Sublimation Of Death In The Musical Works Embodied In Specific

Death is not only a simple life topic, but also a kind of inevitable phenomenon and consequence of human living, society evolution and thought existence. Music, as a piece of expressing society life means, plays an important role with its existence on describing death. Death is an ancient philosophical issue of life. From remote antiquity to modern times, music about death never fades. People know about the musicians who used to be famous in the same age, and make for analyzing their opinion on this topic.Symphonic poem, an exotic flower within the history of music art, budded in the middle of 19th century, and then prevailed from the second half of the 19th to the early 20th. Saint-Saens《Danse macabre》,Richard Strauss《Tod und Verklarung》and Rachmaninov《The Isle of the Dead》,take the death as the theme of symphonic poem, in transferring, prosperous and declining period of the history respectively. Three pieces of opus expressed general pathos color in music with respect to death. Moreover, they displayed the unique realm,"Indifferent","Face","Realm". Hence, analysis of these three pieces of symphonic poem is a way to know how the composers faced and cognized the subject of death and sublimed it in the music worksThe paper is consist of three chapters. In the first chapter, it is concerned the times when these three symphonic poems were composed. How the three poems were created, via society politics, economy, and ideology, development of culture, art and music, is expatiated. In the following chapter, the topic is how to expound the theme of death in the music productions. From the personality, creation characteristics and aesthetics viewpoint of three composers, the theme of death in poems was inquired. The last chapter mainly focuses on the enlightenment and practical significance coming from the music on death theme. Basing the former two chapters, the music works about death is researched, reflected and sublimated, combined with their own characteristics of these three symphonic poems.