Mozart is not generally thought of as one for innovation or experimentation or creation of new forms or structures. He died too young. It was only in his last year that he began to show what he could do outside of the existing forms.
He is known more for taking what existed and perfecting it, and showing the possibilities of what could be done with it. The piano concerto became a mainstay of concerts, because he sold subscriptions to his own concerts and almost always had a piano concerto to play himself.
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His operas took the recent reforms initiated by Gluck, straight forward story telling, drama and music wedded and welded to each other, with just enough showmanship for the singers to be satisfied, but not so much that it became tasteless or ridiculous, overwhelming the entire work.
One very important element he expanded on in his operas were the ensembles and finales. The second act finale to The Marriage of Figaro is something of a miracle in every way, and all opera composers afterwards tried to emulate it, from Rossini, to Nicolai, to Donizetti, to Verdi. Mozart set a new standard for cohesiveness of plot and music with that.
And Mozart was the first to imbue his opera characters with realistic personalities and psychology. You get the first sense of it with Idomeneo, and a bit more with Abduction – Osmin in particular – but from Figaro onward, when you see a performance of a Mozart opera, you know and remember the characters. Mozart’s characters are distinct from each other and memorable. The shining example of this is in Don Giovanni, where the three characters essential to the drama (Giovanni, Leporello and the Commendatore) are all bass or bass-baritone. The singers can all sing the same notes as they are all in the same vocal range more or less, but Mozart’s music for each of them creates three distinctly different characters, most evident in the scenes where all three of them sing at the same time: you can still pick out each one of the three.
And one last point – he showed that operas could be sung in German, if the music were composed to follow German speech patterns. Italian and French, romance languages, tend to put stress on their vowels, which allows for long passages and vocal runs on a single syllable or single vowel. The German language is much more consonant oriented, and consonants are almost impossible to elongate in singing. But with Abduction From The Seraglio and The Magic Flute, Mozart demonstrated that music could be composed to fit the German style of expression. In addition to that, The Magic Flute incorporates a lot of different forms, from folk song to religious music, from dramatic solo arias to goofy chorus numbers, from simple melody and accompaniment to a contrapuntal chorale in the style of Bach.
The Magic Flute is where Mozart really began to shake things up and do something different and new. The sad thing is that he died two months after its premiere, at age 36, and we have no idea in what directions Mozart might have gone had he lived to a mature old age. The Magic Flute hints at it, but it really was his first step in a new direction. Mozart died just as he began to branch out with a new voice and new ideas, and at an age where other composers (Verdi, Wagner) were just getting started.
Hester And Symbols In The Scarlet Letter
“The Scarlet Letter” is not so much a consideration of Hester Prynne’s intuitive character as it is an exploration of the strength that shapes her, and the transformations of those strengths effect. Hester is a self-sufficient single mother in one of the bleak most forbidding moments in America’s history. Hester finds a way to support her daughter in a time when women were only presumed to support their husbands. She uses her inherent strength to mold into the meaning of her punishment. Most importantly, she questions the validity of the morals of the community she is surrounded by. Hester’s silence in, “The Scarlet Letter”, is dominated by her interpretation of the symbol of the letter “A”, the symbol of the pearl, as well as Hester’s guiltiness for her sin.
The symbol of the scarlet letter is an important symbol as to why Hester refuses to participate in the culture of the narrative. Originally, the scarlet letter is meant to symbolize shame towards Hester, but; instead, it became a powerful symbol of what Hester would identify as. The letters meaning transforms as time passes throughout the story. It was originally meant to mark Hester as an adulterer; however, the “A” eventually comes to stand for “Able.” “…she felt or fancied, then, that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts.” Hester is now able to sympathize with others in a way that she could not before.
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The symbol of the pearl is an important symbol as to why Hester refuses to participate in the culture of the narrative. “Hester’s silence is not simply a show of willfulness, of ‘hardness and obstinacy’, but a deliberate strategy, one which might yield the very real results of ‘tempting’ or ‘compelling’ (Alsop 66). The pearl is a symbol of sin, as she is a direct product of it. Hester compares the pearl to the scarlet letter; as she dresses the pearl in red and gold, the same colors of the scarlet letter. The pearl is an alive version of the scarlet letter, the token of her mother’s adultery. The pearl is what makes Hester’s sin known to the community. Hester has been required to wear constant reminders of her sins.
Hester’s guiltiness for her sin is an important representation as to why Hester is silent, representing her strength in the narrative. Hester’s silence is her version of revenge and how it can contribute to the corruption and paranoia of a strong character such as Hester. It is stated in Hawthorne’s perspective that Hester’s silence can be viewed as a strategy. “In all her intercourse with society, however, there was nothing that made her feel as if she belonged to it. Every gesture, every word, and even the silence of those with whom she came in contact, implied, and often expressed, that she was banished, and as much alone as if she had inhabited another sphere, or communicated with the common nature by other organs than the rest of humankind.” Hester manages to gain the respect of the townspeople because she is helpful and has a lot of power.
