Category Archives: Classic era

by | January 4, 2018 · 6:00 am

Mozart in Naples

In 1984 the Scottish National Portrait Gallery acquired two oil paintings signed by Pietro Fabris and dated to 1771. An old label on the frame indicates that the paintings were produced for William Hamilton, the British ambassador at Naples from 1764 to 1800, and the Viscount Kenneth Mackenzie, later Lord Fortrose, who spent time in Naples from 1769 to 1771.

While in the first picture, depicting a scene of fencing, a character sitting at the table has been identified as Niccolò Jommelli, there have been many doubts about the identity of the characters in the second picture, showing a chamber concert. They are now identified as Leopold and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the first at the harpsichord and the second, waiting to play, in front of a triangular spinet.

This according to I Mozart e la Napoli di Hamilton: Due quadri di Fabris per Lord Fortrose by Domenico Antonio D’Alessandro (Napoli: Grimaldi & C. Editori, 2006)

Above, the painting in question (click to enlarge); Wolfgang and Leopold are on the left; Lord Fortrose in in the center, with his back turned, with Hamilton on his left and Gaetano Pugnani on his right, both playing violins. Fabris himself peers out at the viewer from the lower left, holding the painting-in-progress.

Below, Mozart’s symphony in G major, K. 74, which he completed during this visit to Naples.

More articles about Mozart are here.

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by | October 29, 2017 · 6:00 am

Music and visual cultures

In 2017 Brepols launched the series Music and visual cultures with Late eighteenth-century music and visual culture, edited by Cliff Eisen and Alan Davison.

In this volume, nine prominent scholars employ a set of interdisciplinary methodological tools to come to a comprehensive understanding of the rich tapestry of eighteenth-century musical taste, performance, consumption, and aesthetics. While the link between visual material and musicological study lies at the heart of the research presented in this collection of essays, the importance of the textual element, as it denoted the process of thinking about music and the various ways in which that was symbolically and often literally visualized in writing and print culture, is also closely examined.

This series will include monographs and thematic collections on issues concerning music iconography and interactions between music and visual arts. The series editor is Zdravko Blažeković.

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by | September 28, 2017 · 6:00 am

Catalogue arias

The catalogue arias of late eighteenth-century Italian opere buffe focus on lists; subjects may include enjoyable activities, foods, things for sale, or types of people (by nationality, social rank, occupation, personal qualities, and so on).

Their progress often involves shorter and shorter syntactic units: Sentences give way to phrases, then to one- or two-word groups, accelerating the rate of accumulated information—the comic frenzy is actually built into the text itself. This textual compression often involves two rhetorical devices: asyndeton (omitting conjunctions) and anaphora (beginning successive lines or phrases with the same word).

This according to “Catalogue arias and the ‘catalogue aria’” by John Platoff, an essay included in Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Essays on his life and his music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp. 296–311).

Above, Lorenzo da Ponte, author of the celebrated catalogue aria Madamina, il catalogo è questo, from Mozart’s Don Giovanni; below, Luca Pisaroni does the honors.

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by | September 14, 2017 · 6:00 am

Mozart’s starling

On 27 May 1784 Mozart purchased a European starling (Sturnus vulgaris, above). The pleasure he expressed at hearing the bird’s song—“Das war schon!”—is all the more understandable when one compares his notation of it with the beginning of the last movement of his Piano Concerto in G major, K.453, which was written around the same time.

Three years later the bird died, and he buried it with much ceremony. Heavily veiled mourners marched in a procession, sang hymns, and listened to a graveside recitation of a poem Mozart had composed for the occasion.

Although many questions remain about starlings’ vocal capacities, a recent study supports a definite link between their mimicry and their lively social interactions, illuminating Mozart’s response to his beloved pet’s death.

This according to “Mozart’s starling” by Meredith J. West and Andrew P. King (American scientist LXXVIII/2 [May–August 1990] pp. 106–114).

Below, the concerto movement sung by Mozart’s starling.

More articles about Mozart are here.

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by | September 9, 2017 · 6:00 am

Metodi e trattati

In 2016 Società Editrice di Musicologia launched the series Metodi e trattati with a new critical edition of Francesco Pollini’s Metodo per pianoforte.

Pollini was the preeminent figure among Italian pianists of the early nineteenth century. A student of Mozart, he enjoyed considerable fame not only as a pianist and composer but also—and above all—as a teacher.

In 1811 the Conservatorio di Milano commissioned Pollini to write a piano method, the first of its kind to be published in Italy. Printed as Metodo pel clavicembalo in 1812 and reprinted in 1834, the treatise covers several aspects of pianistic technique and performance practice.

This new critical edition, provided with a parallel English translation, presents the text and its 400 examples and exercises based on the most complete edition of 1834. The introduction retraces the work’s complex publishing history, discusses in detail the typology of the instrument, and examines several technical and performance practice issues addressed in Pollini’s text, including articulation, touch, rhythmic flexibility, improvisation, ornamentation, and pedaling.

