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Form, Narrative and Intertextuality in W agner's Overture to D er fliegende H olländer
Author(s) -
Moortele Steven Vande
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
music analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.25
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1468-2249
pISSN - 0262-5245
DOI - 10.1111/musa.12007
Subject(s) - opera , intertextuality , narrative , symphony , musical , literature , drama , art , narratology , conjunction (astronomy) , philosophy , physics , astronomy
In this essay I analyse the form of W agner's overture to D er fliegende H olländer (1841) as part of a constellation that also includes the composer's published programme for the overture as well as the stage action and a few key musical events in the opera. To that end, I use analytical tools inspired by the ‘new Formenlehre ’ ( W illiam C aplin's theory of formal functions and J ames H epokoski and W arren D arcy's theory of sonata form) in conjunction with aspects of narrative and intertextuality. I argue that W agner's innovative use of musical form in the overture functions as a background against which events in the opera are thrown into relief, so that both can be understood as two essentially different versions of the same narrative. In the overture, sophisticated manipulation of the conventions of musical form generates a symphonic narrative, while changes to the narrative in the opera are articulated by the reworking of aspects of that same musical form at crucial moments in the drama. Both the overture's form and the opera's dramaturgical design gain in significance through an intertextual dialogue that W agner sets up between his opera and the model of Weber's D er F reischütz (1821).