The Secular Commedia : Comic Mimesis in Late Eighteenth-Century Music / Wye Jamison Allanbrook; Mary Ann Smart, Richard Taruskin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Allanbrook, Wye Jamison, Author.

Contributor:

Smart, Mary Ann, Editor.

Taruskin, Richard, Editor.

Series:

Ernest Bloch lectures.

Ernest Bloch Lectures ; 15

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Music--18th century--History and criticism.

Music.

Music--18th century--Philosophy and aesthetics.

Opera--18th century.

Opera.

Comic, The, in music.

Mimesis in music.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (253 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Wye Jamison Allanbrook's The Secular Commedia is a stimulating and original rethinking of the music of the late eighteenth century. Hearing the symphonies and concertos of Haydn and Mozart with an ear tuned to operatic style, as their earliest listeners did, Allanbrook shows that this familiar music is built on a set of mimetic associations drawn from conventional modes of depicting character and emotion in opera buffa. Allanbrook mines a rich trove of writings by eighteenth-century philosophers and music theorists to show that vocal music was considered aesthetically superior to instrumental music and that listeners easily perceived the theatrical tropes that underpinned the style. Tracing Enlightenment notions of character and expression back to Greek and Latin writings about comedy and drama, she strips away preoccupations with symphonic form and teleology to reveal anew the kaleidoscopic variety and gestural vitality of the musical surface. In prose as graceful and nimble as the music she discusses, Allanbrook elucidates the idiom of this period for contemporary readers. With notes, musical examples, and a foreword by editors Mary Ann Smart and Richard Taruskin.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Music Examples

Foreword

1. Comic Flux and Comic Precision

2. Comic Voice in the Late Mimetic Period

3. The Comic Surface

4. Comic Finitude and Comic Closure

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 24. Apr 2020)

ISBN:

9780520958876

052095887X

OCLC:

881417055