Don Giovanni
"The English National Opera Guides were originally conceived in partnership with the English National Opera and edited by Nicholas John, the ENO's dramaturg, who died tragically in an accident in the Alps. Most of the guides are devoted to a single opera, which is described in detail—with many articles that cover its history and information about the composer and his times. The complete libretto is included in both the original language and in a modern singing translation—except where the opera was written in English. Each has a thematic guide to the most important musical themes in musical notation and each guide is lavishly illustrated. They also contain a bibliography and a discography which is updated at each reprint. The ENO guides are widely regarded as the best series of their kind and excellent value."--Publisher's description.
Stats for nerds
1recommend
4mentions
2people
2020–2026years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- "Classical music may have fallen out of popularity, but film music in the classical style is certainly popular."
That's true, same with musicals, but it's a great shame that many more people don't listen to say Mozart/Da Ponte's Don Giovanni and Bach's B minor Mass. Those works are a part of the great musical canon and two of the greatest works of musical art ever to come out of the Western Tradition, and if people were given the right opportunity and environment I believe many, many more people would appreciate them. Moreover, whilst I'm unashamedly biased in saying that, I've even heard learned musicologists echo similar sentiments about those works.
I selected two examples I love but I could have chosen other very accessible classical works such as Magnificat BWV 243, and the The Marriage of Figaro. or other equally famous ones.
Sure, opera has fallen out of favor, but if given half a chance I'd defy modern audiences not to like Don Giovanni. As you'd know, even if one doesn't speak Italian, once one understands its synopsis one is compulsorily drawn in by its drama—which is the equal of many a modern work—sex, rape, murder, a macho he-man who's often the secret envy of many men, an uninvited ghostly figure who comes to supper and demands the villain's repentance and his refusal to give it, then his inevitable descent into Hades—and all that to WAM's divine music. Even today, drama doesn't get much more intense. The Don was such a scandal in 1786 in that it was banned in Vienna and first performed in Prague.
Similarly, there are many other works that ought to be easily accessible to modern audiences but they seem to be only appreciated by the small cognoscenti, Die Zauberflöte for instance.
You refer to certain classical works or excerpts as being still popular and I'd agree, but I'd make the point that as far as general popularity goes they are the vestiges of a past era. No doubt these works will remain popular but that they are mainly excerpts shows that most modern audiences have little tolerance for the remainder of such works, or the patience to investigate them further and deeper. One sees this trend even on FM stations dedicated to classical music, instead of playing the full work they'll play an excerpt. Frankly, I find just hearing Dies Irae alone and apart from Requiem somewhat annoying, the context, mood and setting are lost by not hearing the complete work. Carmina Burana is a wonderful work so why wouldn't someone want to hear all of it? Incidentally, have you seen or heard the modern interpretation of Carmen called The Car Men? I once caught it by accident on TV and was mightily impressed.
I understand the reason for excerpts and the popularity of works such as Eine kleine Nachtmusik, they don't require much effort to appreciate and these days people are overloaded with information and activities and have little time to listen and digest the more complex parts of a work. Moreover, that's not always easy and it often takes considerable time to develop one's full appreciation. I use myself as an example, when I was a kid and young teenager, I'd listen, say, to Beethoven symphonies and love them, but it wasn't until my 20s that Schubert's lieder like Die schöne Müllerin, and Winterreise, had the power to reduce me to tears.
- Mozart's great compositions such as Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, the piano concertos and choral works send me off into an eatherial world that only another devotee would understand. I put them amongst the greatest works of Western art of all time.
With that in mind I don't hold Mozart god-like on a pedestal as many do. I see him as an ordinary guy with one supreme talent. The fact that we still have instances of Mozart's profane utterings is a reminder to me that in many respects he's down at my level of thinking -- and thus human like the rest of us. For that reason I'm truly glad that we've not sanitized these particular works and sayings of his from history.
The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth was reputed to have said of Mozart that "God overdid the goodness essence when he created Mozart".
My take on that would be to exchange 'goodness' for 'talent'. I'd add a rider to that however and that's that Mozart is widely and lovingly remembered for the sheer joy that his music has brought to millions of music lovers over the past 23 decades since his death. If that translates into 'goodness essence' then so be it.
- Yeah, that part was accurate, Mozart was a brilliant improvisor.
It's fascinating to see that when you look at the score for ' Non più andrai', it looks so deceptively simple in that anyone could sing or play it. I remember this is not the case from me attempting to learn to play it on piano decades ago; my teacher would continually screech 'play Mozart's timing not yours' (which means I never got the timings fully correct). This apparent ease is so very characteristic of Mozart's music, it seems so effortless but to play it well it's anything but that. This isn't an isolated case either, one finds this apparent simplicity everywhere† throughout his music.
It's funny isn't it that if 'Non più andrai'—one of the most famous arias in all of opera—were written today then it'd be considered a politically incorrect war mongering jingo, for that is exactly what it is. No doubt Cherubino was a troublesome PIA but sending the young guy off to war just to get him out of the way is a pretty rotten idea by today's standards but nevertheless we all love that aria and the Marriage wouldn't be the same without it (when I was a kid I had an LP set of the Marriage and I recall waiting eagerly for 'Non più andrai' to arrive as it was within the last half inch or so of the end of first 12" record).
