Mozart Opera

• Recommended Mozart operas for students to listen to

  • Don Giovanni
  • Così fan tutte
  • The Magic Flute
  • Die Entführung aus dem Serail
• What students must show in the analysis part of the exam

  • The effect of audience, time and place on how the set works were created, developed and performed
  • How and why the music across the selected strand is different
  • How the composer's purpose and intention for the set works is reflected in their use of musical elements
  • Relevant musical vocabulary and terminology for the set works
  • The complex interdependencies between musical elements
  • The sophisticated connections between music and its context
• Le Nozze di Figaro

  Mozart's first collaboration with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, composed in 1785 in Vienna
• First performance of Le Nozze di Figaro at the Burgtheater

  1 May 1786
• Le Nozze di Figaro

  • Revolutionary in the way Mozart's music integrates instrumental forms, most notably sonata form, with the drama
  • The characterisation appears through the music, with the vocal part almost supplementary in places
  • Can be enjoyed as a magnificent romp of ridiculous situations, full of wit and vigour, with wonderful melodies, joyous dancing and a happy final reconciliation
  • Brilliant capture of the whole range of common human emotions - love, rejection, humiliation, jealousy, revenge, anger, hate, ambition, broken relationships, loneliness, generosity

  
• Characters students must study from Act 1 of Le Nozze di Figaro


  • Figaro and Susanna
  • Bartolo and Marcellina
  • Cherubino
  • The Count and Basilio
• Tempo markings in Le Nozze di Figaro

  Overture Presto, (1) Allegro, (3) Allegretto-Presto, (4) Allegro con spirito, (5) Allegro and Allegro vivace, (7) Allegro assai (9) Vivace
• Students must be introduced to 'Porgi amor' from Le Nozze di Figaro
• Orchestration in Le Nozze di Figaro

  • Double woodwind (two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons)
  • Brass (two horns, two trumpets and timpani in limited keys)
  • Strings (including harpsichord for the recitatives)

  
• Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro

  • Effectively sets the mood for the forthcoming drama
  • Fast-paced and relentless in its energy, full of intrigue and wit, unexpected twists and turns, and with passages of beauty and charm too
  • Encapsulates Mozart's mature classical style - tuneful melodies, carefully crafted harmonies, rhythmic drive, imaginative orchestration, varied textures - in a sure-footed structural and tonal scheme
• Structure of the Overture

  1. First subject group (bars 1-34)

  2. Transition section (bars 35-58)

  3. Second subject (bars 59-118)
• First subject group


  • Whispered, closed one-bar phrase (motif a)
  • Rising sequentially through the pitches of the tonic triad (marked x)
  • Falling partially sequentially through the pitches of the dominant triad (marked y)
  • Scurrying quavers, almost totally conjunct, with tiny bits of chromaticism
  • More lyrical second idea, passing antiphonally between instruments, bursting into a lively and brilliant tutti
• Transition section


  • Provides the journey from tonic (D major) to dominant (A major)
  • Continues to sound brightly optimistic as fp punches articulate the rising melodic shape
  • Rushing quaver scales descend, largely in 3rds, in the violins above ten more bars of tonic pedal
  • Energy levels increase further as the woodwind parts strive towards the upper tonic note, the violin scales now ascending, imitated in the lower strings, and the trumpets and timpani articulate a military-sounding dotted rhythm and then insistent crotchets
  • Harmonic rhythm changes chord every bar and then every half-bar to increase the intensity
  • Tension is released as tonic and dominant harmonies alternate joyously
• Second subject


  • Continues in a similar vein, containing a wealth of new melodic ideas, sustaining the drama with bold adventures in harmony and instrumental colour, but without any lessening of the rhythmic vitality
  • Features include: dominant key (A major), close three-part texture in upper strings alone, imitation (including inverted imitation), three distinctive melodic ideas (motifs b, c and d), conjunct motion, chromatic harmony, incessant quaver movement, repeated fps throughout a generally p dynamic

  
• Further development of the second subject

  • A more aspirant, rising scale idea emerges in the bass, ending with a chromatic passing note and appoggiatura which has a sense of yearning
  • The F♮ is sustained, initially unharmonised and hanging, before the lower strings enter, imitating the rising scale in semitonal steps in parallel 3rds and 10ths
  • Unexpectedly, the first harmony treats the F♮ as the 7th of a G7 chord, its resolution to C not arriving until a bar and a half later via some very fast-moving chromatic harmony and a 4–3 suspension
  • Three more suspensions follow as the melody falls by step in a long-drawn out augmentation and extension of the original material, the last three bars in the dominant minor key (A minor) after a colourful Neapolitan chord
• Ising scalic idea taken over by violins in octaves

