| Contents |
Prologue: three rococo idylls. Watteau, galant cynosure. A new art of visual enchantment ; European vogue ; The galant style -- Two sirens: Farinelli and Metastasio. A new art of poetic enchantment ; The peerless singer ; Castrati on stage -- Burney and the grand tour. Quantz recalls the 1720s ; Brosses in Italy, 1739-40 ; Travelers in the 1760s and 1770s -- Naples. Conservatories -- Vinci. Commedia per musica ; Dramma per musica ; Didone abbandonata ; Artaserse ; The Vinci legend -- Pergolesi. La serva Padrona ; A new regime ; L'Olimpiade ; Stabat mater -- Teatro San Carlo -- Leo -- Jommelli. La passione di Gesù Cristo -- Piccinni. La buona figliuola ; Burney at the opera ; Galiani's letters -- Venice. Tributaries, rivals, polity -- The Ospedali -- Vivaldi. Priest, violinist, and musical genius ; Operas ; Concertos ; The four seasons -- Veracini and Locatelli -- Tartini -- Sammartini of Milan and the symphony -- The keyboard -- Galuppi. Predecessors, training, early successes ; Sacred music ; Opera seria ; Goldonian opera buffa ; "Brave Galuppi" -- Dresden and Berlin. Saxony's Wettin dynasty. Early opera ; Wedding festivities ; Aftermath -- Hasse. Early years ; Artaserse ; Cleofide -- The Royal Chapel under Heinichen and Zelenka -- Hasse's zenith -- Dresden's nadir -- Burney vists Dresden -- Prince Frederick of Prussia -- Carl Heinrich Graun. Montezuma -- Quantz and the royal chamber music -- Other musicians in Prussian service -- Burney in Berlin -- Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Keyboard sonatas ; Concertos -- Singspiel. Beginnings ; Hiller's Die Jagd ; The 1770s -- Stuttgart and Mannheim. Carl Eugen, duke of Württemberg -- Jommelli's operas. L'Olimpiade ; Didone abbandonata ; Fetonte ; Postlude -- Noverre's ballets. Deller's Orfeo ed Euridice -- The building of Mannheim -- Elector Carl Theodore -- Stamitz: life of a virtuoso violinist -- The symphony. Stamitz ; Richter and Holzbauer ; Anton Fils ; Cannabich ; Toeschi and Fränzl -- Palatine court opera. Traetta's Sofonisba ; Majo's Ifigenia in Tauride ; Johann Christian Bach ; Theater in German: melodrama ; Holzbauer's Günther von Schwarzburg -- Paris. Institutions. Churches ; L'Académie Royale de Musique ; Other theaters ; The concert spirituel ; Music publishing -- Rameau -- Violinist-composers. Leclair ; Mondonville ; Guignon and Guillemain ; Others -- Gossec and the symphony -- Gaviniès and Leduc -- Concerto and concertante. Saint-Georges -- The keyboard. Accompanied and solo works ; Schobert ; Fortepiano versus harpsichord -- Opéra-comique. Vaudeville comedy. Favart -- La querelle des Bouffons. Rousseau's Le devine du village ; Dauvergne's Les troqueurs ; Interlude -- Duni. Le peintre amoureux de son modèle ; Subsequent works -- Philidor. Apprenticeship ; L'Art de la modulation ; Sedaine ; Blaise le savetier ; Le maréchal ferrant ; Le sorcier and Tom Jones ; Ernelinde -- Monsigny. On ne s'avise jamais de tout ; Le roi et le fermier ; Le déserteur ; Grétry. Lìege, Rome, and Geneva ; First years in Paris ; Le Huron and Lucile ; Zémire et Azor and after ; Richard Coeur-de-Lion -- Gluck at the Opéra. Preparations ; The visit of 1774-75. Iphigénie en Aulide ; Orphée and Alceste -- An homage to Lully and Quinault: Armide -- A Neapolitan rival: Piccinni. Roland -- Final triumph: Iphigénie en Tauride -- Successors -- Three apostles of the galant style. Christian Bach in London. Apprenticeship: Germany and Italy ; The king's theatre ; Instrumental music ; Sacchini and other rivals -- Paisiello in Saint Petersburg. Russia under the Tsarinas ; Catherine's favorite ; Il barbiere di Siviglia -- Boccherini in Madrid. Virtuoso cellist ; In the service of Infante Luis ; "The true genius of the instruments" -- Appendix: Boswell visits Mannheim in 1764. |
| Abstract |
This volume continues the study of the eighteenth century begun in Haydn, Mozart, and the Viennese School 17401780 (1995) by focusing on the capital cities other than Vienna that were most important in the creation and diffusion of new music. It tells of events in Naples, where Vinci and Pergolesi went beyond their pre-1720 models to cultivate opera in a simpler, more direct manner, soon after christened the galant style. No less central was Venice, where Vivaldi perfected the concerto, on which were patterned the early symphonies and the newer kind of sonata. Dresden profited first from all these achievements and became, under Hasse's direction, the foremost center of Italian opera in Germany. Mannheim with its great orchestra did much to shape the modern symphony. A few years later, Paris became paramount, especially for its Op̌ra-Comique; during the 1770s the Op̌ra provided Gluck with a stage on which to cap his long international career. The book concludes with a description of Christian Bach in London, Paisiello in Saint Petersburg, and Boccherini in Madrid. This long-awaited book offers a view of eighteenth-century music that is broad and innovative while remaining sensitive to the values of those times and places. One comes away from it with an understanding of the European context behind the triumphs of Haydn and Mozart. Lavishly illustrated with music examples and reproductions, both in black-and-white and color, this master study will be of inestimable importance to scholars, cultural historians, performers, and all music lovers. |
