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Article: The Variations of Johannes Brahms.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Notes
- Article date:
- December 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Music Library Association, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Variations of Johannes Brahms. By Julian Littlewood. (Poetics of Music.) London: Plumbago Books, 2004. [xiii, 369 p. ISBN 0-9540123-4-8. $39.95.] Music examples, bibliography, indexes.
Julian Littlewood's The Variations of Johannes Brahms is the first published monograph devoted entirely to Brahms's variations. Seeing variation form as an ideal arena to explore "the stylistic and generic interplay that lay at the heart of Brahms's style" (p. 71), the author traces an array of concerns by placing the variations "in the broader contexts of affect, kinetic control, stylistic reference and intermingling, voice-leading, instrumental writing, narrative drama, ...