摘要
Henry Purcell(1659-1695)and Benjamin Britten(1913-1976)are the main figures in English musical culture.Britten was particularly inspired by Purcell’s illustrative approach to putting together music and text,thus creating fascinating connections between different historical and musical contexts.This paper will analyse and show the correlation between Britten’s realizations of Purcell’s setting of songs Orpheus Britannicus and the input in the original Britten’s vocal cycle Sechs H?lderlin-Fragmente op.61.The harmonious language of the songs and different thematic motives and their relationship will be considered.It will demonstrate that Britten’s songs were very much shaped by thematic structure,intervals like could be found in Purcell’s vocal music and they show the parallels between Britten’s realizations of Purcell’s songs and the input in the original Britten’s vocal music.The article presents the results of the analysis of a song cycle using the method of musical analysis of Rudolph Réti based on his understanding of a“thematic process”in music.The paper will use the case of Britten’s vocal cycle Sechs H?lderlin-Fragmente op.61(1958)to explain how this cycle is structured.The song cycle will be analysed from the perspective of cyclicity based on Réti’s theory of microtopicality explaining an organic cohesion between architectonics of composition and the parts of a vocalist and a pianist.It is argued that the cyclicity in the song cycle is created through the cross-links between the textual and musical dramaturgic lines and could be sayed about the realizations of Purcell’s Six Songs from Orpheus Britannicus(1943-45).First,the structure of the thematic motives(prime cells)in the setting of Britten’s realizations of Purcell’s Orpheus Britannicus Six Songs will be analysed and the deep connection in cyclicity will be considered.Second,the thematic motives(prime cells)in the realizations that are cross-linked with the original Britten’s vocal cycle Sechs H?lderlin-Fragmente op.61 will be uncovered.Third,the correlation between the scheme of tonality and the other linkages of the setting of realizations and the vocal cycle will be considered.
