A gesamtkunstwerk (often translated as universal artwork, synthesis of the arts, comprehensive artwork, all-embracing art form, total work of art, or total artwork [1]) is a work of art that makes use of all or many art forms The arts is a broad subdivision of culture, composed of many creative endeavors and disciplines. It is a broader term than "art," which as a description of a field usually means only the visual arts. The arts encompasses visual arts, literature and the performing arts - music, drama, dance and film, among others. This list is by no means or strives to do so. The term is originally German German (Deutsch, [ˈdɔʏtʃ] ) is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Globally, German is spoken by approximately 120 million native speakers and also by about 80 million non-native speakers and is commonly used as such in English, but it is often also translated or explained at first mention. It is often capitalised as in German, where all nouns are capitalised, but it is always lowercased when used with an English plural ("gesamtkunstwerks").

The term was first used by the German A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, has been known and documented before AD 100. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted until 1806. During the 16th century, northern Germany became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. As a modern nation-state, writer and philosopher Eusebius Trahndorff in an essay in 1827. The German opera Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score. Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery and costumes and sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, composer Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or "music dramas", as they were later called). Unlike most other opera composers, Wagner wrote both the music and libretto for every one of his works first used the term in his 1849 essay "Art and Revolution "Art and Revolution" is a long essay by the composer Richard Wagner, originally published in 1849. It sets out some of his basic ideas about the role of art in society and the nature of opera". It is unclear whether Wagner knew of Trahndorff's essay.

Contents

Wagner's ideas

In 1849, Wagner described ancient Athenian The theatre of ancient Greece, or ancient Greek drama, is a theatrical culture that flourished in ancient Greece between c. 550 and c. 220 BC. The city-state of Athens, which became a significant cultural, political and military power during this period, was its centre, where it was institutionalised as part of a festival called the Dionysia, tragedy Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of Western civilization. That tradition has been as the "great gesamtkunstwerk". Soon after, in The Artwork of the Future written in the same year, he expanded the meaning of the concept. In his extensive book Opera and Drama (completed in 1851) he described in detail his idea of the union of opera and drama (later called music drama despite Wagner's disapproval of the term), in which the individual arts are subordinated to a common purpose.

Wagner used the term "gesamtkunstwerk" to refer to a performance that combines all the arts, including the performing arts The performing arts are those forms of art which differ from the plastic arts insofar as the former uses the artist's own body, face, and presence as a medium, and the latter uses materials such as clay, metal or paint which can be molded or transformed to create some physical art object. The term "performing arts" first appeared in the (for example music, theater, and dance), literature Literature,, is the art of written works. Literally translated, the word means acquaintance with letters (as in the Arts and Letters"). In Western culture the most basic written literary types include fiction and nonfiction (including poetry), and the visual arts The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, printmaking, modern visual arts , design and crafts. These definitions should not be taken too strictly as many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) involve aspects of (for example painting, sculpture, and architecture). The gesamtkunstwerk was to be the clearest and most profound expression of a folk tale, though abstracted from its nationalist particulars to a universal humanist fable.

Wagner felt that the Greek tragedies of Aeschylus Aeschylus was an ancient Greek playwright. His name derives from the Greek word αισχος (aischos), meaning "shame".[citation needed] He is often recognized as the father of tragedy, and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedians whose plays survive, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. According to Aristotle, he expanded the had been the finest (though still flawed) examples so far of total artistic synthesis, but that this synthesis had subsequently been corrupted by Euripides Euripides (ca. 480 BCE – 406 BCE) was the last of the three great tragedians of classical Athens (the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles). Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias. Eighteen or nineteen of Euripides' plays have survived complete. There has. Wagner felt that during the rest of human history up to the present day (i.e. 1850) the arts had drifted further and further apart, resulting in such 'monstrosities' as Grand Opera Grand Opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage-effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events. The term is particularly applied to certain productions of the Paris Opéra from the late 1820s to. Wagner felt that such works celebrated bravura singing, sensational stage effects, and meaningless plots.

