• Laura Rossi’s War Musics

    Author(s):
    Kendra Leonard (see profile)
    Date:
    2019
    Group(s):
    American Musicological Society, Film Studies, Society for Music Theory
    Subject(s):
    Musicology, Musical analysis, Culture, Motion picture music
    Item Type:
    Book chapter
    Tag(s):
    Cultural musicology, Film music
    Permanent URL:
    http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/p7bn-1789
    Abstract:
    British composer Laura Rossi is perhaps best known for her work providing new scores for silent films, including The Battle of the Somme (1915), The Battle of the Ancre (1917), and a selection of very early cinematic adaptations of Shakespeare (1899-1911) that appeared as Silent Shakespeare in 1998. Rossi is also the composer of scores for many recent films and was nominated for an Academy Award for her music for Unfinished Song (2012). In addition to her film music, for which she has received wide recognition and critical praise, Rossi has also been heralded for her concert works, which include settings of songs by Gerald Manley Hopkins; chamber works for string quartet, percussion ensemble, and saxophone and piano; and, most recently, Voices of Remembrance for orchestra, choir, and spoken voices. Voices was composed for the centenary of the First World War, and includes spoken recitations of ten World War One poems, musical settings of three of the poems, and instrumental-only movements based on the remaining seven poems. Rossi, writing about Voices, connects it directly with her research and experiences in composing scores for the silent war films mentioned above and in learning of and uncovering her own uncle’s war service and diaries. Multiple texts, including the diaries, photographs, and oral histories inform Voices. In this essay, I provide a close reading of Rossi’s Voices in the context of both her film scores and her other concert music, focusing on her works referencing the Great War and those affected by it. I offer analysis of Rossi’s approaches to these related topics across genres and her methods of creating music to accompany texts and testimonies of various natures documenting the Great War.
    Metadata:
    xml
    Published as:
    Book chapter     Show details
    Publisher:
    Routledge
    Pub. Date:
    February 2019
    Book Title:
    Double Lives: Film Composers in the Concert Hall
    Author/Editor:
    James Wierzbicki, ed.
    Chapter:
    15: Laura Rossi\'s War Musics
    ISBN:
    9780367028879
    Status:
    Published
    Last Updated:
    5 years ago
    License:
    Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
    Share this:

    Downloads

    Item Name: pdf leonard-rossi-proofs.pdf
      Download View in browser
    Activity: Downloads: 122

    Back to Deposits