Musik & Ästhetik, 2017, Jg. 21, Ausgabe 81

»Heroic-Comic Singspiel« and »Egyptian Mysteries« in Mozart and Schikaneder’s Magic Flute – Mozart and Schikaneder’s opera The Magic Flute is a work of completely unique complexity. The context of the plot quickly became incomprehensible, and is still widely considered a mystery today. One possible solution would be that it brings together entirely different conceptions. Schikaneder evidently had a »heroic-comic opera« in mind, the most popular genre in late 18th-century Vienna, based on fairy tales from Wieland’s collection Dschinnistan. Mozart, on the other hand, may have planned to stage the »Egyptian mysteries«, the object of years of research by the Vienna lodge »Zur wahren Eintracht« and to which Mozart had been introduced on the occasion of his father’s initiation. Just as the first part (nos. 1-8) is clearly based on Wieland’s fairly tales, parts 2-4 (nos. 9-30) are based on the mystery theory of the Freemasons and their primary source, Terrasson’s novel Sethos.

»Vanités« by Brice Pauset – This work, composed from 2000-2002, is described in detail. The work structure, compositional aim, text selection and connection to the Baroque are explained as well as the motif of vanitas in Baroque painting, especially Albrecht Dürer’s famous etching Melencolia I. Pauset conceived a 25-part cycle for a truly exquisite combination of instruments that includes theorbo and three harpsichords. The work appears to have been created for eternity.

Concerning the Ontology of Pop Music – This study on the ontology of music aims for a contrastive reconstruction of pop music’s special character in comparison to European art music and jazz. In the first part, the concepts of musical performance, the musical work and the recording are introduced as categories that are fundamental to our understanding of music. In the second part, these concepts are related to the traditions of European art music, jazz and pop music. Whereas the work paradigm has primacy in the tradition of European art music, it is the concrete spatio-temporal musical event that generally constitutes the focus of aesthetic appreciation in jazz. The central thesis on pop music’s mode of being, by contrast, is that it exists primarily in the form of recordings. In pop music, such recordings are usually less documentations of musical performances than independent objects of aesthetic appreciation.

Orlando’s »La nuict froide et sombre«. Rhetorical Innovation at All Levels – By approaching Orlando di Lasso’s setting of two strophes of Joachim Du Bellay’s ode, La nuict froide et sombre, from a rhetorical point of view, this article addresses the relationship of the underlying affects of the poetic text to their musical expression. In particular, it examines some of the musical vocabulary Lasso employed – his use of major and minor imperfect intervals, his cadential structure and employment of ornamental figures – which enabled him to create a musical counterpart equal to the revolutionary form and structure of the poetic text. By using Joachim Burmeister’s method of analysis in which the music is subdivided and evaluated line-by-line in accordance to their affect, an extremely valuable perspective is opened up for the performing musician, as the rhetorical aspect of inventio can immediately be linked to the subsequent actio.

»Comme une mouche à miel«: Aspects of Magical Beauty in Orlando di Lasso‘s Chanson »Le nuict froide et sombre« – This analytical sketch on La nuict froide et sombre combines a discussion of contemporary theoretical sources with an interpretation of »implicit theory« and insights reached through creative »impulsive« decisions. It is shown that the beauty of the chanson rests as much on di Lasso‘s highly sophisticated art of differentiation and refinement as on the creation of distinctive motifs and a wealth of contentual relationships. Here it transpires that various elements of inversion are fundamental to an understanding of the chanson.

»Magnanimous Opera« or Tragic Operetta? On Mozart’s »Fragment« Zaïde – A renewed critical appraisal of the primary and secondary sources offers a new possibility to determine the character and status of Mozart’s Zaïde. The state of the autograph, the work’s genesis and the critical research carried out thus far lead to the hypothesis that the work could be a one-act short opera (»operetta«) with a tragic subject and ending. The previous, widespread view of Mozart’s Zaïde as a multi-act Singspiel with a happy ending is refuted by references to the librettist Schachtner’s borrowings from Voltaire’s tragedy Zaïre and the one-sided fixation of its previous reception on genre stereotypes that did not correspond to Mozart’s intentions. The study places particular emphasis on the role of the melodramas and final quartet.