Description
Book SynopsisIn late eighteenth-century Vienna and the Habsburg territories, over 50 minor-key symphonies were written. Their distinctive stormy character, nervous energy and intense pathos make them a unique phenomenon.
Trade Review"[R]eaders should be grateful for this groundbreaking contribution to our understanding of an era characterized by non-uniform stylistic heterogeneity and change. Riley opens up an important repertoire that has heretofore lacked a coherent theoretical treatment. In the process, he presents a plausible set of compositional options within the constraints of his proposed subgenre, in which rhetorical strategies may be interpreted as helping create marked expressive effects."--Music Theory Online "Riley has prompted a rethinking of our knowledge of the use of minor keys in the Classical era, and that is high praise indeed considering how much time scholars have invested in these works already...The fact that Riley was able to find all of these works and digest them in a meaningful way is impressive in its own right. Read Riley's first chapter; if you are still skeptical of his argument, read the rest of the book and watch as his preponderance of evidence piles upon you."--Fontes artis musicae
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ; Tables, figures and music examples ; 1 The Viennese minor-key symphony ; 2 Imperial court composers: Wagenseil, Gassmann, Ordonez ; 3 Va?hal to 1771: five first movements ; 4. Two subgeneric conventions: the contrapuntal minuet, the stormy finale ; 5. Studies in Haydn's minor-key symphonies 1763-1772 ; 6. Va?hal's new paths: four later symphonies ; 7. Modal reversal and characteristic symphonies ; 8. Mozart and the minor-key symphony ; Glossary of analytical terms ; Appendix 1 Thematic catalogues consulted for the information in Table 1.1 ; Appendix 2 Sources of the symphonies used for analysis; CD recordings ; Bibliography ; Index
