The Musical Language of Italian Opera, 1813-1859

by Rothstein, William

• ISBN13: 9780197609682
• ISBN10: 0197609686
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2022-11-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

William Rothstein is Professor of Music Theory at Queens College and The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He previously taught at Amherst College, Oberlin College, and the University of Michigan. He is author of Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music and co-author (with Charles Burkhart) of
Anthology for Musical Analysis. He has written and lectured extensively on music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with special emphasis on musical rhythm, Schenkerian theory and analysis, and nineteenth-century Italian opera.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments

Introduction: What is there to analyze?

Part One: La Via Italiana
Chapter 1. The Anvil Chorus
Chapter 2. Theoretical contexts I: Nineteenth-century theory
Chapter 3. Theoretical contexts II: Schenker and Riemann
Chapter 4. Rhythm and meter
Chapter 5. Musical form

Part Two: Rossini
Chapter 6. Rossini's mediants
Chapter 7. Tonal coherence in Rossini's Italian operas
Chapter 8. Guillaume Tell

Part Three: Between Rossini and Verdi
Chapter 9. Bellini and the new diatonicism
Chapter 10. Meyerbeer and the new chromaticism
Chapter 11. Around 1840: Mercadante and Donizetti

Part Four: Verdi's Sedici Anni
Chapter 12. Ernani to Attila (1844-1846)
Chapter 13. Rigoletto and Il trovatore (1851-1853)
Chapter 14. Les vêpres siciliennes to Un ballo in maschera (1854-1859)

Afterword: Verdi and His Predecessors

Selected bibliography
Index