United States or Uzbekistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
After the finales in Figaro and Don Giovanni, the possibility of the modern music drama lay bare. After the symphonies of Beethoven it was certain that the poetry that lies too deep for words does not lie too deep for music, and that the vicissitudes of the soul, from the roughest fun to the loftiest aspiration, can make symphonies without the aid of dance tunes.
Before many bars have been played, Siegfried and the wakened Brynhild, newly become tenor and soprano, will sing a concerted cadenza; plunge on from that to a magnificent love duet; and end with a precipitous allegro a capella, driven headlong to its end by the impetuous semiquaver triplets of the famous finales to the first act of Don Giovanni or the coda to the Leonore overture, with a specifically contrapuntal theme, points d'orgue, and a high C for the soprano all complete.
No one with an ounce of musical taste in his composition would wish the canon-quartet, the two trios or the two finales, to take a few instances at random, any shorter or less developed than they are, but one can imagine how Mozart would have smiled at the lack of dramatic feeling displayed in their construction.
Though one of the earliest of Verdi's works, "Ernani" is one of his strongest in dramatic intensity, in the brilliancy and power of its concerted finales, and in the beauty of its great chorus effects. "Rigoletto," an opera in three acts, words by Piave, the subject taken from Victor Hugo's tragedy, "Le Roi s'amuse," was first produced at Venice, March 11, 1851.
He is much applauded in the cantabile, which he sings with uncommon precision, and he particularly shines in the counter-parts which charm in the Italian finales. As an actor, MARTINELLI, though inferior to RAFFANELLI, is also remarkable. Paris, January 9, 1802.
Finally, Mozart's most dramatic finales and concerted numbers are more or less in sonata form, like symphonic movements, and must therefore be classed as musical prose. And sonata form dictates repetitions and recapitulations from which the perfectly unconventional form adopted by Wagner is free.
All that is and happens is absolutely determined by its causes, and nothing, no causæ finales for instance, can co-operate with these causes in determining the result. But, as Lotze says, and as we have repeatedly pointed out, causal explanation does not exclude a consideration from the point of view of purpose, and the mechanical interpretation does not do so either.
There is a story of a well-known English conductor who objected to produce a piece by a noted German composer because it ended pianissimo. He was afraid that it would not be applauded if it did not end loudly. Now the finales of Italian operas are habitually constructed on this method.
There are few things I shall regret more at Venice, than this conservatorio. Whenever I am musically given, I fly to it, and hear the most striking finales in Bertoni's and Anfosse's operas, as long and often as I please. The sight of the orchestra still makes me smile.
Masaniello in its way opened his eyes as much as Beethoven's symphonies had done. Not only the bustle, but the clean sweep of the thing from beginning to finish of each act, with brilliant climaxes in the finales, made him stare and gasp in amazement.
Word Of The Day