Below, Costantino Mastroprimiano performs one of Pollini’s works on the fortepiano.

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by | August 29, 2017 · 6:00 am

C.L. Junker: Keyboard concerto in B-flat major

In 2017 A-R Editions issued a new critical edition of Carl Ludwig Junker’s only surviving concerto, edited by Mark Kroll.

Junker, a pastor, critic, and writer by profession, is far better known today for his books, articles, and published letters than for his musical compositions. As one of the most interesting and perceptive commentators and theorists of the late eighteenth century, he provided valuable information about musicians and music making during his lifetime. He also wrote twenty-four symphonies (now lost), thirteen piano pieces, and several songs.

The concerto presented in this edition enriches our understanding and appreciation of the early piano concerto, a genre that would find its full realization in the hands of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Below, a recording of the work with Prof. Kroll at the fortepiano.

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by | August 19, 2017 · 6:00 am

Tovey’s marginalia

Donald Francis Tovey left thousands of marginal comments on the sheet music he owned, dating from different periods of his life.

Here and there one finds a score that is chock-full of pencil scribblings, critical, historical, personal—clearly remarks that Tovey meant for his own eyes alone, though it is impressive that he often wrote complete sentences with full punctuation. Most commonly he sang the praise of some compositional marvel in words of simple rapture: “Splendid!” “Magnificent climax!” “Wonderful!”

But Tovey was at his wittiest with composers he didn’t much like. Muzio Clementi came in for some particularly choice remarks, such as “Silly little beast in bad Mozartian style with one or two idiotically difficult bits of pianistics.” A passage in Clementi’s op. 50, no. 3, subtitled Didone abbandonata, elicited the comment “and here comes the Bishop, or the Pope with triple crown.” This whimsy is petulantly crossed out, and below, in a different but equally Toveyan hand, are the words “Pretentious NONSENSE” (see above). Where the theme is inverted he wrote “Here Dido stands on her head.”

This according to “Tovey’s marginalia” by Raymond Monelle (The musical times CXXXI/1769 [July 1990] pp. 351–53). This journal, along with many others, is covered in our new RILM Abstracts of Music Literature with Full Text collection.

Today would have been Monelle’s 80th birthday! Below, the first movement of Tovey’s Sonata for cello solo.

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by | June 17, 2017 · 6:00 am

Cherubini studies

In 2016 Studio-Verlag launched the series Cherubini studies (ISSN 2509-6117) with Luigi Cherubini: Vielzitiert, bewundert, unbekannt, edited by Helen Geyer and Michael Pauser.

The book presents papers from the Internationale Cherubini-Kongress Weimar 2010. Topics include aesthetic questions such as Cherubini’s relationship to the Italian musica-antica tradition, the possibilities and limitations of a musical aestheticization of natural catastrophes, and the reception of Cherubini in the contemporary press.

Below, the finale of Cherubini’s Requiem in C minor, one of the works discussed in the collection.

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by | December 19, 2016 · 6:00 am

A new Mozart facsimile edition

mozart-requiem-1

In 2015 Bärenreiter issued Requiem KV 626: Faksimile der autographen Partitur in der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek, a complete autograph edition of Mozart’s Requiem.

mozart-requiem-2

The surviving manuscript reflects its dramatic history: Mozart’s handwriting and the supplementary entries by Süßmayr and others often appear on the same page. The corner of a page where Mozart wrote down one of his last musical ideas was later stolen; it is still visible in an old photograph. Each page is individually cut to match the manuscript, conveying a vivid impression of the original. A foreword discussing the genesis of the Requiem and a detailed description of the manuscript complement the facsimile score.

Below, an excerpt from the work.

More articles about Mozart are here.

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by | August 4, 2016 · 6:00 am

U.S. mavericks

Anthony_Philip_Heinrich (1)

From colonial times to the present, U.S. composers have lived on the fringes of society and defined themselves in large part as outsiders. This tradition of maverick composers illuminates U.S. tensions between individualism and community.

Three notably unconventional composers—William Billings in the eighteenth century, Anthony Philip Heinrich in the nineteenth, and Charles Ives in the twentieth—all had unusual lives, wrote music that many considered incomprehensible, and are now recognized as key figures in the development of U.S. music. Eccentric individualism proliferates in all types of U.S. music—classical, popular, and jazz—and it has come to dominate the image of diverse creative artists from John Cage to Frank Zappa.

This according to Mavericks and other traditions in American music by Michael Broyles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).

Above, a portrait of Heinrich, nowadays the lesser-known of the three composers; below, “Victory of the condor” from The ornithological combat of kings, or, the condor of the Andes (1847), which remained his favorite work throughout his life.

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