Musical Style
- In spite of all the sorrow, anxiety, and anger the characters experience, only one number is in a minor key: Barbarina's brief aria L'ho perduta at the beginning of act 4, where she mourns the loss of the pin and worries about what her master will say when she fails to deliver it, is written in F minor. Other than this, the entire opera is set in major keys except the opening few bars of the duet between Susanna and the Count at the beginning of act 3 ("Crudel, perché finora") which are in the key of A minor; the duet then quickly modulate via C major to A major.
- Mozart uses the sound of two horns playing together to represent cuckoldry, in the act 4 aria "Aprite un po quelli'ochi". Verdi later used the same device in Ford's aria in Falstaff.
Read more about this topic: The Marriage Of Figaro
Famous quotes containing the words musical and/or style:
“Syncopations are no indication of light or trashy music, and to shy bricks at “hateful ragtime” no longer passes for musical culture.”
—Scott Joplin (1868–1917)
“I am so tired of taking to others
translating my life for the deaf, the blind,
the “I really want to know what your life is like without giving up any of my privileges
to live it” white women
the “I want to live my white life with Third World women’s style and keep my skin
class privileges” dykes”
—Lorraine Bethel, African American lesbian feminist poet. “What Chou Mean We, White Girl?” Lines 49-54 (1979)