Mary Hunter

Opera buffa in Mozart's Vienna

Notes on contributors Acknowledgements Introduction Mary Hunter and James Webster Part I. Historical and Literary Contexts: 1. Goldoni, opera buffa, and Mozarts advent in Vienna Daniel Heartz 2. Lo specchio francese: Viennese opera buffa and the legacy of French theatre Bruce Alan Brown 3. Il re alla caccia and Le roi et le fermier: Italian and French treatments of class and gender Marvin Carlson 4. Mozart and eighteenth-century comedy Paolo Gallarati Part II. Social and Generic Meanings: 5. The sentimental muse of opera buffa Edmund J. Goehring 6. The biology lessons of opera buffa: gender, nature, and Bourgeois society on Mozarts buffa stage Tia Denora 7. Bourgeois values and Opera Buffa in 1780s Vienna Mary Hunter 8. Opera seria? Opera buffa? Genre and style as sign Marita P. McLymonds 9. Figaro as misogynist: on aria types and aria rhetoric Ronald J. Rabin 10. The alternative endings of Mozarts Don Giovanni Michael F. Robinson 11. Don Giovanni: recognition denied Jessica Waldoff Part III. Analytical and Methodological Issues: 12. Analysis and dramaturgy: reflections towards a theory of Opera Sergio Durante 13. Understanding opera buffa: analysis = interpretation James Webster 14. Operatic ensembles and the problem of the Don Giovanni sextet John Platoff 15. Buffo roles in Mozarts Vienna: tessitura and tonality as signs of characterization Julian Rushton List of works cited Index.

‘The Most Interesting Genre of Music’: Performance, Sociability and Meaning in the Classical String Quartet, 1800–1830

It has long been recognized that journalistic discourse about the string quartet in early nineteenth-century sources stressed its elevation and seriousness in comparison to other genres, and that the string quartets of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven were described as ‘classical’ very early in the century. Less well known is that the idea of performance is embedded in this discourse – particularly around the question of the group dynamics of ensemble performance. The tendency to blur the roles of the parts and the roles of the players are evidence of this, as is the discussion of the relation between first-violin-centricity and the ideal of free and equal contribution by all four parts/players in ‘true’ or ‘classical’ works. This ideal, I argue, is distinct from the longstanding metaphor of ‘conversation’ to describe the relations of the parts. The first part of this article explores these broad topics. The second part of the article focuses on a single measure in the slow movement of Beethovens op. 59 no. 2 and argues that in various ways it raises and thus exemplifies the issues of the distribution of power, of musical initiative or the ‘genius of performance’, and ultimately of differing subjectivities in the early nineteenth-century notion of the quartet.