CFP: Music in Goethe�s Faust:Goethe�s Faust in Music, National Univ. of Ireland Maynooth, Apr 2012
AMS
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
20.-22. April 2012
Department of Music and School of Modern Languages, Literatures and Culture,
National University of Ireland Maynooth
Deadline for proposals: Friday, 20 May 2011
The name �Faust� and the adjective �faustian� are as emblematic of the supra-intellectual as they are of the tragic. Such concepts haunt German cultural life and have prompted countless discussions in philosophy, literature, the visual arts and music, especially in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through this a broad trajectory can be traced from Zelter�s colourful record of the first setting of Goethe�s Faust - composed by prince and rehearsed by a royal cast in Berlin in 1816 - to Alfred Schnittke�s Faust opera of 1993. Between these two realizations, a floodtide of musical interpretations of Goethe�s Faust came into existence; these explore the theme of love, so central to opera, and the concomitant themes of redemption for both Gretchen and Faust.
Despite this and despite the numerous settings it has inspired, the centrality of Faust I and II in German music theatre remain unexplored. In recent studies Hans Joachim Kreutzer (2003) has observed that the musical rhetoric of Faust I and II is organic and central to its form, and Tina Hartmann�s analysis of the musical material in Faust (2004) traces how the libretto emerged from a wonderfully intricate web of musico-theatrical connections in texts. This conference will re-examine the musical origins of Goethe�s Faust and explore the musical dimensions of its legacy. It will seek to uncover the musical furore caused by Goethe�s Faust and consider why his polemical text was so resonant for the generations of composers that succeeded him.
FOR FURTHER DETAILS SEE: http://music.nuim.ie/newsevents/conferences/goethesfaustinmusic