He paid close attention to every aspect of the production, especially to its music and its staging. When discussing contemporary settings of the poet’s works, scholars often lapse into regret that Goethe did not have someone of comparable rank at his side for musical collaborations. Yet Eberwein’s willingness to go along with Goethe’s wishes was an advantage here: the selfless striving of the young composer to satisfy the poet’s intentions is everywhere apparent in the score and it is the nearest thing we have to a ‘composition by Goethe’. Despite critics’ positive reception of the first performance on 4 February 1815, the work has never been published before. Musically and dramatically this unknown melodrama is a superb work for solo voice, choir, and orchestra, and deserves to be brought before the public today.

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Benjamin Dwyer’sBritten and the Guitar: Critical Perspectives for Performersis the first complete study of the guitar works of Benjamin Britten. This book offers more than an objective analytical study of these compositions. Dwyer draws upon his expertise as a classical guitarist, composer and musicologist to deliver a multi-lensed examination of this music providing broad contexts and unique insights. Dwyer not only explores the intricate relationship between Britten, his life-long partner, the tenor Peter Pears, and the guitarist Julian Bream, for whom all the guitar works were written, but goes further in situating Renaissance composer and lutenist John Dowland as a central and inspirational figure who hovers over all of Britten’s guitar works. In so doing, he offers new perspectives into Britten’s compositional approach demonstrating how techniques of musical rhetoric, exemplified by Dowland, are central to his musical language. Britten and the Guitar: Critical Perspectives for Performersis an essential guide for the professional guitarist and singer, the committed teacher, and those who simply wish to understand more about the guitar music of one Britain’s foremost composers.

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Polite Forms was written between January, 2008 and June, 2011. Although the whole sequence is, perhaps self-evidently, it is a meditation on family life written from the perspective of a man in his early fifties.

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Ours would appear to be an era of unprecedented variation in the mediation of meaning – television, computer, the older forms of radio and print. Since, however, such profusion of resources has not of itself guaranteed enhanced profundity or sophistication in our modes of understanding – psychological, sociological, philosophical, historical, and theological – the issue of the continued relevance of cultural forms, dependent both on the human voice and on ritualization, presents itself for consideration. How may modern people most tellingly relate to such overwhelmingly verbal processes as teaching, be it an erudite lecture or a classroom lesson with infants? Is singing, in the words of Tom Murphy, ‘the only way to tell people who you are’? What, in particular, is the contemporary usefulness for the building of societies of one of our oldest and culturally valued rituals, that of drama? The Fourth Seamus Heaney Lectures, ‘Mirror up to Nature’: Drama and Theatre in the Modern World, given at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra, between October 2006 and April 2007, addressed these and related questions. The gifted play director, Patrick Mason, spoke with exceptional insight on the essence of theatre. Thomas Kilroy, distinguished playwright and critic, dealt with the topic of Ireland’s contribution to the art of theatre. Two world authorities, Cecily O’Neill and Jonothan Neelands, gave inspiring accounts of the rich potential of drama in the classroom. Brenna Katz Clarke, Head of English at St Patrick’s College, offered a delightful examination of the relationship between drama and film. Finally, John Buckley, internationally acclaimed composer, spoke on opera and its history, while giving an illuminating account of his own Words Upon The Window-Pane.

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The essays incorporated into this volume share an ambitious interest in investigating death as an individual, social and metaphorical phenomenon that may be exemplified by themes involving burial rituals, identity, and commemoration. The disciplines represented are as diverse as art history, classics, history, music, languages and literatures, and the approaches taken reflect various aspects of contemporary death studies. These include the fear of death, the role of death in shaping human identity, the ‘taming’ of death through ritual or aesthetic sublimation, and the utilization of death – particularly dead bodies – to manipulate social and political ends. The topics covered include the exhumation and reburial of Cardinal John Henry Newman; the funerary monument of John Donne in his shroud; the funeral of Joseph Stalin; the theme of mutilation and non-burial of the corpse in Homer’s Iliad; the individual’s encounter with death in the work of the German Philosopher Josef Pieper; the Requiem by the Irish composer Charles Villiers Stanford; the imagery of death in Giovanni Verga’s novel Mastro-don Gesualdo, and the changing attitudes toward death in the writings of Michel Foucault.

