Although canon formation has been discussed in popular music studies for over a decade, the notion of what constitutes ‘the popular music canon’ is still vague. However, considering that many scholars resent canon formation due to the negative effects canons have exerted on other academic fields, analysis of canon formation processes in popular music studies seems desirable: awareness of these processes can be a valuable tool for scholars’ assessment of how their academic choices contribute to canon formation. Based on an examination of the reception history of Queen in the popular mainstream, music criticism and academia, this article argues that a universally valid popular music canon does not exist and that canon formation in popular music is based on the same criteria as in the ‘high’ arts, i.e. transcendence, historical importance and ‘greatness’, although the latter is replaced by ‘authenticity’ in the popular music context. While canons can be theorised in various ways, a model that distinguishes between canonic strata according to listeners’ relationship to music is particularly useful as it reveals the relative importance of the three canonic criteria within different strata and how they are applied.
The two male sopranos Carlo Broschi Farinelli (17051782) and Gaetano Majorano Caffarelli (17101783) shared many similarities: the two most prominent exponents of the new, virtuosic Neapolitan style of singing were close in age, had a very similar educational background having studied with Nicolo Porpora in Naples, and quickly climbed the career ladder to take only primo uomo roles. However, the singers were at very different points in their respective careers at the time of the productions in which they appeared together on stage, namely Siroe (Metastasio-Hasse) at the Teatro Malvezzi in Bologna in 1733 and Merope (Zeno-Giacomelli), Artaserse (Metastasio, pasticcio) and Berenice (Salvi-Araja) at the Teatro San Grisostomo in Venice in 1734. Farinelli had already achieved international fame and was generally held to be the greatest singer in Italy, whereas the slightly younger Caffarelli was still in the process of establishing himself at the very top, but loath to take secondary roles any more. As a result, their relationship was strained, according to Farinelli's correspondance with Count Sicinio Pepoli. The measures Caffarelli took in Venice to challenge Farinelli's superiority apparently backfired, and contributed to the disastrous premiere of the first opera of the carnival Merope, which consequently was replaced at short notice with an Artaserse pasticcio with music by Hasse and Vinci. An analysis of the two singers' roles in the operas in which they collaborated gives insights into mid-eighteenth-century opera production, and reveals both the dramatic and musical reasons for Farinelli's impact and popularity with the audience and Caffarelli's failure to outshine his older colleague.
Within the aesthetic framework of the work concept and author-centred approach to music history, the practice of aria substitution in the eighteenth-century Italian dramma per musica has frequently been viewed as hostile interference with the composer’s authorial intention and attributed to singers’ vanity, laziness and ignorance. However, the substitution of both the texts and musical settings of arias constituted the default production practice in a period in which scores were not conceptualised as fixed texts but functioned as performance materials for specific productions. Moreover, the practice of aria substitution was deeply rooted in the socio-cultural context of opera production and the arts consumption practices of the social elite. A manifestation of period preoccupation with displaying and gauging rank and status, it was crucial to singers’ professional success. Analysing the reasons for the substitution of three specific arias in revivals of settings by both Hasse and Vinci of Metastasio’s Artaserse in 1730 and 1731, this paper accounts for typical scenarios for this practice in opera production. Rather than focusing predominantly on the arias’ musical parameters, it also evaluates their dramatic features, scope for stage action and potential for engaging period audiences. Brief consideration is also given to two unusual drammi per musica of 1734 featuring an exceptionally high number of arie di tempesta.
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