A01=Linda Hutcheon
A01=Michael Hutcheon
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
aging
Author_Linda Hutcheon
Author_Michael Hutcheon
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benjamin britten
capriccio
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=AVC
Category=AVLA
Category=AVN
classical music
comedic success
COP=United States
creatives
creativity
criticism
death in venice
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_art-fashion-photography
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eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
european history
falstaff
famous artists
giuseppe verdi
italian composers
Language_English
musicology
nazi germany
olivier messiaen
operas
PA=Available
performing arts
political problems
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
psychological aspects
richard strauss
saint francois d assise
softlaunch
wagner
Product details
- ISBN 9780226420684
- Weight: 255g
- Dimensions: 16 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 04 Nov 2016
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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Aging and creativity can seem a particularly fraught relationship for artists, who often face age-related difficulties as their audience's expectations are at a peak. In Four Last Songs, Linda and Michael Hutcheon explore this issue via the late works of some of the world's greatest composers. Giuseppe Verdi (1813 1901), Richard Strauss (1864 1949), Olivier Messiaen (1908 92), and Benjamin Britten (1913 76) all wrote operas late in life, pieces that reveal unique responses to the challenges of growing older. Verdi's Falstaff, his only comedic success, combated Richard Wagner's influence by introducing young Italian composers to a new model of national music. Strauss, on the other hand, struggling with personal and political problems in Nazi Germany, composed the self-reflexive Capriccio, a "life review" of opera and his own legacy. Though it exhausted him physically and emotionally, Messiaen at the age of seventy-five finished his only opera, Saint Fran ois d'Assise, which marked the pinnacle of his career. Britten, meanwhile, suffering from heart problems, refused surgery until he had completed his masterpiece, Death in Venice.
For all four composers, age, far from sapping their creative power, provided impetus for some of their best accomplishments. With its deft treatment of these composers' final years and works, Four Last Songs provides a valuable look at the challenges and opportunities that present themselves as artists grow older.
Linda Hutcheon is university professor emeritus of English and comparative literature at the University of Toronto and the author of many books on contemporary culture and theory. Michael Hutcheon is a pulmonologist and professor of medicine at the University of Toronto. Together they have written several books on opera and medical culture, most recently Opera: The Art of Dying.
