Abstract
Mozart's Rondo in A minor, K. 511 (1787) evokes a music-historical past through references to the Bach family and, more broadly, a fantasy Baroque. This article traces the artistic affiliations of Mozart's antiqued rondo with ideas of German and Gothic style, as discussed by Goethe, and by J. Fr. Reichardt, in relation to architecture and Bachian fugue respectively. Not style in itself, but "feeling" is the focus. Specifically, K. 511 is understood as inviting an experience of sweet melancholy through which an (incipiently national) past was validated within the culture of sensiblity. Contemporary concerns about the aesthetic value of "old" inform Mozart's didactic mediation of the past and present in a genre (the rondo) associated with fashion. The potential of K. 511 to sound like a ghost story -- a piece haunted by its refrain, courting effects of of the uncanny, and blurring the distinction between "warm" sensiblity and "cold" technique -- is traced to then emerging historical consciousness.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 69-114 |
| Number of pages | 46 |
| Journal | Keyboard Perspectives: The Yearbook of the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies |
| Volume | 4 |
| Publication status | Published - 2011 |
Keywords
- Musical gothic; Mozart; rondo; sensibility; historical consciousness