Friday, November 16, 2007

Philistine

Berg's operas are composed on classical forms as though they were Mozart. Mozart, of course, would not have composed sections of his operas on the sonata form or any other forms besides those of Neapolitan opera, Singspiel, or those of his own invention. If you are into this sort of thing, you can buy the score and analyze away. It's like doing sudoku--completely irrelevant to any practical use. It helped him decide what to do, and in a style as conceptual as serialism any help you can find is good.

Sometimes the program for Wozzeck will list the forms being played rather than the scenes. You can analyze aurally that way.

The music that results from this abstraction seems to fit the content which is not at all abstract. Lulu is fascinating rather than precisely attractive. Compare her to Manon: Manon is enjoying herself, but can the same be said of Lulu?

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