The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini
Historiography, Analysis, Criticism

Leading scholars re-evaluate the opposition between Beethoven and Rossini, the great symbolic duo of early nineteenth-century music.

Nicholas Mathew (Edited by), Benjamin Walton (Edited by)

9780521768054, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 November 2013

396 pages, 14 b/w illus. 34 music examples
25.2 x 18.2 x 2.2 cm, 0.94 kg

Beethoven and Rossini have always been more than a pair of famous composers. Even during their lifetimes, they were well on the way to becoming 'Beethoven and Rossini' – a symbolic duo, who represented a contrast fundamental to Western music. This contrast was to shape the composition, performance, reception and historiography of music throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Invention of Beethoven and Rossini puts leading scholars of opera and instrumental music into dialogue with each other, with the aim of unpicking the origins, consequences and fallacies of the opposition between the two composers and what they came to represent. In fifteen chapters, contributors explore topics ranging from the concert lives of early nineteenth-century capitals to the mythmaking of early cinema, and from the close analysis of individual works by Beethoven and Rossini to the cultural politics of nineteenth-century music histories.

Introduction: pleasure in history Nicholas Mathew and Benjamin Walton
Part I. The Age of Beethoven and Rossini?: 1. Dahlhaus's Beethoven-Rossini Stildualismus: lingering legacies of the text event dichotomy James Hepokoski
2. Beethoven, Rossini - and others James Webster
3. Heilige Trias, Stildualismus, Beethoven: the limits of nineteenth-century Germanic music historiography Gundula Kreuzer
4. Rossini and Beethoven in the reception of Schubert Suzannah Clark
Part II. Senses of Place: 5. Two styles in 1830s London: 'the form and order of a perspicuous unity' Roger Parker
6. Looking north: Carlo Soliva and the two styles south of the Alps Martin Deasy
7. 'More German than Beethoven': Rossini's Zelmira and Italian style Benjamin Walton
8. On being there in 1824 Nicholas Mathew
Part III. Rehearings: 9. Making overtures Scott Burnham
10. Beethoven dances: Prometheus and his creatures in Vienna and Milan Mary Ann Smart
11. Rossinian repetitions Emanuele Senici
Part IV. Crossing Musical Cultures: 12. Very much of this world: Beethoven, Rossini and the historiography of modernity Julian Johnson
13. Schopenhauer and Rossinian universality: on the Italianate in Schopenhauer's metaphysics of music Yael Braunschweig
14. Elements of disorder: appealing Beethoven vs Rossini John Deathridge
15. Role reversal: Rossini and Beethoven in early biopics Richard Will.

Subject Areas: Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900 [HBLL], Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups [AVH], Western "classical" music [AVGC]