Before Wagner

Some elements of opera reform, seeking a more 'classical' formula, had begun at the end of the 18th century. After the lengthy domination of opera seria Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to ca. 1770. The term itself was rarely used at the time and only became common usage once opera seria became unfashionable, and was viewed as a historical genre. The popular rival to opera, and the da capo aria The da capo aria was a musical form prevalent in the Baroque era. It was sung by a soloist with the accompaniment of instruments, often a small orchestra. The da capo aria was common in the musical genres of opera and oratorio, a movement began to advance the librettist A libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio and cantata, musical, and ballet. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata and the composer in relation to the singers, and to return the drama to a more intense and less moralistic focus. This movement, "reform opera" is primarily associated with Christoph Willibald Gluck Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck was an opera composer of the early classical period. After many years at the Habsburg court at Vienna, Gluck brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices that many intellectuals had been campaigning for over the years. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them Orfeo ed and Ranieri de' Calzabigi. The themes in the operas produced by Gluck's collaborations with Calzabigi continue throughout the operas of Carl Maria von Weber Carl Maria Friedrich Ernst von Weber was a German composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school, until Wagner, rejecting both the Italian bel canto Bel canto (Italian, "beautiful singing"), along with a number of similar constructions ("bellezze del canto"/"bell’arte del canto"), is an Italian opera term. It has several different meanings and is subject to a wide array of interpretations tradition and the French French opera is one of Europe's most important operatic traditions, containing works by composers of the stature of Rameau, Berlioz, Bizet, Debussy, Poulenc and Olivier Messiaen. Many foreign-born composers have played a part in the French tradition too, including Gluck, Cherubini, Rossini, Meyerbeer, Offenbach and Verdi "spectacle opera", developed his union of music, drama, theatrical effects, and occasionally dance. However these trends had developed fortuitously, rather than in response to a specific philosophy of art; Wagner, who recognised the reforms of Gluck and admired the works of Weber, wished to consolidate his view, originally, as part of his radical social and political views of the late 1840s.

Other artistic uses of the term

Paul Valéry Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), he also wrote many essays and aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events[2] argued that museums might be examples of gesamtkunstwerks, as they combined both the visual arts being displayed, constant background music, the design of the building and the presentation of the works of art, and the necessary ambience of the public place in which the viewers found themselves.

