“How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Image 1 The Duchess enters her hotel room. Powder Her Face, Act 1 Scene 1.

From: Williams, Margaret (dir.), Thomas Adès: Powder Her Face (Digital Classics, 1999).

Example 1 Thomas Adès, Powder Her Face, Act 1 Scene 1, mm. 273–280

1 “How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Example 1 (continued)

Figure One Philip Hensher, Powder Her Face libretto (excerpt), Scene 1 (p. 9)1

1 The libretto is not divided into Acts

2 “How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Figure 2 Prosodic rhythms in Hensher, Powder Her Face, Scene 1

/ = stressed syllable x = unstressed syllable (x) = unstressed final syllable

Example 2 Thomas Adès, Powder her Face, Act 1 Scene 1, mm. 382–385

3 “How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Figure 3 Philip Hensher, Powder Her Face libretto (excerpt), Scene 8 (p. 40)

Table One: Formal Structure, Thomas Adès, Powder Her Face, Act 2 Scene 8, mm. 87–193

Measures Opening line Section Sub-section 1 That will do. You may go. Recitative 103 – 104 Aria Introduction 105 – 125 I had a nursemaid once Strophe 1 126 – 139 It was so hard to please her Strophe 2 140 – 152 And later my maid Strophe 3 153 – 169 She heard my secrets Strophe 4 170 – 176 Transition 177 – 193 Restrictions, Legality Closing section

4 “How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Figure 4 Prosodic Analysis of the Duchess’s Recitative

Figure 5 Stress patterns in Adès’s setting of the Duchess’s Recitative

Differences to Fig. 4 indicated in red. (/) indicates a secondary stress

5 “How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Example 3 Thomas Adès, Powder Her Face, Act 2 Scene 8, mm. 88–104

6 “How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Figure 6 Prosodic Analysis of the Duchess’s Aria, Strophe 1

7 “How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Example 4 Thomas Adès, Powder Her Face, Act 2 Scene 8, mm. 103–25

8 “How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Example 4 (continued)

9 “How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Example 5 Thomas Adès, Powder Her Face, Act 2 Scene 8, mm. 185–193

10 “How You Speak To Me”: Word setting in Thomas Adès’s Powder Her Face (1995) Dr Edward Venn, University of Leeds

Bibliography

Adès, Thomas and Tom Service, Thomas Adès: Full of Noises. Conversations with Tom Service (London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 2012) Belling, Huw, ‘Thinking Irrational: Thomas Adès and New Rhythms’, (MMus Thesis, Royal College of Music, 2010) Castle, Charles, The Duchess Who Dared: Margaret, Duchess of Argyll (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1995) Clark, Alex, ‘Scenes from an Early Life: A novel by Philip Hensher – review’, The Guardian (20 April 2015) Cohn, Richard, ‘Metric and Hypermetric Dissonance in the Menuetto of Mozart’s Symphony in G Minor, K. 550’, Intégral 9 (1992), 1–33 Day, Jon, ‘The Emperor Waltz by Philip Henser’, Financial Times (8 August 2014) Ewans, Michael, ‘Thomas Adès and Meredith Oakes: ’, Studies in Musical Theatre, 9/3 (2015), 231–50 Fabb, Nigel, Language and Literary Structure: The linguistic analysis of form in verse and narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) Fox, Daniel, ‘Multiple Time-Scales in Adès’s Rings’, Perspectives of New Music Vol. 52 No. 1 (Winter 2014), 28–56 Gallon, Emma, Narrativities in the Music of Thomas Adès (PhD diss., Lancaster University, 2011) Hensher, Philip, ‘Sex, Powder and Polaroids’, The Guardian (29 May 2008) Krebs, Harald, Fantasy Pieces: Metrical Dissonance in the Music of Robert Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) ______, ‘Fancy Footwork: Distortions of Poetic Rhythm in Robert Schumann’s Late Songs’, Indiana Theory Review 28, nos. 1-2 (2010), 67–84 ______, ‘Treading Robert Schumann’s New Path: Understanding Declamation in the Late Lieder through Analysis and Recomposition’, Music Theory Online Vol 20 (4), 2014 Malin, Yonatan, ‘Metric Displacement Dissonance and Romantic Longing in the German Lied’, Music Analysis Vol. 25 No. 3 (2006), 251–88 ______, Songs in Motion (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010) Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, Forget Not (London: W. H. Allen, 1975) Roeder, John, ‘Co-operating Continuities in the Music of Thomas Adès’, Music Analysis, 25/1–2 (2006), 121–54 Schoenberg, Arnold, ‘Opinion or Insight?’ (1926), reproduced in Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg ed. Leonard Stein, trans. Leo Black (London: Faber & Faber, 1975), pp. 258–64 Stevens, Nicholas, ’s Daughters: Portraying the Anti-Heroine in Contemporary Opera, 1993–2013 (PhD diss., Case Western Reserve University, 2017) Venn, Edward, ‘Thomas Adès’s The Exterminating Angel’, Tempo, 71 (2017), 21–46 Vojcic, Aleksandra, Rhythm as Form: Rhythmic Hierarchy in Later Twentieth-Century Music (PhD diss., City University of New York, 2007)

11