ABSTRACT
A phrase or statement carrying quotation marks is conventionally the author's way of acknowledging that the words in question have been spoken or written by someone else. One is left in little doubt that 'Ich grolle nicht' is indeed a musical quotation; for a start it is introduced by the characters and then sung in a different language to the rest of the opera. The Schumann quotation is not plucked out of thin air but is precipitated by a number of musical and verbal references. It is worth noting that in both Nyman's opera and Davies's song-cycle, quotations from pre-existing tonal material represent forms of mental impairment. Quotation becomes in Nyman a trope for repetition itself, an application of the principle that any part of any text may be repeated within the context of another. Repetition in Nyman's music therefore goes beyond localized or structural functions to include the repetition of ideas within and between compositions.
