Choice of Works

Module 1: Musical and Textual Parody

Antonio Salieri: "Prima la musica e poi le parole" (1786)
"Love in a Village" (1762)
Adolphe Benoît Blaise u. a.: "Annette et Lubin" (1762)

This module focuses on different aspects of the question of authorship. It includes works in the form of a pasticcio, thus, a work having multiple authors, as well as works that have texts by someone other than the original author integrated into the piece for the purpose of creating a parody.

Module 2: Transfer and Transformation

Luigi Cherubini: "Médée" (1797)
Louis Spohr: "Faust" (1816/1852)
Bedřich Smetana: "Prodaná nevĕsta"/"Die verkaufte Braut" (1866/1869)

This module represents works that were subjected either to linguistic or generic changes or whose original form was altered, after a manner of speaking, in the course of the work’s performance history. Editorially, such compositions are especially relevant because the character of the changes cannot be adequately represented in the critical report, yet the fundamental differences must be shown in the edition.

Module 3: Performance Practice and Interpretation

Agostino Steffani: "Henrico Leone" (1689)
Ferdinando Paër: "Leonora ossia L’amor conjugale" (1804)
Carl Zeller: "Der Vogelhändler" (1891)

In this module are works that provide completely different viewpoints on the concept of interpretative problems. Paërs opera may serve as an example of significant and editorially awkward operatic practice, owing to its phenomenon of alterations made in connection with different conditions of performance. In operetta, however, the responsibility for textual interpolation lies with the interpreters, which in some cases can affect the musical score significantly.

Modul 4: Work in progress

Joseph Martin Kraus: "Æneas i Carthago" (1781-1792/1799 posthum)
Gaspare Spontini: "Fernand Cortez" (1809/1817)

With the compositions in this module a work’s lengthy and complex genesis is of special significance, since each work here is associated with an individual category of this process.

Module 5: Speaking and Singing

Georg Anton Benda: "Medea" (1775)
Engelbert Humperdinck: "Königskinder" (1897/1910)

Gathered under this heading are musical works distinguished for having spoken dialogue. In every case the musical dramatic genres selected here demonstrate a completely individual way of dealing with the category of spoken text.

Module 6: Media Expansion

Peter von Lindpaintner: "Entre Acts und Gesänge zu Goethes Faust" (1832)
Adolphe Adam: "Giselle" (1841)
Eric Satie: "Relâche/Cinéma: Entr’acte symphonique de Relâche" (1924)
Bernd Alois Zimmermann: "Musique pour les soupers du Roi Ubu" (1962-1966)

Since the middle of the eighteenth century, the vital development of music theater genres through their being embedded in new contexts has led to completely new media constellations for music (ballet d’action, incidental music). This “medium exchange,” in which music is subjected to new musical dramatic situations, was significantly enriched in the twentieth century by the convergence of new media, such as film, with music. With the compositions brought together in this module, different media contexts meet, each in its own way, with the result that each of these compositions presents new and alternative challenges for a critical edition.