See also

References

  1. ^ "universal artwork" entry at ArtLex Art Dictionary
  2. ^ Valery, Paul Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath. In addition to his poetry and fiction (drama and dialogues), he also wrote many essays and aphorisms on art, history, letters, music, and current events. The Collected Works of Paul Valery: Degas, Manet, Morisot (Collected Works of Paul Valery, Degas, Manet, Morisot). Princeton Univ Pr. ISBN The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created by Gordon Foster, now Emeritus Professor of Statistics at Trinity College, Dublin, for the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966 0-691-09839-5.
Opera terms
Aria An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment. Perhaps the most common context for arias is opera, although there are many arias that form movements of oratorios and · Aria di sorbetto The Aria di sorbetto, or "sherbet aria", was a convention of Italian opera in the early nineteenth century · Arioso In classical music, arioso is a style of solo opera singing between recitative and aria. Literally, arioso means airy. The term arose in the 16th century along with the aforementioned styles and monody. It is commonly confused with recitativo accompagnato · Bel canto Bel canto (Italian, "beautiful singing"), along with a number of similar constructions ("bellezze del canto"/"bell’arte del canto"), is an Italian opera term. It has several different meanings and is subject to a wide array of interpretations · Breeches role A breeches role is a role in which an actress appears in male clothing (breeches being tight-fitting knee-length pants, the standard male garment at the time breeches roles were introduced). In opera it can also refer to any male character that is sung and acted by a female singer. Most often the character is an adolescent or a very young man, · Burletta A burletta , also sometimes burla or burlettina, is a musical term generally denoting a brief comic Italian (or, later, English) opera. The term was used in the 18th century to denote the comic intermezzos between the acts of an opera seria, but was sometimes given to more extended works; Pergolesi's La serva padrona was designated a 'burletta' at · Cabaletta Cabaletta describes the two-part musical form particularly favored for arias in 19th century Italian opera, and is more properly the name of the more animated section following the songlike cantabile. As its name implies, it often introduces a complication or intensification of emotion and/or plot · Cadenza In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display · Cantabile Cantabile is a musical term meaning literally "singable" or "songlike" . It has several meanings in different contexts. In instrumental music, it indicates a particular style of playing designed to imitate the human voice. For 18th century composers, the term is often used synonymously with "cantando" (singing), and · Castrato A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity · Cavatina Cavatina is a musical term, originally a short song of simple character, without a second strain or any repetition of the air. It is now frequently applied to a simple melodious air, as distinguished from a brilliant aria, recitative, et cetera, and often forms part of a large movement or scena in oratorio or opera · Chest voice Chest voice is a term used within vocal music. The use of this term varies widely within vocal pedagogical circles and there is currently no one consistent opinion among vocal music professionals in regards to this term. Chest voice can be used in relation to the following: · Claque Claque is, in its origin, a term which refers to an organized body of professional applauders in French theatres and opera houses. Members of a claque are called claqueurs · Coloratura Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and 19th centuries, with runs, trills, wide leaps, · Comprimario A Comprimario is a supporting role in an opera. Derived from the Italian "con primario", or "with the primary", the term refers to a performer who sings small role pieces · Convenienze Convenienze were the rules relating to the ranking of singers (primo, secondo, comprimario) in 19th-century Italian opera, and the number of scenes, arias etc. that they were entitled to expect · Coup de glotte Coup de glotte or 'shock of the glottis' is a term used in the theory of singing technique to describe a particular method of emitting or opening a note by an abrupt physical mechanism of the glottis . During the 19th century there was disagreement among teachers and performers as to whether the technique should be taught as a normal part of vocal · Da capo aria The da capo aria was a musical form prevalent in the Baroque era. It was sung by a soloist with the accompaniment of instruments, often a small orchestra. The da capo aria was common in the musical genres of opera and oratorio · Diva A diva is a celebrated female singer. The term is used to describe a woman of outstanding talent in the world of opera, and, by extension, in theatre, cinema and popular music. The meaning of diva is closely related to that of "prima donna" · Divertissement · Duodrama A duodrama is a theatrical melodrama for two actors or singers, in which the spoken voice is used with a musical accompaniment for heightened dramatic effect. It was popular at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century · Entr'acte Entr'acte is French for "between the acts" . It can mean a pause between two parts of a stage production, synonymous to an intermission, but it more often indicates a piece of music (interlude) performed between acts of a theatrical production. In the case of stage musicals, the entr'acte serves as the overture of Act Two (and sometimes · Fach The German Fach (German pronunciation: [ˈfax, ˈfɛçɐ]) system is a method of classifying singers, primarily opera singers, according to the range, weight, and color of their voices. It is used world wide, but primarily in Europe, especially in German-speaking countries and by repertory opera houses · Falsetto Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal cords, in whole or in part. Commonly cited in the context of singing, falsetto, a characteristic of phonation by both men and · Falsettone Falsettone is the term used by modern Italian musicology to mean an ancient vocal technique consisting in strengthening and amplifying falsetto’s white sounds, so as to utter highest and bright notes, which still sounded, at the same time, rather piercing and quivering. The term falsettone is also used for the mixed vocal register which could be · Fioritura · Gesamtkunstwerk · Head voice · Hovsångare · Intermezzo · Kammersänger · Leitmotif · Legato · Libretto · Literaturoper · Mad scene · Maestro · Melodrama · Melodramma · Messa di voce · Monodrama · Musico · Opera house · Passaggio · Portamento · Prima donna · Prompter · Recitative · Regietheater · Répétiteur · Ritornello · Sitzprobe · Spinto · Sprechgesang · Squillo · Stagione · Surtitles · Tessitura · Timbre · Vibrato

Categories: Art genres | German loanwords | Opera terminology | Richard Wagner | German words and phrases

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