One of the great things about the Mozart-Da Ponte operas is that the vivacity and exuberance of the libretto matches the music in perfect harmony, the characters are so real and they fit the parts so well; they're all characters with great spirit. We often forget that Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote the words for 'Non più andrai' and the collaboration between these two great masters was a match made in heaven so to speak. In my opinion, this is important nowadays as, unlike so many other operas where the libretto is just a framework for the music; the Mozart-Da Ponte collaboration really does come up with a product that enables us, a 21st-Century audience with very different sensibilities, to enter the zeitgeist of the late Enlightenment. These operas aren't just a means to listen to great music, they're also full of dramatic interest and are truly entertaining to watch.
Nothing exemplifies this more than does Don Giovanni. Here, Mozart and Da Ponte are at their absolute pinnacle, they brilliantly combine and contrast The Don's terribly flawed character in that he's both a rapist, murderer and ultimately an unrepentant sinner with his charming and beguiling attributes—ones that many, perhaps most, men would admire—that of being a ladies' man who can easily charm women and ultimately score with them.
Don Giovanni is a violent, racy and sexy opera that shocked 18th Century audiences as it still does with us today (in fact, today, much of it wouldn't be written at all as it would be politically incorrect to do so). That's the simple view but the undercurrent runs much deeper, as ethics and morality raise their heads wherever one ventures to look. This is further complicated from our own modern perceptions of morality that, in some ways, are more nuanced than they were in the days when the opera was written, on the other hand, the reverse is true for others. The Don is probably the most complex and ambiguous character in all of opera and he has always been so; on the one hand we hate him and on the other we can't help but admire him—but at the end when he repeatedly and stubbornly refuses repent his sins before the ghost of the Commendatore who he murdered in Act I, then we bid him farewell and good riddance as he descends into Hell.
Don Giovanni by general consensus is one of the greatest operas ever written and I'm personally of the opinion that it is the greatest because not only is the music simply stunning throughout—in fact its quality is so consistently brilliant that it's almost overwhelming in that one cannot take it all in at one sitting, but also because Da Ponte's libretto is just so brilliant and fitting (it's probably the finest libretto ever written for an opera).
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† This footnote is for diehards only, and what follows isn't the words of a professional musician but rather a listener with a little musical knowledge. It just so happened that in a newsletter that I wrote to friends during the lockdown earlier this year I added a comment in response to an article that appeared in The Spectator titled "The Marvel of Mozart’s letters. 'Composers’ letters can make frustrating reading. But with Mozart, you get the whole personality—candid, perceptive, irresistibly alive and packed with filth": https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marvel-of-mozart-s-l... ".
Here's a part of that correspondence (it's abbreviated as I cannot include the score which I did in the newsletter, and I've also omitted comments that refer to annotations that I made on the score). What I intended to show here was how something so seeming simple as a repeated note tutti that Mozart uses to conclude his work is nothing but simple. In fact with subtle changes that you and I would likely never think of it becomes a work of genius in Mozart's hands. The only part I discuss here is the last 14 seconds which starts at 00:11:56 and concludes at 00:12:10 (which you can hear on the YouTube link). I quote:
"…This is one’s just for me. Right, this addendum is my dalliance, it's for my pleasure and indulgence—and has nothing to do with the article in the above link or about Mozart being a filthy little bastard—so what, most males are filthy-minded bastards anyway! Naturally, it's all about his music. Here, on YouTube, is the third (last) movement, the finale, from Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-Flat Major, K. 482, III Allegro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyK_ZrCocTI, [total time 12m 20sec]. I adore the piano concerto form and this is one of my favorite Mozart piano concertos (and having the link here gives me an excuse to hear it again).
For as long as I can remember, I've been amazed by the way Mozart brings many of the finales in his major works to a conclusion; his technique is just amazing and wonderful to hear. They have a sense of elegance and 'completeness' about them that leaves the listener completely satisfied when the work is finished in ways rarely equalled by other composers. Yet, on first glance of a score, the final moments of the last few bars look deceptively simple and almost boring—seemingly anyone could have written them (as here in K. 482’s Allegro). As even a musical neophyte can see, there's many repeated notes in the second and third last bars with some even spilling over into the last bar. Being a tutti, all these notes are played by all instruments in the orchestra except the piano, thus it just looks so very simple.
Nonetheless, this simplicity is deceptive: as the piano finishes its last ha-rah (which starts at 00:11:56 and ends at 00:12:02 with two crotchets in the home key of E flat Major), a little timing and rhythmic self-contained masterpiece from the orchestra begins the next bar [00:12:02] and lasts slightly less than eight seconds. It's a six-measure tutti in compound 6/8 time that includes beats of six semiquavers; a quaver and quaver rests followed by another six semiquavers then a measure of two quaver triplets, then that’s followed by those two beats of triples, which are the repeated notes I mentioned earlier. Then to conclude Mozart uses the violins to take the concerto back to its home key of E flat Major—and in the last two measures he makes maximum use of 6/8’s compound rhythm and timing to brilliant effect. This isn’t the work of any old hick but from the hand of genius."
[If you got this far it's probably best you download the score which is easily found on the Web.]
- Had he been able to, should Mozart have used a LLM to help him compose Don Giovanni? There are things more important than being productive.
