Musical Leitmotives

This paper explores a handful of Leitmotifs used within the Lord of the Rings trilogy, particularly focusing on the themes introduced within The Fellowship of the Ring. Contains an in-depth analysis of the motifs and points at which they're reiterated.

Presently,  a  leitmotif  is  defined  simply  as  a  repeated  musical  passage  that  has semantic  connections  to  a  narrative,  whether  in  film  or  in  opera.  This  means  that  a  musical motif can have multiple manifestations, both musically and stylistically, whilst still meeting the requirements to define it as a leitmotiv. Therefore, to an extent, the leitmotif can be considered something of a nebulous. It is currently understood to exist as a single, complete entity, but in fact appears to have multiple manifestations that have yet to be demarcated.

The  following  paper  attempts  to  delineate  subtypes  of  leitmotifs,  termed  schizo-leitmotivs.  After identifying a prototype in the operas of Richard Wagner, I begin to establish three of its progeny schizo-leitmotivs. I term these: the rote leitmotiv; the zygonic leitmotiv; the experiential leitmotiv. Applying scientific framework in the form of prominent cognitive theories, I will stipulate the parameters of each schizo-leitmotiv, defining how each is identified and how each operates, before providing examples in Howard Shore’s score for The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. In doing this, I hope this to develop the concept of the leitmotif from an equivocal term to a multi-level theory with definite parameters.

Submitted towards the award of Bachelor of Arts in Music at the University Of Liverpool.

This thesis explores the intersections between repetition, leitmotif and the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze in the context the BBC television series Doctor Who (1963-1989; 2005- ). Deleuze proposes that instead of the return of the same, repetition, by its constant insertion in a new temporal context can produce difference as part of the process of the eternal return. He also rejects the concepts of being in favour of becoming. I argue his framework on repetition allows us to broaden the definition of the leitmotif and embrace the role of repetition. I analyse the leitmotif of three characters: Amy Pond, River Song, and the Doctor.  In all three instances, the leitmotifs are an active participant in the process of becoming while, simultaneously, undergoing their own becoming. For River, the leitmotif also works as a territorializing refrain, while for the Doctor, use of leitmotif paradoxically gives the impression of being.

I focus on how peritexts (opening cutscenes) within a video game reveal narratives of broader peritexts related to but outside a game, namely its reception history and developing mythology. The installments comprising The Legend of Zelda series present strong cases to investigate. The reception history and mythology of The Wind Waker and Twilight Princess clue us into the complex, causal relationship both games have, which comes into sharp focus upon analyzing the music of select peritexts, "The Legendary Hero" of the former and the title screen of the latter.

In fact, analysis of the visual, narrative, and musical content within the opening narrative peritext of WW and the title-screen peritext of TP reveal microcosms of their reception history and contextualization within the Zelda mythology.

The opera libretto Comala (1774) by Ranieri Calzabigi has traditionally been regarded as one of the poet’s lesser creations. It has sometimes been dismissed as being too closely based on Melchiorre Cesarotti’s influential Italian translation from 1763 of the eponymous dramatic poem, which James Macpherson included in his 1762 collection of the songs of Ossian, adapted or translated from Gaelic oral poems. In the present article, however, the author argues that Calzabigi’s Comala was not only an independent adaptation but also a highly original attempt to translate the peculiar poetic and cultural features of the Ossianic world – its savagery, sublimity, melancholy, and psychological obscurity – into theatrical terms. In this experimental musical drama, Calzabigi depicts the mysterious death of the overstrung heroine as the culmination of a process of withdrawing physically from the other characters and ultimately from the stage itself, as a metaphor for her gradual withdrawal from l...

