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Francis Hutton-Williams This essay explores the freedom that Beckett allowed for musical collaborations, a consideration that often surprises scholars given the notorious degree of control that he exerted on the stage.1 Specifically, it addresses the concept of a `text-music tandem' in the 1987 composition that Morton Feldman wrote for Beckett's Words and Music (1961). The relationship between Words and Music in the play or between `Joe' and `Bob' as Croak calls them is as perplexing as that of any of Beckett's better-known character couples. Less critical attention, however, has been given to their compassionate modes of alliance. The first part of this essay reconstructs the genesis of Words and Music from biographical sources that suggest a crucial interim between the play's composition and the creative stimulus it was intended to provide for the author's musical cousin, who had spent five months in recovery after a car accident in Little Bray. A reading follows which explores the effects of healing and renewal in the play's disassembling of operatic form. The second part of the essay analyses Feldman's contribution to the play in more detail, and the new partnerships that his music provides. Many composers have believed that
Modernist Cultures – Edinburgh University Press
Published: May 1, 2013
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