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Death is silent; all the ‘tales’ we hear about it – be they of a religious, philosophical, scientific or artistic nature – are told by other humans. but specific deaths are often utilised to reconfirm or challenge existing societal structures, values and belief systems. the eight ‘tales’ collated here – based on the work of the Research Strand Death, Burial and the Afterlife at University College Dublin’s College of arts and humanities – present numerous interdisciplinary examples of how this process works. The topics of the essays include the ideological orientations of Irish political funerals; the death rites of Cameroonian immigrants at home and in dublin; the Baroque artist Pietro da Cortona’s success in turning a Roman church into his own funeral monument; the role that Alexis de Tocqueville’s death played in his emergence as an iconic political theorist; the philosopher Josef Pieper’s attempt to approach the mystery of death through idealist thinking, the changing human attitudes towards the death of animals; the use of war maps as marketing devices during the Second World War; and the critique of political and societal structures embedded in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Berliner Requiem. This thought-provoking volume of essays, wide-ranging in scope and interdisciplinary in its approach, engages with questions surrounding the many meanings ascribed to death and the memorialisation of the dead. In its eight essays, it traverses whole thought-continents: from those who muse that ‘death has happened since the beginning of time; it is not to upset youtoday’ to the stark presentation of a reality which erodes the human face and thus a person's individuality. What clearly emerges are the many respects in which death itself has been and, indeed, remains, contested ground (both literally and metaphorically). This collection is an important contribution to the ever-expanding field of studies on Death and Dying.

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'The Drunkard is a wonderfully eloquent play.’Young Edward Kilcullen's life is blighted by alcohol. Lawyer McGinty desires possession of all the Kilcullens ever owned and relishes the prospect of his demise. However, the temperance preacher and philanthropist Sir Arden Rencelaw is at hand…Can the young Kilcullen be saved? And what is Agnes, the maniac's, hidden secret? Comedy, tragedy, heroics, villainy and song in this exuberant, life affirming version of The Drunkard.'

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This is a book of insight and imagination. It is a literary tour de force, where 28 Irish plays are examined and their rich cultural context exposed in a way that educates and excites. To read Anne O'Reilly's analysis leaves one longing to return to theatre and to play. While the text is utterly readable, the ideas shared are profound. The theme 'journey' is common in every play but it is explored from different angles; we glimpse understandings of the journey in search of soul, of self, of healing, of sacred meaning, of the possible, even of transformation. One of the captivating aspects of this book is that, while it's about plays and their stories, it also challenges the reader to rethink and re-imagine his/her own story. It is indeed a literary work of art. –Ann Louise Gilligan

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With such plays as The Beauty Queen (1996), The cripple of Irishman (1997), The Lonesome West (1997), A skull in Connemara (1997), The Lieutenant of Irishmore (2001), and The Pillowman (2003) Martin McDonagh has made a huge reputation for himself internationally, winning multiple awards for his work and enjoying universal critical acclaim. Most recently, he won an Oscar for his short film, Six Shooter (2006). This Collection of essays is a vital and significant response to the many challenges set by McDonagh for those involved in the production and reception of his work. The volume brings together critics and commentators from around the world, who assess the work from a diverse range of often provocative approaches. What is not surprising is the focus and commitment of the engagement, given this controversial and stimulating nature of the work. Whether for or against, this is an essential read for all who wish to enter the complex debate about Theatre of Martin McDonagh.

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Out of History is the first book to appear on the work of award-winning Irish author Sebastian Barry. Barry is recognized as one of Ireland's greatest living writers and his works now appear regularly on syllabuses in U.S.colleges, in Irish Studies and in Drama departments. This book, edited by Christina Hunt Mahony, presents twelve essays that trace the development of the writer's career and the individual achievement of his works, concentrating largely, but not exclusively, on the plays. The essays address Barry's engagement with the contemporary cultural debate in Ireland and also with issues that inform postcolonlal critical theory. The essays in this volume include contributions from the most prominent of Irish Studies critics from Ireland, Britain, and the United States. Among the contributors are two prize-winning novelists, a historian and recent biographer of the poet W.B. Yeats, a former editor ofPoetry Ireland,and several theatre historians and critics. The range and selection of contributors to this volume has ensured a high level of critical expression and an insightful assessment of Barry and his works.

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