The opera libretto Comala (1774) by Ranieri Calzabigi has
traditionally been regarded as one of the poet’s lesser creations.
It has sometimes been dismissed as being too closely based on
Melchiorre Cesarotti’s influential Italian translation from 1763
of the eponymous dramatic poem, which James Macpherson
included in his 1762 collection of the songs of Ossian, adapted
or translated from Gaelic oral poems. In the present article,
however, the author argues that Calzabigi’s Comala was not only
an independent adaptation but also a highly original attempt to
translate the peculiar poetic and cultural features of the Ossianic
world – its savagery, sublimity, melancholy, and psychological
obscurity – into theatrical terms. In this experimental musical
drama, Calzabigi depicts the mysterious death of the overstrung
heroine as the culmination of a process of withdrawing physically
from the other characters and ultimately from the stage
itself, as a metaphor for her gradual withdrawal from life and
reality. The article ends with a discussion of Pietro Morandi’s
setting of the libretto, performed in Senigallia in 1780, in which
Calzabigi’s dramatic choices are translated into music. Adhering
closely to the principles of Gluck’s and Calzabigi’s Viennese
operas, Morandi’s Comala is the first example of a »reform
opera« written specifically for Italy.

Reception of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (TP) hails it as a masterpiece, while also critiquing it as a mere rehashing of Ocarina of Time (OoT). Such divisiveness complicates TP’s nostalgic value, arguably its greatest strength. TP’s mode of storytelling summons Zelda’s past more than any other in the franchise, particularly its music. TP’s soundtrack can tap into our gaming history of Zelda writ large, as well as the developing mythology of Zelda, the game world itself. The music of TP thus primes it for investigation under J.R.R. Tolkien’s mythopoeic framework.

Time and nostalgia figure importantly into Tolkien work, namely “On Fairy Stories” and The Lord of the Rings, upon which scholars Verlyn Flieger and Paul Kocher have expounded. Ludo-scholarship also has treated both topics in such volumes as Playing the Past: History and Nostalgia in Video Games by Whalen and Taylor and Music in Video Games: Studying Play by Donnely, Gibbons, and Lerner. Zelda provides a nexus for these two discussions on time and nostalgia, for it shares commonalities with Middle-earth. TP particularly stands out because reception has associated it with nostalgia since 2006, thus providing fertile ground for examination against a Tolkienesque backdrop.

TP’s music exemplifies Tolkien’s mythopoeia further by forging two-fold connection to the past. First, TP features leitmotifs from five previous Zelda titles, more than any other in the franchise. Therefore, its musical borrowings can tap into our gaming past, which correlates with Tolkien’s ‘Primary’ or “real” world. For example, the main Zelda leitmotif plays during TP’s opening cut scene, potentially summoning our experience of each Zelda game featuring that non-diegetic music. Second, TP also features diegetic music, which characters in the game hear, respond to, and perform. Given the chronology outlined in Hyrule Historia, the appearance of melodies like “Zelda’s Lullaby” included in multiple titles and played by characters in the game can suggest a distant past or shared memory of those in Hyrule. The music thus can connote nostalgia within the Zelda universe itself, an example of Tolkien’s Faërie or ‘Secondary World.’ I conclude by showing these parallels at work in a comparison between Tolkien’s “Lothlórien” chapters in Lord of the Rings and the Sacred Grove/Temple of Time sequence in TP.

TP perhaps uniquely codifies the myth of Zelda through music. Consequently, we can perceive music’s associative power of the past and of nostalgia most clearly through the lens of Tolkienian mythopoeia.

