The "Parisian" Tannhäuser
J. Merrill Knapp
Addressed historical and aesthetic issues related to the Parisian premiere of Richard Wagner's pera in 1861. Later published in the Journal of the American Musicological Society.
*Professor of Music at Princeton (1991-2005)
*Professor of Music at Harvard (2005-2008)
*Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania (2008-2012)
*Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard (2012-present)
Books:
*Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner (with Roger Parker). Ithaca, NY, 1984 [incl. "Introduction: On Analyzing Opera," pp. 1–26 [with Parker]; "Opera as Symphony: a Wagnerian Myth," pp. 92–124.
*Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Princeton, NJ, 1990) [trans. of J.-J. Nattiez: Musicologie générale et sémiologie (Paris, 1987)]
*Unsung Voices: Opera and Musical Narrative in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton, NJ, 1991, 2/1996)
*In Search of Opera (Princeton, 2001)
*A History of Opera (with Roger Parker). New York: W. W. Norton, 2012
Articles:
*"Tristan in the Composition of Pelleas," 19th Century Music, v (1981–2), 117–40
*"Der junge Wagner malgre lui: die frühen Tannhäuser-Entwurfe und Wagners 'übliche Nummern …'" Wagnerliteratur – Wagnerforschung: Munich 1983, 59–68
*"The Parisian Vénus and the Paris Tannhäuser," Journal of the American Musicological Society, xxxvi (1983), 73–123 (Dissertation)
*"Erik's Dream and Tannhäuser's Journey," in Reading Opera. Ithaca, NY, 1986, pp. 129–67
*"What the Sorcerer Said," in 19th Century Music, xii (1988–9),pp. 221–30
*"Elektra's Voice: Music and Language in Strauss's Opera," in Richard Strauss: Elektra, ed. D. Puffett (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 107–27
*"Wagner, 'On Modulation', and Tristan" in Cambridge Opera Journal, i (1989), pp. 33–58
*"Dismembering Mozart" in Cambridge Opera Journal, ii (1990), pp. 187–95
*"Opera, or The Envoicing of Women," Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, ed. R.A. Solie (Berkeley, 1993), 225–58
*"Mythische Stimmen, sterbliche Körper," Richard Wagner: “Der Ring des Nibelungen”: Ansichten des Mythos, ed. U. Bermbach und D. Borchmeyer (Stuttgart, 1995), 75–86
*"Music--Drastic or Gnostic?" Critical Inquiry, xxx (2004), 505-536
*"Das Ephemere Übersehen," in Latenz: blinde Passagiere in den Geisteswissenschaften (Göttingen, 2011), 24-50.
*Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association (1993)
*Guggenheim Fellowship (1994)