Mozart’s Multiple Musical Personas

Catalog description

In this course we will study major works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) in the Enlightenment cultures of players, listeners, and the operatic stage. Drawing on the influential persona theory of Edward T. Cone (The Composer’s Voice) that seeks to answer the question “If music is a language, then who is speaking?” we will consider the multiple personas Mozart constructed as vehicles for musical expression. For instrumental music (chamber music, concerto, symphony, fantasia) our topics will include musical sociability, the agency of instrumental protagonists, and the projection of affective states. For comic opera, the natural home of deceptive practices, we will consider the many ironies of persuasion. To what extent is the composer “in the work”? These insights may be applied to other composers in the western classical tradition. Reading knowledge of music is NOT required in this course