Die Macht der Musik - Georg Friedrich Handels Alexander's Feast

English summary: John Dryden's poem Alexander's Feast or The Power of Music - an Ode in Honour of St. Cecilia's Day (1697) was highly praised by critics and set to music by Georg Friedrich Handel in 1736. The musical version, too, was a celebrated work of art. Even though the poem was written for St. Cecilia's Day, it is set not in the Christian era but in the time of Alexander the Great after his conquest of the Persian capital Persepolis. This collection of essays explores the piece...
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English summary: John Dryden's poem Alexander's Feast or The Power of Music - an Ode in Honour of St. Cecilia's Day (1697) was highly praised by critics and set to music by Georg Friedrich Handel in 1736. The musical version, too, was a celebrated work of art. Even though the poem was written for St. Cecilia's Day, it is set not in the Christian era but in the time of Alexander the Great after his conquest of the Persian capital Persepolis. This collection of essays explores the piece from different perspectives (English Literature, Classical Philology, Musicology, Theology) and provides new results gained from interdisciplinary studies. Special attention is paid to the relationship between language and music. The book includes a list of performances containing unpublished material as well as a discography and indices of names and objects. It is thus a useful compendium both for specialists and a broader public. German text. German description: Alexander's Feast Or: The Power of Music gehort zu den wenigen Werken der Literatur- und Musikgeschichte, bei denen sowohl Text (John Dryden, 1697) als auch Vertonung (Georg Friedrich Handel, 1736) als Meisterwerke gelten. Das Stuck schildert die machtvolle Wirkung der Musik am Beispiel Alexanders des Grossen: Wahrend eines feierlichen Gelages in Persepolis, mit dem Alexander seinen Sieg uber die Perser begeht, gelingt es dem Sanger Timotheus mit seiner Musik Affektschwankungen - zwischen liebender Zuneigung und kampfeslustiger Rachsucht - beim beruhmten Heerfuhrer zu erreichen. Der Sammelband beleuchtet das bisher wenig behandelte Werk aus der Perspektive verschiedener Fachwissenschaften (Anglistik, Klassische Philologie, Kunstgeschichte, Musikwissenschaft, Theologie). Das Spektrum reicht von der Verarbeitung der zugrunde liegenden antiken Erzahlungen uber die Analyse der Dryden'schen Ode bis hin zur Untersuchung der Vertonung Handels und deren Rezeption.