Timeline 1800-1899: Music for 1810-1819
Looney Tunes and other zaniness, plus the subversive waltz.
Total listening time for this decade (playlist here) is 37 minutes - plus 3 more if you watch the Looney Tunes excerpts (which YouTube won’t let me add to the playlist), plus about 5 hours more if you listen to both Rossini operas (links at the end of the playlist). Links to videos of each work are included below.
1. Rossini’s The Italian Girl in Algiers, 1813
Who says opera has to be serious? The Italian Girl in Algiers remains hilarious today, but it’s even more enjoyable if you know about the Barbary pirates {World in 1800: Pol/Africa; 5/10/1801 US, 6/17/1815 US}, secret societies {ca. 1810 World}, and the rise of Italian nationalism {World in 1800: Phil/Pol/Nationalism}. Isabella, the “Italian woman” of the title, is intelligent and assertive – a delightful surprise for a female character in the 1810s. The Act 1 finale is a zany masterpiece in which half a dozen characters sing at cross-purposes, backed by a chorus of eunuchs, guards, and slaves. Read the Met Opera’s synopsis here, and see a full performance here.
From Timeline 1800-1899:
1813 (May 22): Gioachino Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers) premieres in Venice. The flamboyant 21-year-old Rossini claims to have composed this opera (his 8th) in 18 days. Story: the Bey of Algiers, on the Barbary Coast {World in 1800: Pol/Africa; 5/10/1801 US, 6/17/1815 US}, lusts after an Italian girl who was captured by his pirates; but she loves an Italian who is a slave of the Bey. When Rossini’s career begins (1810), Italian operas are still either opera buffa or opera seria {World in 1800: Music}. Here and in later works, Rossini attempts to reform opera seria, 1) by using libretti that have unpredictable stories (vs. Greek mythology or Roman history) {see also 5/23/1814 Opera}, 2) by requiring that singers show not just technical virtuosity but expressiveness, 3) by integrating vocal performances into the plot rather than making them stand-alone showpieces, and 4) by writing orchestral music that provides a richer accompaniment to the story. L’Italiana’s exotic setting, emotional depth, and complex orchestration mark it as an early Romantic opera {World in 1800: Esth}. For other Italian Romantic operas, see Rossini {2/20/1816 Opera}, Bellini {3/6/1831 Opera}, and Donizetti {5/12/1832 Opera, 9/26/1835 Opera}. Operas by Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti are often called bel canto (“beautiful singing”), since they demand not merely technical virtuosity but the ability to sing with great feeling.
2. Weber’s Invitation to the Dance, 1815
Who knew dance could make a political statement? Well, perhaps I should have known that, after living through the 1960s and 1990s … See here for a concert performance of Invitation to the Dance. The introduction ends and the waltz begins at around 1:45 minutes.
From Timeline 1800-1899:
1815: Carl Maria von Weber’s Invitation to the Dance is the 1st concert waltz, meant for listening rather than dancing. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, dances, like fashions, are tied to political views. The elegant minuet, performed at aristocratic courts by couples moving in stately sequence, was associated with pre-Revolutionary France and with composers such as Handel {7/17/1717 Music}, Haydn {1772 Music}, and Mozart {1777 Music}. The cotillion typically included groups of 4 couples executing intricate moves; it was popular in Republican France {9/21/1792 World}, in Britain, and at community events in the US. (The American square dance is a descendant.) But Vienna—successively the capital of the Habsburg monarchy {World in 1800: Pol/Eur/Habsburgs}, the Austrian Empire {8/11/1804 World}, and the German Confederacy {9/1814 World}—adopted the waltz, a fast, swooping version of a German/Austrian folk dance. In comparison with other dances of the time, partners in a waltz clasp each other shockingly close. Outside Austria, the waltz scandalizes polite society. In 1813 Byron {1812-1818 Poetry} writes a satirical poem on it: “Seductive Waltz!—though on thy native shore / Even Werter’s self proclaimed thee half a whore ...” In British high society, dancing the waltz remains taboo until the end of the Napoleonic wars {6/18/1815 World}. Weber’s concert waltz elevates the dance from a popular amusement to a more sophisticated level. Liszt {1846-1853 Music}, Chopin {3/17/1830 Music}, and Tchaikovsky {3/4/1877 Music} all compose concert waltzes. Johann Strauss, Jr., the “Waltz King” {3/15/1867 Music}, helps popularize the dance worldwide. Invitation to the Dance is marked as Romantic music {4/7/1805 Music} by its programmatic element (a young man asks a girl to dance, they dance exuberantly, then part) and by its relationship to folk music.
The Viennese Waltz remains a staple of ballroom dancing. The Gene Kelly all-dance anthology film Invitation to the Dance (1956, trailer here) took its name from Weber’s work, and used it in the opening number.
3. Rossini’s Barber of Seville, 1816
From Timeline 1800-1899:
§ ¶ 1816 (Feb. 20): Gioachino Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia (Barber of Seville, his 16th opera) premieres in Rome. In a story based on Beaumarchais’s play The Barber of Seville {1773-1793 Drama}, the barber Figaro helps Count Almaviva abduct Rosina from her lecherous guardian. This is one of Rossini’s most famous operas, and Figaro’s entrance aria (“Largo al factotum”) is one of the most famous arias (solo pieces) in the whole operatic repertoire. Rossini wrote 39 operas in 19 years, incl. L’Italiana in Algeri {5/22/1813 Opera}. A wealthy man at age 37, he retired after composing William Tell {3/3/1829 Opera} and wrote no operas for the remaining 39 years of his life.
You have heard parts of this work even if you’ve never heard of Rossini: here’s Sylvester doing “Largo al factotum” and Bugs Bunny riffing on the overture. NOTE: neither of those is on the playlist, because “This action is turned off for content for kids.”
The real “Largo al factotum” is sung by Michael Spyres here, with subtitles. The complete opera is here.
4. Tchaikovsky, 1812 Overture, 1882
Ending the post with a (very belated) bang: Tchaikovsky’s famous overture (16 mins.) premieres on the seventieth anniversary of Napoleon’s defeat in his Russian campaign – a turning point for Napoleon and for Russian history. Here’s a full version with bells and fireworks.
From Timeline 1800-1899:
§ 1812 (Feb.-Dec.): Napoleon’s Russian Campaign and the aftermath in Russia. On the pretext that Tsar Alexander ignored his trade embargo against Britain {11/21/1806 World}, Napoleon gathers the largest army in history and marches on Russia. Although the French army captures and burns Moscow (9/14-18/1812), over the course of the Russian campaign it suffers massive losses from starvation, disease, and cold. Of more than 600,000 French who march to Moscow, only about 112,000 return home. This is the turning point in the Napoleonic wars, but also a turning point for Russia, which still has an absolute monarch and a feudal system {2/19/1861 World}. When the Tsar sends half a million men to fight in the War of the Sixth Coalition {3/3/1813 World}, the young, upper-class Russians who lead the army into Paris glimpse a more sophisticated way of life, with wealth, freedom, and the rule of law. When those Russian officers return home, their revolutionary ideas and ambitions bear fruit in the Decembrist Movement {12/14/1825 World}.
Below: a graphic of Napoleon’s Russian campaign, made famous in part by being featured in Tufte’s Visual Display of Quantitative Information.
Coming next week: Connections post for the 1810s.