CLASS: Nov 7, 2018

Question 1

What are the defining characteristics of Musical Tales (Favola en Musica)?

• Plots
• Performance Contexts
• Characters
• Musical Style

Answer 1

What are the defining characteristics of Musical Tales (Favola en Musica)?

• Plots
  
  • Greek and Roman Mythology
• Performance Contexts
  
  • Court and Occasional (Weddings)
• Characters
  
  • (Like Hansel and Gretel, Snow White)
• Musical Style
  
  • Recitative (Speech like singing)
  • Aria (Character expresses emotion)
  • Noumenal music (Music that’s only heard by the audience)
  • Phenomenal Music (Characters hear it as music, Orfeo’s strophic aria)
    
    • Orfeo is a mashup of styles VS Monteverdi’s Coronation of Pompeo (the entire whole of itself, more seamless)

Question 2

What genre is this?

• Character expresses feeling
  
  • Orfeo’s Strophic, nothing happens except he is expressing his happiness
  • Plot stops, character emotes
• Mix of syllabic and melismatic text setting
• Accompaniment = basso continuo + orchestra
  
  • Beefed up accompaniment
• Steady rhythms
  
  • Can tap your hand and can sense the meter
• Strophic Form, Later: Da Capo Form

Answer 2

What genre is this?

ARIA

• Character expresses feeling
  
  • Orfeo’s Strophic, nothing happens except he is expressing his happiness
  • Plot stops, character emotes
• Mix of syllabic and melismatic text setting
• Accompaniment = basso continuo + orchestra
  
  • Beefed up accompaniment
• Steady rhythms
  
  • Can tap your hand and can sense the meter
• Strophic Form, Later: Da Capo Form

Question 3

What genre is this?

• Dialogue, narration, moving the story along
  
  • Something actually happens
• Syllabic text setting
  
  • Usually a lot of texts
• Only Basso continuo accompaniment (no orchestra)
  
  • Strings drop out
• Rubato: Flexible tempo following speech-like declamation
  
  • The continuo group and singer work closely together to follow each other

Answer 3

What genre is this?

RECITATIVE

• Dialogue, narration, moving the story along
  
  • Something actually happens
• Syllabic text setting
  
  • Usually a lot of texts
• Only Basso continuo accompaniment (no orchestra)
  
  • Strings drop out
• Rubato: Flexible tempo following speech-like declamation
  
  • The continuo group and singer work closely together to follow each other

Question 4

Where did the first opera house open?

Answer 4

1637 in Venice

Question 5

Who are Impresarios?

Answer 5

Musical businessmen

• Think of them as music producers
  
  • Get funding
  • Get Libretto in order
  • Get composer to write music
  • Arrange/manage singers, instrumentalists, lighting, costumes
  • Not a steady job
    
    • Take on business ventures and overrun their budget, popular then fade away
    • If you can’t pay your singers, they don’t want to work for you

Question 6

Who were the Opera Houses for?

Answer 6

Works created for public consumption

• First commercial music venue
• First time in music history when anyone who could afford it could go
• You had to think about what would sell tickets, from a business perspective
  
  • What do I need to write to draw them in, have them come back, and tell their friends

Question 7

The time just before lint, January / February

Answer 7

Carnival

Question 8

What is significant about lint and Opera Houses?

Answer 8

Once Lint began, the opera houses would shut down until it was over.

Question 9

• Monteverdi, L’incoronazione di Poppea* (1643)
• Talk about this piece

Answer 9

Monteverdi, L’incoronazione di Poppea (1643)

• Carnival Show
  
  • No shows performed during lint
• More agency given to “lower” characters (lady in waiting, page)
  
  • Points forward
• Story: Historical Fantasy
  
  • Not an absolute true story
• Love Triangle:
  
  • Emperor Nero, Wife Octavia, Mistress Poppea (Ottone)
  • Questionable morals
  • The seductress that wins
• More earthly/sensual in focus
• Conceived as a single genre
  
  • Compare to mash-up genre like Orfeo

Question 10

31:07

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