Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Commencements and Contexts
- 2 On the Reception of Schubert's Self-Quotations
- 3 Two Scores and Their Musical Relationships
- 4 Parents and Children: On the Background to “Ave Maria”
- 5 From “Ave Maria” to Trio
- 6 “Dedicated to Nobody, Save Those Who Find Pleasure in It”
- 7 Contexts and Conclusions
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 October 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Commencements and Contexts
- 2 On the Reception of Schubert's Self-Quotations
- 3 Two Scores and Their Musical Relationships
- 4 Parents and Children: On the Background to “Ave Maria”
- 5 From “Ave Maria” to Trio
- 6 “Dedicated to Nobody, Save Those Who Find Pleasure in It”
- 7 Contexts and Conclusions
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Among composers who came of age in the nineteenth century, Schubert ranks as the first figure in a long line of musicians who extensively quoted their own ideas, particularly in the transfer of themes and motives from his voluminous repertory of songs to his instrumental works. He did so often enough that musicologists have taken up the matter of his reusing his earlier pieces. Although by no means the earliest writer to do so, in 1966, Maurice J. E. Brown signaled that the topic deserved a consideration of its own, which was independent of idiosyncratic similarities resulting from the composer's highly individual style:
Where Schubert is concerned, there are plenty of opportunities to point to musical analogues from his compositions. The strongly personal element in his melodies and modulations was bound to produce such musical likenesses. Unless the placing together of these likenesses achieves some purpose, it becomes, as already mentioned, simply an idle pursuit. Self-borrowing, of course, is another matter. To draw attention to his use of the B flat Entr’acte in Rosamunde for the slow movement of the A minor String Quartet, or of the introduction to the “Italian” Overture in D major, D. 590 in that of Die Zauberharfe Overture [D. 644] is essential in any discussion of the works in questions, and it would seem odd if any commentator omitted to do so.
So engaging is this subject, which Eva Badura-Skoda described as “an abiding fascination to the theme ‘Schubert quotes Schubert’” and Harry Goldschmidt deemed “the greatest and most bothersome ‘blank spot’” in research on the composer, that the scholarship on this repertory, pace Brown, has even licensed the assemblage of entire lists: Reinhard van Hoorickx enumerated thirty-three “reminiscences,” John Reed came up with forty-seven “thematic and stylistic links between the songs and the instrumental works,” and Goldschmidt considered categorizing “around 10,000 authentically documented motives and figures” from Schubert's entire vocal repertory in his instrumental output before concluding that far too many semantic ambiguities existed, making any explicit classification impossible.
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- Self-Quotation in Schubert"Ave Maria," the Second Piano Trio, and Other Works, pp. 1 - 8Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2020