Zygmunt Noskowski (1846–1909) wrote his first opera, "Livia Quintilla" (libretto by Ludomił German), during the years 1890–1897. In spite of Noskowski's undoubted achievements and services to Polish musical culture, both as a composer and promoter of musical life in Warsaw, this work is usually ignored by studies devoted to the bistory of Polish music, as is his second opera, "Wyrok" ["The Judgment"]. The reason for this may be that both operas, in contrast to Noskowski's symphonies and cantatas, seem to undermine the dogma of 'nationalism in music', which for many years was axiomatic in analysing Polish music. (This is a concept which becomes increasingly difficult to apply, especially in the context of Polish operatic works of the second half of the nineteenth century.)
The article describes the work's origins and the circumstances accompanying its first performance in Lwów (15 February 1898), and the premieres in Kraków (11 May 1898) and in Warsaw (19 April 1902). The reconstruction is based on press reports of the time and on the composer's writings and unpublished letters to the librettist dating from 1896–1902, which provide an exceptionally vivid account of the events. Noskowski's ambition was to enter the European „opera market", and he was planning to negotiate performances of "Livia Quintilla" in Prague, Berlin, Budapest and Vienna as early as 1898. Still in 1902 he was negotiating this matter with Franz Naval (1865–1939), a tenor associated with the Viennese Hofoper. At that time, as he mentions in one of his letter, he sent the piano-vocal score of the opera, with a German translation of the text, to Gustav Mahler (and in fact the copy is conserved today in the Austrian National Library Music Collection). The full orchestrał score of "Livia Quintilla" most probably shared the fate of the whole Warsaw Opera Library, which was burnt down by the German Nazis in 1944.
The conclusions presented in the analytical part of this article thus had to be drawn on the basis of the manuscript and printed versions of the vocal score, and the libretto published in 1898 (as well as its two earlier manuscript copies). A comparison of Noskowski's views on the opera expressed as early as 1888 in an extensive manifesto article entitled "Ideał opery" [The Ideal Opera], with the aesthetics implicit in the score of "Livia Quintilla" highlights numerous divergences. In 1888 Noskowski declared, among other things, that for him the 'ideal opera' was the „symphonic opera – a perfect synthesis of the genres of symphony and cantata". At the same time he criticised Wagner, in particular for introducing leitmotifs; he also condemned similar experiments with recurring motifs then being undertaken by Massenet. On the other hand, he did not hesitate to resort to extensive use of recurring motif materiał linked to the main characters in the score of "Livia Quintilla", which in other respects bears all the hallmarks of academic conservatism.
It would clearly be difficult to defend the claim that the presence of recurring motifs enables us today to see in "Livia Quintilla" the realisation of that 'ideal of a symphonic opera' envisaged in 1888. However, the conservative character of the score does not negate the fact that, in the context of the history of Polish operatic output, "Livia Quintilla" is of significance. It is probably the first Polish opera which makes use of a network of recurring motifs so consistently and so widely. For this reason, in spite of the formal conservatism and the „classical profile" characteristic of Noskowski's creative stance in general, it is important to appreciate his forgotten experiments in the opera genre. They culminated in 1906 in his opera "Wyrok" – a work intuitively tending towards the aesthetics of realism and the idea of Literaturoper.

https://dilemaveche.ro/sectiune/regimul-artelor-si-munitiilor/articol/leitmotivele-distrugerii-lui-enescu-primele-leitmotive-1-6-culpa-istorica

Au tras de cadavrul lui. Au tras de cadavrul lui Enescu toți. Din acea noapte au tras de cadavrul lui trimișii Securității R.P.R. (acei doi inși plantați imediat în hotel de ambasada românească) și au contra-tras reprezentanții diasporei românești din Paris (cu ale ei cel puțin două facțiuni), poliția arondismentului 8 (cea de lîngă Champs-Élysées) și serviciile secrete franceze. Au început în noaptea de 4 spre 5 mai 1955, la Hotelul Atala, la numărul 10 de pe optima stradă Chateaubriand. Toți voiau să-l posede, posedînd în prealabil pămîntul în care ar fi putut fi îngropat, și să dispună așa de tot ce însemna el, în culmea mccarthystă a Războiului Rece și cînd tocmai se semna Pactul de la Varșovia. Securiștii R.P.R. au stat patru zile în hotel. S-au plantat pur și simplu stricînd aerul de hotel parizian, obligîndu-l pe patronul Florescu să cheme poliția franceză și tot nu au plecat. Așa că a rămas în hotel și poliția timp de patru zile. Patru, pentru că nu-l puteau depune pe Enescu în biserică, se temeau să nu-i fure coșciugul pe drum. Sau să nu îl fure pe el însuși chiar din biserică. Iar hotelul avea oricum unele probleme: nu cu mult timp înainte, un sinucigaș, și apoi un al doilea sinucigaș își luaseră camere acolo tocmai ca să se sinucidă. Și o făcuseră. Nici în acele zile de mai 1955 oaspeții numeroși ai hotelului cu opt etaje nu se simțeau confortabil știind – cum a descris atmosfera cineva – că „între ziduri e un mort“. Era el. Iar cei care îl vînau s-au spionat între ei și s-au alergat unii pe alții zeci de ore la etajul 4, pe culoare și apoi chiar în apartamentul 40 (două mici încăperi reunite, de fapt), acolo unde murise. Probabil înainte de miezul nopții.

Predestinarea unei forme insuportabile de distrugere a început așa. Și a început atunci.