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Four Last Songs: Aging and Creativity in Verdi, Strauss, Messiaen, and Britten

Four Last Songs: Aging and Creativity in Verdi, Strauss, Messiaen, and Britten

by Linda Hutcheon (Author), Michael Hutcheon (Author), Linda Hutcheon (Author), Michael Hutcheon (Author)

  • New

    Paperback 2016

    $22.59
Synopsis

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.

$22.59

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 160
 Edition: Reprint
 Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 26 Oct 2016
ISBN 10: 022642068X
ISBN 13: 9780226420684

Media Reviews
An extremely inspiring study of a heroic quartet.
--Leslie Barcza barczablog
Four Last Songs takes its readers on a vivid musicological journey across the rhythms of tradition and discords of modernity to arrive at the late careers of Verdi, Strauss, Messiaen, and Britten, whose operas tell big stories about nation and identity, finitude and transcendence. Bravo to the Hutcheons for bringing their historical discoveries and brilliant sense of the unexplored to inspire age studies today and into the future. --Stephen Katz, Trent University
This is an excellent book with implications and resonances that reach far beyond the study of the four composers. It displays a tremendous range of knowledge across a spectrum of disciplines: musicology, critical theory, humanistic gerontology. The Hutcheons are pioneers in creating such a synthesis. Timely in its arguments, Four Last Songs will appeal widely and make a powerful impact. --Gordon McMullan, King s College London
As a practicing geriatrician, I was inspired by these accounts of creativity in old age. As an opera lover (Verdi s Falstaff is one of my particular favorites), I enjoyed the stories about these remarkable composers. I would highly recommend this elegantly written book for any reader interested in opera, or creativity, or aging. --Barry J. Goldlist, University of Toronto and Mount Sinai Hospital
An extremely inspiring study of a heroic quartet.
--Leslie Barcza barczablog
Four Last Songs takes its readers on a vivid musicological journey across the rhythms of tradition and discords of modernity to arrive at the late careers of Verdi, Strauss, Messiaen, and Britten, whose operas tell big stories about nation and identity, finitude and transcendence. Bravo to the Hutcheons for bringing their historical discoveries and brilliant sense of the unexplored to inspire age studies today and into the future. --Stephen Katz, Trent University
This is an excellent book with implications and resonances that reach far beyond the study of the four composers. It displays a tremendous range of knowledge across a spectrum of disciplines: musicology, critical theory, humanistic gerontology. The Hutcheons are pioneers in creating such a synthesis. Timely in its arguments, Four Last Songs will appeal widely and make a powerful impact. --Gordon McMullan, King's College London
As a practicing geriatrician, I was inspired by these accounts of creativity in old age. As an opera lover (Verdi's Falstaff is one of my particular favorites), I enjoyed the stories about these remarkable composers. I would highly recommend this elegantly written book for any reader interested in opera, or creativity, or aging. --Barry J. Goldlist, University of Toronto and Mount Sinai Hospital
Author Bio
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.