I have spent my musical listening lifetime taking "reprise" for granted. What is it, a repetition of a portion of a song, in another song, or later in the collection. Reprises are everywhere. Nobody stood and told me that it was anything but a reminder of what had been in the works before. But what if a reprise is meant to be more than just a repetition? What if, a reprise really is the same as a lietmotif, and what if "recycling" is all that?
I found this webpage, Leitmotif revisited That discusses the Wagner treatment of Leitmotifs. It seems so familiar, as if describing the elemental purpose of reprises. What if a reprise is the crude form, and the leitmotif the classical form of the same structural movement?
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