  1. Unaccompanied

  2. Appoggiatura figure closely imitated by oboes and bassoons in 3rds, and lower strings in contrary motion

  3. Providing a little cadence pattern
• What follows


  Extraordinarily bold and masterful reworking of the material
• F♮ sustained


  1. Initially unharmonised and hanging

  2. Lower strings enter, imitating the rising scale in semitonal steps in parallel 3rds and 10ths

  3. First harmony treats the F♮ as the 7th of a G7 chord, its resolution to C not arriving until a bar and a half later via some very fast-moving chromatic harmony and a 4–3 suspension

  4. Three more suspensions follow as the melody falls by step in a long-drawn out augmentation and extension of the original material

  5. Last three bars in the dominant minor key (A minor) after a colourful Neapolitan chord on the second beat of bar 104

  
• Mozart intertwines a comical bassoon countermelody


  1. Initially high in its tenor register

  2. After some light-footed, dancing staccato leaps, finishing low down in the bass
• New melodic material emerges at bar 107

  1. Codetta section finishes the exposition with a sudden reversal of tonality back to A major and more tonic pedals reestablishing the key

  2. New melody is the most galant yet, in regular four-bar phrases and entirely diatonic, based largely on triadic patterns with some typical ornamentation

  3. Low sustained pedal in the horns, newly dancing staccato quavers in the 2nd violins, and the 1st violin melody doubled at the octave by the bassoon

  4. Repetition in bar 116 adds a flute doubling the melody at the octave above

  
• 16-bar section follows, acting as a link between the end of the exposition in bar 122 and the recapitulation in bar 139


  1. Music is very similar in character to that of the transition (bar 35 onwards), with its gradual ascent step by step on the first beats of every other bar, articulated by fps, agitated quavers in the violins providing the rhythmic energy

  2. A pedal point starts out as a continuation of the tonic pedal of the codetta, but after a strong A7 harmony in bar 127, and then a syncopated reiteration of the same chord with the 7th at the top in bars 133–134 it is clear the climax has been reached – a roll in the timpani (the only one of the whole overture) highlighting the moment

  3. Tricky exposed passage of ensemble for the violins follows – a variant of motif a in parallel 3rds descending rapidly to the tonic
• Recapitulation begins at bar 139


  1. Reassuringly exact repeat of the first subject material from the exposition back in the tonic key

  2. When the opening idea repeats in bar 156 the music starts to change direction

  3. Subtle change to a G# on the final quaver of bar 157 swings the tonality briefly towards A major, and then a more decisive C♮ in the flute abruptly sends it in the opposite direction towards G major, the string phrase shortened to another two-bar pattern

  4. Another string phrase starts in bar 161 suggesting E minor, before landing firmly on the dominant again in bar 164

  5. Flute and oboe accompaniment explores a series of suspensions in descending sequence in a pattern very reminiscent of the close of the second subject (bars 103–105)

  6. Horns reinforce these falling suspensions high in their register an octave below the woodwind
• At bar 164, the music from the final eight bars of the transition is repeated


  1. Long dominant pedal with alternating tonic and dominant harmonies and in full orchestration

  2. Repeat of the second first subject idea, and the whole of the early transition material has been omitted, and the section ends on the same expectant open dominant note as it did in bar 58

  
• In the exposition, the dominant ending was a preparation for the second subject in the dominant key


  1. Here, the same dominant ending acts as preparation for the second subject in the tonic key

  2. Mozart repeats all this material exactly, now pitched a fourth higher, with small alterations in the orchestration

  3. Flutes rather than the oboes make the first woodwind entry and bassoons add further textural reinforcement the second time around (bar 180)

  4. More dramatic central section follows, now passing through the keys of A minor and G minor with more woodwind support and a varied violin configuration of the leaping octaves ahead of the perfect cadence in D major at bar 198

  5. Third, rising scalic idea appears as expected, but now a fifth lower in the bass and then a fourth higher in the violins

  6. Codetta theme is likewise an exact repeat in bars 220–235 with small adjustments in the woodwind doublings

  
• At bar 236 a lengthy Coda begins


  1. Quavers in the first violins, similar to the first subject, but more agitated with separate rather than slurred bowing, and accompanied by a rhythmically insistent pedal note, begin pp

  2. Long crescendo is supported by a very gradual rise in pitch, ascending sequences in one, two and half-bar patterns, an imitative entry in the second violins and then further textural reinforcements from the woodwind and horns

  3. Joyous transition music emerges with the entry of the trumpets and timpani at bar 250

  4. Brightly exultant character is now sustained for a final 45 bars of brilliance, rather like an exciting firework display, driving headlong to the finish through repetitions of the pealing bells in octaves in the strings and high in the woodwind in thirds

  5. Eleven bars of D major chord bring the overture to a close, enlivened by dotted rhythms passing antiphonally between brass and woodwind and triple stopping in the violins
• Duettino


