Paradise Lost in Short: Smith, Stillingfleet, and the Transformation of Epic

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Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1998 - 195 Seiten
Paradise Lost in Short presents the history of early adaptations of Milton's Paradise Lost for the musical stage. Students of Milton and of eighteenth-century music, as well as anyone interested in how generic expectations and social conditions contribute to the shaping of artistic works, will find this volume useful. Paradise Lost: An Oratorio was first performed at Covent Garden the year after Handel's death and revived in two later seasons. The libretto by Benjamin Stillingfleet and the music by John Christopher Smith the younger, friend and former pupil of Handel, provide a reinterpretation of Milton's major poem.

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Inhalt

Preface
7
Acknowledgments
9
Paradise Lost An Oratorio
13
From Epic to Oratorio
47
The Performances
90
The Musical Structure of Paradise Lost An Oratorio
103
The Librettist and the Composer
156
Jagos Advertisement and Instructions to the Composer
170
Notes
173
Bibliography
186
Index
192
Urheberrecht

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Beliebte Passagen

Seite 158 - Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. Praise him with the timbrel and dance : praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord.
Seite 69 - fair light, And thou enlighten'd earth, so fresh and gay, Ye hills, and dales, ye rivers, woods, and plains, And ye that live and move, fair creatures, tell, Tell, if ye saw, how came I thus, how here?
Seite 38 - Others apart sat on a hill retir'd, In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate; Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.
Seite 60 - The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.
Seite 71 - Return, fair Eve ; Whom fliest thou ? whom thou fliest, of him thou art, His flesh, his bone ; to give thee being I lent Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart, Substantial life ; to have thee by my side Henceforth an individual solace dear.
Seite 81 - Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale ; and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself, Sound His stupendous praise ; whose greater voice Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Seite 80 - WE praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord. All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting. To thee, all Angels cry aloud; the Heavens, and all the Powers therein. To thee, Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth; Heaven and earth are full of the Majesty of thy Glory.
Seite 35 - Before the greatness displayed in Milton's poem, all other greatness shrinks away. The weakest of his agents are the highest and noblest of human beings, the original parents of mankind...
Seite 49 - DD approves of my performance, and that gives me some reason to think it not bad, though all I have had to do has been collecting and making the connection between the fine parts. I begin with Satan's threatenings to seduce the woman, her being seduced follows, and it ends with the man's yielding to the temptation ; I would not have a word or...
Seite 68 - Both have sinn'd, but thou Against God only, I against God and thee, And to the place of judgment will return, There with my cries importune Heaven, that all The sentence, from thy head removed, may light On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe,. Me, me only, just object of his ire!

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