| Series |
Oxford studies in music theory
Oxford studies in music theory. ^A696826
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| Contents |
Introduction: what is there to analyze? -- Part I: La via Italiana. The Anvil chorus -- Theoretical contexts I: nineteenth-century theory. Italian theory: an overview ; Theories of harmony, 1800-1840 ; Theories of rhythm, 1800-1840 ; Midcentury theorists ; Theories of harmony, 1840-1860 ; Theories of rhythm, 1840-1860 ; Conclusion -- Theoretical contexts II: Schenker and Riemann. Heinrich in Italy ; Riemann, Paleo- and Neo- -- Rhythm and meter. Poetic meters and their musical settings ; Four-cycles ; Rossini ; Verdi -- Musical form. Symmetry ; Rossini and repetition ; Lyric form ; Multi-movement forms -- Part II: Rossini. Rossini's mediants. Diatonic mediants ; The mediant key in major (iii) ; The submediant key in major (vi) ; Chromatic mediants ; Chromatic mediants on a large scale ; Chromatic miracles in Mosè in Egitto ; Chromatic stupefaction in Il barbiere ; Summary of mediant relationships -- Tonal coherence in Rossini's Italian operas. Semiramide, Finale primo ; Tonal coherence in La donna del lago ; Pathways through Otello, Act 3 ; Fusion of numbers -- Guillaume Tell. Overture and Act 1 ; Act 2 ; Act 3 ; Act 4 -- Part III: Between Rossini and Verdi. Bellini and the new diatonicism. Textual issues ; Recitative and Scena ; Characteristic foreground techniques ; Supplenti ; Local techniques with large-scale consequences ; Long-range linearity: the Scena of the Adalgisa-Pollione duet ; Tonal pairing: the end of La straniera ; Tonality and Sonorità: the end of Norma -- Meyerbeer and the new chromaticism -- Around 1840: Mercadante and Donizetti. Mercadante's operas, 1837-1840 ; Il giuramento, Act 3 ; Donizetti's operas, 1838-1843 ; La favorite, Act 3 ; The end of Maria di Rohan -- Part IV: Verdi's Sedici Anni. Verdi's Chiaroscuro ; Gisi and Verdian tonality -- Ernani to Attila (1844-1846). Ernani ; Giovanna d'Arco, Act 3 ; Attila, prologue -- Rigoletto and Il Trovatore (1851-1853). Verdi and Meyerbeer ; Rigoletto and Il Trovatore compared ; Some aspects of Rigoletto ; Tonality in Rigoletto: static or kinetic, ontic or gignetic? ; Tonality in Il Trovatore ; Analysis of Il Trovatore, No. 3 (Scena, Romanza, e Terzetto) -- Les Vêpres Siciliennes to Un Ballo in Maschera (1854-1859). Les Vêpres Siciliennes, Act 2 ; Simon Boccanegra (1857), Prologue ; Lyric form in Simon Boccanegra ; Boccanegra, Ballo, and the diminished seventh ; Un Ballo in Maschera, Act 2 -- Afterword: Verdi and his predecessors. |
| Abstract |
Though studying opera often requires attention to aesthetics, libretti, staging, singers, compositional history, and performance history, the music itself is central. This book examines operatic music by five Italian composers--Rossini, Bellini, Mercadante, Donizetti, and Verdi--and one non-Italian, Meyerbeer, during the period from Rossini's first international successes to Italian unification. Detailed analyses of form, rhythm, melody, and harmony reveal concepts of musical structure different from those usually discussed by music theorists, calling into question the notion of a common practice. Taking an eclectic analytical approach, the author uses ideas originating in several centuries, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first, to argue that operatic music can be heard not only as passionate vocality but also in terms of musical forms, pitch structures, and rhythmic patterns--that is, as carefully crafted music worth theoretical attention. Although no single theory accounts for everything, the author's analysis shows how certain recurring principles define a distinctively Italian practice, one that left its mark on the German repertoire more familiar to music theorists. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 555-559) and indexes. |
| LCCN | 2022561065 |
| ISBN | 0197609686 |
| ISBN | 9780197609682 |
