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- Berglund, Lars, 1964-
(author)
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Studier i Christian Geists vokalmusik
- 2002
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This dissertation is an historical and analytical study of the vocal works of Christian Geist (c1650–1711), composed for the royal Swedish court and for the German church in Gothenburg. Theoretically it draws on the model of genre history advocated by Carl Dahlhaus.The first three chapters deal with Geist’s biography and milieu, the manuscript sources and the uses of his music. The second part deals with Geist’s compositions, and the relation between use, musical design and genre traditions are studied. The compositions are analysed and interpreted as individual solutions to problems in the history of composition, related to questions of genre and to important changes in compositional techniques from around 1650.A typical feature of Geist’s music is a resistance to regular solutions. This is manifested in the reciprocal relation between the use of generic and schematic models on the one hand, and the constant effort to break, differentiate and modify these models. The most individualistic solutions are to be found in his settings of Latin devotional poetry, some of which were composed for royal Communion services. These are designed as clearly sectionalised, stylistically differentiated arias with very strong affect, accomplished mainly by harmonic means. His concertos for regular worship services and solemn occasions stay closer to the norms of the genre. Still, they are marked by the integration of a modern, italianate approach to harmony based on cadence progressions and a regular grouping of phrases, which radically changes the design of the concerto textures.
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