Author: William RothsteinPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197609686
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 601
Book Description
Though studying opera often requires attention to aesthetics, libretti, staging, singers, compositional history, and performance history, the music itself is central. This book examines operatic music by five Italian composers--Rossini, Bellini, Mercadante, Donizetti, and Verdi--and one non-Italian, Meyerbeer, during the period from Rossini's first international successes to Italian unification. Detailed analyses of form, rhythm, melody, and harmony reveal concepts of musical structure different from those usually discussed by music theorists, calling into question the notion of a common practice. Taking an eclectic analytical approach, author William Rothstein uses ideas originating in several centuries, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first, to argue that operatic music can be heard not only as passionate vocality but also in terms of musical forms, pitch structures, and rhythmic patterns--that is, as carefully crafted music worth theoretical attention. Although no single theory accounts for everything, Rothstein's analysis shows how certain recurring principles define a distinctively Italian practice, one that left its mark on the German repertoire more familiar to music theorists.