Elektra in Full Score (Dover Opera Scores)

About this book

Composed in 19061908 to a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal Elektra scandalized audiences of the day with its horrific retelling of the Greek story and its startling level of dissonance. Today with the shock of the new worn off and the once-fearful dissonance now widely accepted the score can be more easily appreciated for its extravagant invention of musical ideas and virtuosic use of instrumental sonorities to characterize both persons and actions. Further in his use of a single germinal chord which pervades the entire score Strauss anticipated a technique used by later 20th-century composers. Now a landmark of modern opera Elektra is among the best-known of Strausss works. This Dover volume is reprinted complete and unabridged directly from the authoritative Frstner edition.