  A short duet
• Figaro and Susanna


  The two main characters in the opera
• As the curtain rises

  1. We're in an unfurnished bedroom in Count Almaviva's castle near Seville in the mid-18th century

  2. Figaro is measuring up the room for a bed and Susanna is trying on a new hat and admiring it and herself in a mirror

  3. They are seemingly ignoring each other, each immersed in their own task
• The music relaxes from the scurrying Presto rhythms of the Overture into a slightly slower Allegro in the more subdued subdominant key of G major

  1. Two melodies quietly vie for attention

  2. First violins start on the upbeat with a distinctive dotted rhythm and a two-bar phrase of measured repeated D crotchets followed by a rising and falling fifth (Theme A1)

  3. Violoncellos and basses start half-way through the next bar with a sustained G tonic moving downwards to the lower dominant, picking up the distinctive dotted rhythm along the way (Theme A2)

  4. Moments of tension are felt at the start of the second, fourth, fifth and sixth bars when the upward leaps create suspensions in the bass

  5. Consequent phrases rise a sixth, and then a seventh, as the pattern is shortened and the music becomes more impassioned, with the bass imitating the rising intervals as it tries to catch up reaching ever higher pitches

  6. Woodwind and horns thicken the texture and the dynamic reaches forte before an imperfect cadence resolves the tension at bar 9
• A second, more gentle, legato and less aspirant theme emerges

  1. Largely in thirds in the oboes over a dominant pedal

  2. Two-bar phrase repeated three times with insistent appoggiaturas emphasised by sfs and rushing semiquaver patterns in the violins marking the phrase endings

  
• Introduction concludes with a typically confident tutti four-bar section


  Outlining a IV - Ic - V7 - I cadential progression and repetition of the opening dotted rhythmic pattern
• As the music of this introduction fades away

  1. Violins have already seamlessly started again with Theme A1 and this time Figaro picks up the notes of the final falling fifth for the opening words of the opera 'Cinque' (five) as he measures the floor of the room with a ruler in short fragmented phrases

  2. First eight bars of the piece are effectively repeated, but without the power struggle between the upper and lower parts, nor the shortening of phrases, quickening pace, or stretto imitation

  3. Tension seems to have dissipated as Figaro goes about his perfunctory task

  4. Imperfect cadence from bar 9 with its preceding secondary dominant is now followed by a full-blown perfect cadence in the dominant key of D as Figaro finds the correct measurement for his bed 'quaranta tre' (forty three)
• Attention now turns to Susanna as she appreciates herself in her hat with the lyrical second theme


  1. Firmly pulling the music straight back to the tonic and concluding with a similarly satisfied Ic - V7 - I perfect cadence

  2. Dancing triplets in the violins cascade down the tonic arpeggio
• Opening music starts a third time

  1. Figaro anticipates the violin phrase and Susanna immediately adds a third strand to the counterpoint trying to capture Figaro's attention 'Guarda un po' (look a moment)

  2. Figaro is put out and misplaces his next few phrases, interrupting Susanna's line in the process
• Susanna becomes more insistent as the tonality moves first to the dominant and then (at bar 46) reaches the dominant of the dominant (A major) through a VIIb - I progression and increased rhythmic vitality with the off-beat quavers in the accompaniment


  Figaro quickly realises that this is not a battle worth fighting, and he takes up Susanna's tune 'Si, mio core' (yes, my love) this time in the dominant key
• Susanna's personality


  Bright and intelligent and resourceful in dominating the relationship
• For the last 25 bars of the duet the two lovers sing together in consonant harmony


  1. Largely in parallel tenths, as Susanna's theme sustains itself over a 14-bar dominant pedal with some teasing echo effects between voices and wood-wind (bars 65–66), a pause on a dominant seventh chord (bar 67) and still no resolution until, firstly a Ib chord in bar 73, and then finally a Ic - V7 - I perfect cadence in the tonic at bar 75, accompanied by the dancing triplets

  2. Nothing now inhibits their joyful union as the codetta from bar 81 triumphantly heralds their happiness in the distinctive dotted rhythms from the opening of the movement
• Recitative


  A style of vocal music that is closer to speech than song
• Recitative - Susanna and Figaro


  1. Figaro explaining why he's measuring up the room (to see where the bed will best fit), and Susanna asserting that she's not intending to sleep in a bedroom adjacent to the Count's bedroom

  2. Conversational style of the dialogue is effectively conveyed in (a) the varying phrase-lengths and rhythms, (b) the melodic shapes and (c) the harmony changes
• Phrase-lengths and rhythms in recitative


  • The recitative starts with two long phrases, a question from Susanna and an explanatory answer from Figaro
  • Later, as friction develops, the phrases are short and snappy ('perche non voglio')