Catullus in Twentieth-Century Music: Lyrics and Lyricism

One of the most famous voices to have survived from the Roman world, Catullus's poetry is still amongst the most popular and widely read. But what is it that makes this 2,000-year-old voice so relevant, so personal, and so endlessly fascinating? Reinvigorating discussions around the nature of Catullus's lyricism, Catullus in Twentieth-Century Music takes a completely new approach to Catullus and ideas of lyric. It centres around four musical works from the twentieth century, each one capturing the essence of Catullus in musical retellings and showcasing a very personal response to the original text. Considering how and why these musical composers used Catullus's poetry as their stimulus allows us to uncover new ideas about Catullus's poetry. By considering the very process of reception, Stephanie Oade takes a broader view of lyric, identifying traits and characteristics that are common to both music and poetry, thus transcending the boundaries of individual art forms in order to consider the genre in larger, interdisciplinary terms. It offers insights into compositional processes and challenges audiences to think about ways of engaging with music and poetry. More than anything, it shows how ancient voices continue to resound in modernity and offer everlasting expression for our own experiences and emotions. Cover 1 Catullus in Twentieth-Century Music: Lyrics and Lyricism 4 Copyright 5 Dedication 6 Acknowledgements 8 Contents 10 List of Figures and Tables 14 Figures 14 Tables 14 List of Excerpts 16 1: Introduction 20 Part I : Catullus as a Lyric Poet 28 The Context: Ideas of Lyric 29 2: Catullus within the Ancient Lyric Tradition 34 Archaic lyric 34 Classical lyric 43 Hellenistic lyric 46 Closing thoughts on Catullus’s lyric consciousness 52 3: A Modern Lyric View of Catullus 54 An overview of lyric theory 54 The Catullan lyric voice within the modern lyric tradition 60 Subjectivity 60 Addressivity 63 The single setting and the lyric ‘now’ 67 Universality 70 Generic proximity 78 Closing thoughts on modern lyric’s priorities 83 4: Music and Lyric 84 Lyric in music 84 The relationship between lyric and music 85 Classical texts in music 87 Catullus in music 90 The case studies 92 Closing thoughts on the impact of music on our understanding of Catullus 101 Part II : Lyric and Song 104 The Context: Catullus in Rorem and Rawsthorne 105 5: The Lyric Setting in Rorem’s Catullus: On the Burial of His Brother 109 The text: Catullus 101 109 Appropriation and mediation 110 Structural decisions 115 Unity and the single lyric setting 121 Closing thoughts on Rorem’s setting of Catullus 127 6: Instability in Catullus 3 and Rawsthorne’s Lament for a Sparrow 129 The text: Catullus 3 and its internal divisions 129 Changing voices: the ‘communal’ voice of the choir 133 Changing voices: the ‘personal’ voice of the solo tenor 136 Scene changes 141 Closing thoughts on Rawsthorne’s setting of Catullus 152 Part III: Staging the Cycle 154 The Context: Orff’s Catullus 155 7: Cycles in Catullus and Orff’s Catulli Carmina: Ludi Scaenici 160 Composing in cycles 160 Cycles in Catullus 164 Orff’s Catullan cycle 168 Closing thoughts on the cyclical readings 180 8: Orff’s Narrative-Dramatic Cycle 183 Moving away from the cycle 183 Dramatic voices 183 Dramatic action 188 The frame construct 192 The narrative chorus 197 Resolution 201 Closing thoughts on Orff’s narrative-dramatic devices 209 Part IV: Lyric and Drama 212 The Context: The Presence of Catullus 64 in Strauss–Hofmannsthal’s Ariadne auf Naxos 213 9: Lyric Structures in Catullus 64 and Strauss–Hofmannsthal’s Ariadne auf Naxos 225 Frame structures 225 Catullus 64: lyric perspectives 227 Multiple perspectives in Ariadne auf Naxos 236 Das Gleitende 244 Closing thoughts on the lyric frame structures 250 10: A Lyric Figure: Ariadne 251 A focus on Ariadne 251 The isolation of Catullus’s Ariadne 251 Ariadne’s speech 253 Lyric themes: sex and death 258 Psychology 261 The liminality of Hofmannsthal’s Ariadne 262 Das Gleitende (again) 267 A fin-de-siècle Ariadne 270 Alternative models of sexuality 276 Closing thoughts on Ariadne 280 11: Strauss’s Musical Drama 284 Strauss’s musical narration 284 Musical styles and historicism in Ariadne auf Naxos 286 The musical drama 292 Closing thoughts on Strauss’s musical drama 308 12: Conclusion 311 Appendix 1: Beardsley’s ‘Ave Atque Vale’ 318 Appendix 2: A Glossary of Musical Terminology 319 Bibliography 324 Scores, recordings, and text editions (ordered by chapter) 324 Texts 324 Scores 324 Recordings 324 General 324 Index 338