On 13 Mar 2006 at 13:49, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: > I'm sorry my earlier quote wasn't complete > attempt #2 from the Barenreiter site: > > "In Mozart's day the Italian operatic symphony normally consisted of > three rather short orchestral pieces in the order fast - slow - fast. > For Ascanio in Alba, however, he characteristically varied the > conventional formula. That this was something unusual is made clear by > the fact that Leopold Mozart took pains to give an exact account of > this overtura to his wife:
As I've said, I don't think there's anything at all clear about it being "unusual." > . . . "So far Wolfgang has only written the > overture, that is, a rather long Allegro, followed by an Andante, > which has to be danced, but only by a few people. Instead of the final > Allegro he has composed a kind of contredanse and chorus to be sung > and danced at the same time" (Briefe I, p. 433). Leopold has also left > us an account of the performance, which is of interest in that it > gives us an idea of the forces used at that time: "The Andante of the > symphony is danced by eleven women, that is, eight genies and three > graces, or eight graces and three goddesses. The final Allegro of the > symphony is a chorus with thirty-two voices - eight sopranos, eight > contraltos, eight tenors and eight basses - and is danced by sixteen > persons at the same time, eight men and eight women" (Briefe I, p. > 436). We are inclined to regard the fifteen-year-old Mozart's > transformation of the overture as a stroke of genius: the form has > been altered to accommodate a special feature of the libretto, but in > such a way that listeners still descry the familiar design. There is nothing really out of the ordinary going on here -- the three-movement overture with chorus existed as an alternative to the three-movement opera overture, and was probably used more frequently in music dramas in the pastoral tradition (as Ascanio clearly is). > . . . Parini's > libretto called for a short dance (breve ballo) between the two > sections as the city of Alba begins to emerge under the hands of the > shepherds and shepherdesses (see "The Plot" below and p. 194). > Probably because of its relative brevity, Mozart had to compose this > interpolated dance music himself. This was not the usual practice: > ballet numbers were generally commissioned from lesser composers." I'm not so sure this is correct. We have a great deal of ballet music from Handel and Mozart and Gluck right in the middle of their operas. In short, this Bärenreiter source is not reliable -- it's little more than program notes, and makes a number of assertions unwarranted by the context of the quotes it uses to make its case. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
