UCLA

In the current musicological discussion on Benjamin Britten’s operatic work with constructing vulnerability and altered states through his musical language to undergird his characters in crisis, the focus tends towards musical symbolism rather than a close reading of the composer’s craft. The result is an analysis of harmonic, melodic, or timbral elements that neatly classifies the “what” of Britten’s technique without going in depth on the “how” of its technical detail. Whereas this approach might appeal to a more literary minded audience, I find myself left out as a composer of opera wanting more musical analysis of the music itself, in addition to the rich contextual implications of its libretti. A question many other composers might ask would be, “How and why does it work, both dramaturgically and musically?” Therefore, the goal of my research in my monograph to accompany my dissertation opera is to write a concise manual for the opera composer through reverse engineering Britten’s musical scaffolding of his opera, The Turn of the Screw (1954), to its DNA and tracing these strands throughout the work as a whole.It is my hope to expand upon the current discussion of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, which deftly outlines the composer’s formal structure and general harmonic techniques, and change the direction from musical symbolism to a reverse engineering of craft, with the guiding questions of how and why to its construction. Whittall and Rupprecht take us through a tour of the opera’s variations and corresponding scenes; the former placing the work opposite Berg’s Wozzeck, not for its employ of the 12-tone technique, but for its formal design and use of interludes. Deavel and Seymour’s research refutes this connection as a superficial observation and offers a comprehensive and concise approach to work’s harmonic structure upon which I wish to build in my analysis.