#maybe it's my modern ear being spoiled by film scores and the like but i've no pretentions that this is an objective rant lol | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

supercantaloupe · 2 years ago

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🔥+ opera

love the fact that two of the three of these asks i got were exactly the same prompt, lol. anyway i'm gonna say it: i like it when operas have repetition in their arias and recurring motifs throughout the opera!! #bringbackthedacapo. and i like having distinct sections of recit and aria. late romantic and modernist stans dni i guess...i simply think that the music is better when it's memorable sorry 💖

[ask meme]

#sasha answers #nablah #ask meme #ty!#obviously repetition just to draw out the run time is dumb. and one could easily make the argument that that's all da capo is anyway lol #but hey i like baroque. and i like ornaments. so. i give it a pass #this was a deliberate facet of scoring in 20th cen musical theater (and certainly influenced later broadway composition too)#that you make your music as catchy/memorable as possible so you can sell the soundtrack on records #which was often achieved not just with catchy melodies but with reprises everywhere #obv the bulk of opera was before recording was A Thing so the composition has a different purpose but #esp once you get to the turn of the 19th cen and the height of bel cantl i think that's definitely a related factor...#people wanted to buy piano arrangements etc of their fave arias to plunk out at home and in salons!#amateur publishing was taking off in a big way in the early 19th cen #anyway. compare smth like barbiere or nozze with late verdi...even after the da capo fell out of dominance the music i would argue #has a lot more Memorability and Catchiness (and repetition within an aria). and the Important Musical Moments are clearly distinguished #with plainer recits in between. makes the set piece numbers stand out that much more #vs a later romantic score which is more through composed...yes there are recurring motifs and in some cases they are even more prevalent #than recurring themes or unifying musical ideas of any kind in earlier works #but to my ear anyway they tend to. stick out less #maybe it's my modern ear being spoiled by film scores and the like but i've no pretentions that this is an objective rant lol #it's of course greatly influenced by my own taste. and i simply like baroque and classical more generally than romantic and modernist music #not to leave a serious musicological essay in the tags of a tongue in cheek post or anything lol

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