MUS 15 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Georges Bizet, Colin Mcphee, Peter Pears
Unit 7: The Other and the Self: Exoticism, Gamelan, and Sexuality
- Recapping last class
o Colin McPhee
▪ Lived in Bali, studied the music
▪ Made transcriptions
▪ Tabuh-tabuhan and example of transcultural composing
o Benjamin Britten and gamelan
▪ Introduced to gamelan by McPhee
▪ Later visited Bali
▪ Inspired by gamelan music
- Issues of “eualit i Bejai Britte’s Operas
o Wrote 15 operas
o Several of his operas deal with themes related to homosexuality (usually implicit:
not in the open; implied)
o Main characters are isolated individuals living in hostile societies
▪ Theme of isolated individual living in a hostile society
o Britten was an outsider
o Most famous work
▪ Peter Grimes
• 1945
• Wrote for Peter Pears as Peter Grimes
• Fisherman has an apprentice
o Run out of water and apprentice die (accident)
o On trial of negligent
o Declared innocent
o Judge warned him to not allow another apprentice die
under his watch
o Engaged to marry a school teacher
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▪ He need another apprentice for fishing in order to
make money
▪ Agree to go to orphanage to adopt a child as their
apprentice
o Chased by mob of people who blamed him for the death
of the boy
▪ His new apprentice died (from the chase so not his
fault)
▪ He covered it up
o Second group of mobs start to blame him
o His boat was sunken and killed himself
• Peter Grimes seen as an outsider
o Persecuted by his own society
▪ Conflicting emotion: feel guilty and feel not his
fault at the same time
• Grimes accepts his own shame/guilt
o Mirrors his own identity in some ways
o Britten was religious
▪ Aept the hurh’s judges of his identity
▪ Lied i a soiet that as’t aeptig hi
▪ Perseuted for a rie that he did’t oit i the
first place
o Britten was classed by society
- Death in Venice
o Opera by Britten
o Premiered 1974
▪ Aldeburgh Festical in England
o Based on Thomas Mann novella Der Tod in Venedig
o Plot deals with pederastic attraction
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find more resources at oneclass.com
