The secular commedia : comic mimesis in late eighteenth-century music / Wye Jamison Allanbrook ; edited by Mary Ann Smart and Richard Taruskin.

By:

Allanbrook, Wye Jamison [author.]

Contributor(s):

Material type: Text

TextSeries: Ernest Bloch lecture series ; 15.Publisher: Berkeley : University of California Press, 2014Description: 1 online resource (253 pages)Content type:

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

9780520958876
052095887X
1306859700
9781306859707
0520274075
9780520274075

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: Secular Commedia : Comic Mimesis in Late Eighteenth-Century Music.DDC classification:

780.9 23

LOC classification:

ML195

Other classification:

LP 19504

Online resources:

Click here to access online

Contents:

Cover; THE SECULAR COMMEDIA; Title; Copyright; 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.

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.

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Print version record.

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.