SENSIBILITY

Chapter:

CHAPTER 8 The Comic Style

Source:

MUSIC IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Author(s):

Richard Taruskin

Before trying to solve the problem, let’s savor it for a while by making it “worse.” We can expand the scope of our comparison by noting that the new “teasing” techniques not only created a stylistic contrast with the old but an esthetic and psychological one as well. A composition by J. S. Bach or one of his contemporaries was nothing if not musically unified. There is usually one main inventio or musical idea, whether (depending on the genre) we call it “subject,” “ritornello,” or by some other name, and its purpose is to project, through consistently worked out musical “figures” or motives, a single dominant affect or feeling-state, writ very large indeed.

Citation (MLA):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 8 The Comic Style." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2023. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-08003.xml>.

Citation (APA):

Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 8 The Comic Style. In Oxford University Press, Music In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries. New York, USA. Retrieved 30 Nov. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-08003.xml

Citation (Chicago):

Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 8 The Comic Style." In Music In The Seventeenth And Eighteenth Centuries, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 30 Nov. 2023, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume2/actrade-9780195384826-div1-08003.xml