muhi 331- classical era

Arcadian Academy

Argued for the simplification of libretti- Led to the establishment of opera seria

Opera Seria

Purpose to both entertain and enlighten. Serious topic, but happy ending, no fantasy or comedy, 5-7 characters

Music concepts of Opera Seria

• story moves in recitative

• arias expressed emotional reactions, followed by exits

• almost all arias

Musical concepts of galant style

• heavy emphasis on melodies

• harmony changes very slowly to support melodies

• lots of cadences

• uses the schema (compositional formulas)

Scheme

Galant style- compositional formulas

Hasse’s Cleofide- ACT II SCENE 9- list composer, genre, date

composer- Hasse

Genre- Opera Seria

Date- 1731

Hasse’s Cleofide- ACT II SCENE 9- describe the plot and characters

• Cleofide,the queen of India expresses her faithful love for Poro, an Indian prince. She does not realize that Poro who is disguised as an army general is listening

Hasse’s Cleofide- ACT II SCENE 9- musical descriptions

• rhythmic variety- scotch snaps- reverse dotted rhythms

• singers show off 2nd time through with ornamentations

• very clear harmonic motion- slow harmonic motion

• cadences happen everywhere- lots of 5-1 motion

• A LOT of repetition- introduce a theme and expand upon it- repeat this until we get to the cadential motion- and the repeat some more

Italian Comic Opera- Opera Buffa

• full length stories about ordinary people

• drew from commedia dell’arte tradition

• popularized by leonardo vinci

• makes fun of the rules of oepra

Italian Comic Opera- Opera Buffa- Describe Form Commedia

• company of performers that play the same archetype characters

• they will improvise scenes based off of these characters

Italian Comic Opera- intermezzo

• miniature operas between acts of opera series

• make fun of opera rules

• 2-3 characters and few arias, but same styles

Pergolesi’s La Serra Padrona- list date, genre, and composer

composer- pergolesi

genre- intermezzo opera- De Capo Aria

date- 1733

pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona- described plot of what is happening

Urberto is fiening for his maid- serpina, but he does not think he should be with her, he feels very flustered

Patter- describe and what piece is it used in

• singing/talking very fast

• used in pergolesi’s la serra padrona- represents him being overcome with his feelings. It is a de capo aria, but he gets so overcome with his feelings that he cannot continue and finish

• light texture in the strings also