Dramatic Vocalise Database
Rózsa, Miklós (1907–95)
Julius Caesar (1953)
Rózsa also used dramatic vocalization in the scores to The Thief of Bagdad (1940), The Red House (1947) Quo Vadis (1951), Knights of the Round Table (1953), Ben-Hur (1959), King of Kings (1961), and El Cid (1961).
“Rózsa’s treatment of other scenes in Julius Caesar, while personal as always, is similarly imbued with the objective universality of tragedy. There is a classical austerity and restraint about the themes notwithstanding the emotionally-charged nature of Brutus’. The result is that the spareness of the women’s dirge, in the manner of a nenia, at Caesar’s funeral, and of Dowland’s ‘Now, now, I needs must part’ for Lucius in Brutus’ camp, do not jar against the commentative music, but seem a natural outgrowth of it.” 1
Examples | Comments |
| Dramatic Vocalization as Background Commentary | ||
| Diegetic Singing and Ghostly Visions No dramatic vocalization in this scene. |
Footnotes
1 Christopher Palmer, The Composer in Hollywood (New York: Marion Boyars, 1990), 217–18.