CHAPTER 4 Class and Classicism
Opera Seria and Its Makers
Richard Taruskin
Returning now to Italy after a chapter spent in France and England, it is worth a reminder that (with the exception of Portugal) France and England were the only countries in seventeenth-century Europe whose borders then were pretty much what they are today. They were also, and not by coincidence, the only nations in Europe that were ethnically and linguistically more or less coextensive with their territory. The other European nations were either empires—multiethnic, polyglot dynastic states—or small hereditary or republican enclaves whose political boundaries had little to do with language or ethnicity. The much-weakened “Holy Roman” (Austrian) Empire, Charlemagne’s tattered legacy, was the main representative of “supra-ethnicity.” Its main rival, and avid foe, was the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries expanded aggressively into southeastern Europe from Asia Minor and as late as 1683 threatened the walls of Vienna, the Austrian capital. The main areas of fragmented “subethnic” political division were Germany and Italy.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 4 Class and Classicism." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 Jan. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-chapter-04.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 4 Class and Classicism. In Oxford University Press, Music In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-chapter-04.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 4 Class and Classicism." In Music In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 Jan. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-chapter-04.xml
