Three Modes of Perception in Mozart
The Philosophical, Pastoral, and Comic in Cosí fan tutte

Throughout this 2004 book, Goehring's argument is sustained by close readings of primary sources and is richly illustrated with musical examples.

Edmund J. Goehring (Author)

9780521099165, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 January 2009

324 pages, 6 tables 110 music examples
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.47 kg

This 2004 book is a full-length, scholarly study of what is widely regarded as Mozart's most enigmatic opera and Lorenzo Da Ponte's most erudite text. Against the long-standing judgement that the opera uses a misguided confidence in reason to traduce feeling, Goehring's study shows how Cosi affirms comedy's regenerative powers and its capacity to grant access to modes of sympathy and understanding that are otherwise inaccessible. In making this argument, the book surveys a rich literary, operatic and intellectual territory. It offers fresh perspective on the relationships between text and tone in the opera, on the tension between comedy and philosophy and its representation in stage works and on the pastoral mode which the opera uses in subtle ways. Throughout, Goehring's argument is sustained by close readings of primary sources, many of them little known, and is richly illustrated with musical examples.

List of tables, Preface and acknowledgements
A note on abbreviations
List of abbreviations
1. An overture to Cosi fan tutte: the poetics of the opera over two centuries
2. The philosophical mode
3. The pastoral mode
4. The comic mode
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Opera [AVGC9], Classical music [c 1750 to c 1830 AVGC4], Theatre studies [AN]