Common-tone Tonality in Italian Romantic Opera

Abstract

Some compositional techniques 
 usually associated with German Romantic music, such as tonal pairing and the 
 frequent use of chromatic mediants, may have originated in Italian opera. These 
 techniques are traced from Rossini’s Tancredi (1813) to Verdi’s Il trovatore 
 (1853). Similarities to pre-tonal and twentieth-century neoclassical music are 
 considered. In studying and teaching nineteenth-century music, theorists should 
 broaden their focus beyond the Austro-German repertoire. The notion of “common 
 practice” is misleading and should be abandoned.

Chromatic Mediants and Narrative Context in Film

“…William Rothstein takes a different historical approach to chromatic mediants, one that is linked to drama in nineteenth‐century Italian opera. He writes that ‘Kopp's omission of Italian music is both noteworthy and symptomatic: noteworthy, because in chromatic third‐relations it was Rossini who set the pattern for the rest of Europe to follow; symptomatic, because the marginalization of nineteenth‐century Italian opera has long been a defining feature of North American music theory’ (Rothstein , para. [9]).…”

“…[…] The slow movement of any of these tends to be set by Rossini in a chromatic mediant key, either III♯, ♭III, or ♭VI. (Rossini did not favor VI♯ for this purpose)’ (Rothstein , para. [18]).…”

“…Yet Rothstein clarifies that Rossini, who is after all still a classicist, is separate from those earlier Germanic composers, particularly in the function of the chromatic mediants: ‘Especially (but not only) in his comic operas, Rossini found sudden shifts to chromatic mediants useful to depict outbursts of surprise, frustration, or rage on the parts of his characters. The flat chromatic mediants, ♭III and ♭VI are heavily favored for this purpose’ (Rothstein , para. [20]).…”

“…[…] Common‐tone tonality is a normal part of the Italian musical language from the late 1820s onward. (Rothstein , para. [53])…”

Review of Lorraine Byrne Bodley and Julian Horton, eds.Rethinking Schubert(Oxford University Press, 2016)

“…Return to text 6. One wonders, in this regard, how Dürr's and Black's notion of "sonority" interacts with what Pierluigi Petrobelli has called "sonorità"; Rothstein (2008) and Clark (2011a;2011b, 99ff. ;and RS, 290) would provide compelling links between the two ideas.…”