On 14 Mar 2006 at 14:38, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: > David Fenton: > > Could you please cite the Haydn and Gluck operas that have this > similiar feature of using an opening overture with a choral movement > to conclude? I'm curious. While it's apparent that Mozart wasn't the > only composer to do this, I still think it it's a bit unusual.
I don't have that kind of documentation here at home, no scores or books that would allow me to answer the question. I also Googled the subject to see if I could find anything, but had no luck. A quick trip to any library with complete works should come up with examples fairly quickly. As to "unusual," I still think one must look at the conventions of the particular type of work and the particular locale it was written for before making any determinations about whether it was really out of the ordinary. It certainly is not the way Mozart began most of his other operatic works, but that doesn't really mean anything at all about what the conventions he was working in were. > And just because Mozart tacked on another ending versus the choral > version, could have simply been due to the lack of singers/performers > for the Academy he gave this performance for. In my mind, it's no > different than having or not having clarinets in one of the later > Sinfonias. Different venues required different forces. You're talking about what he might have done vs. what he is known to have done. Mozart might have arranged the whole symphony for kazoos, but we have no documentation saying that he did. We do know that he created a replacement finale. Thus, we have the K111a version as a real documented symphony, and an imaginary "choral symphony" for which there is absolutely no documentation. Seems like quite a clear situation to me. -- 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