Comedy vs. tragedy in Mozart's Don Giovanni

In the finale to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni, the music almost transforms the protagonist from a pathetic, contemptible little trickster, satisfying his selfish desires through deception and violence, into a great man—if not a hero, then at least an anti-hero. Almost, but not quite. If Mozart's music pushes the opera forward into the sublime, da Ponte's libretto keeps it anchored in the comic, opera buffa mode.

In the first three scenes of the finale, Don Giovanni is propelled along a dizzying dramatic trajectory. His evening begins with a pleasant dinner at home, and ends with a fiery descent into hell. This dramatic progression is partially created by an analogous progression in the style of the music. Both progressions can be divided into three parts, corresponding to the three individual scenes (numbered 13, 14, and 15), and each scene can be symbolized by the character in it who acts as Giovanni's foil: Leporello in the first, Donna Elvira in the second, and the Commandatore in the third.

In scene 13, Giovanni and Leporello sing in pure opera buffa style. In the opening section, the key is D major, the tempo fast, and spirits are high. The characteristic melodic phrase is the rapid ascension of short scales by short rhythmic motives. In measure 10, the motive is four sixteenth notes on each pitch, and the phrase moves up to a forte D major chord. Six bars later Giovanni exuberantly begins singing "Gia la mensa è preparata...," his upward scales culminating in shouts (measures 27 and 29). He then settles down to enjoy his meal, entertained by Leporello's antics and by a small band on the stage that plays dance-like pieces from popular operas of the day. Master and servant take turns singing similar, often rhyming, lines, using similar vocal styles. When Giovanni, for example, murmurs caressingly to his food, "A che piatto saporito," Leporello mutters to himself enviously, "A che barbaro appetito." The melodies in this section are simple and repetitive, with a lilting rhythm, as seen in the alternating quarter and eighth notes in measures 64 through 76.

The second scene is a transition between frivolity and doom. The light mood of the first scene is destroyed abruptly by the entrance of Donna Elvira at the beginning of scene 14. The orchestra regains its full size, with the return of the violins, viola, contrabass, and flute. The music speeds up a bit from the tempo of the last bit of dinner music, and the meter changes. Donna Elvira is a connection to the opera seria elements of the work, represented also by Donna Anna, Don Ottavio, and the Commendatore. Her urgency and agitation are emphasized by the eighth-note half-step quaverings of the strings, and her liberal use of accidentals helps to create a mood of dissonance and distress. Her vocal lines are also more lyrical than those we've just heard (see her 32nd-note ornament in measure 216). At first, Giovanni seems to respond to her. His five-note phrases in measures 231 to 238 mimic the style of her opening phrases (measures 201 to 214). He asks, "Che vuoi, mie bene?" and actually appears not to have any ulterior motive. However, when she begs him to change his way of living, he rebels and reverts, in measure 280, to his opera buffa style, with the clarinet (measure 278) and then the violins (measure 287) returning to the consecutive quarter notes that were last prominent in the previous scene.

Scene 15 is the opera's climax. Giovanni rejects his last chance of redemption and is punished. The music loses most of its buffa qualities, starting out slow and somber in the key of D minor (foreshadowed in the overture). There are eerie "ghost story" melodies made up of half steps (measures 443-446), and repeated rising and descending scales that create tension by unexpectedly switching from crescendo to piano at the apex (measures 462-469). The Commendatore's statue has a unique singing style: very slow, with monotonous phrases, dissonant intervals, and commanding octave leaps downward. The impressionable Giovanni adopts some of these qualities (measures 510 and 555), but generally his voice continues to express his salient quality of passionate selfishness by employing a wide variety of pitch levels and rhythmic structures (see measures 512-516: "Ho fermo il core in petto, non ho timor; verrò!"). There are some relics of opera buffa in Leporello's patter singing (measures 470-473) and in some of Giovanni's outbursts (see measure 536: "No, vecchio infatuato!"), but, musically, the buffa is eventually completely vanquished in the climactic ensemble by Giovanni, Leporello, and the chorus of demons. This ensemble is a conflagration of sound—loud, anguished, chaotic singing, furious 16th notes in the violins, sforzando accents throughout the orchestra, and a grand crescendo at the end.

During his last cry of pain, Don Giovanni finally acquires a soul, a fraction of a second before he loses it forever.

Desire and despair in Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique

The first movement of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique is a quite accurate representation of the early stages of an infatuation. I didn't think so at first. In fact, the first time I listened to it, with pen and paper at hand, ready to record my impressions (having tried to empty my mind of preconceptions gained from reading Berlioz's program), my only observation was "sighing half steps...a dream." There was a great deal more than that in the music, but I could not apprehend it, not even the celebrated idée fixe. After repeated listenings, however, the story began to emerge.

It does indeed begin with those sighing half steps, uttered by a dreamy, depressed, lonely young man. The key is C minor, the tempo slow. There are pauses at four fermata, as our romantic stares emptily into space. Suddenly, in measure 17, he imagines the possiblility of happiness. The key changes briefly to C major, the music accelerates, surges faster, louder, then regresses (measure 23), but not all the way back to the earlier lassitude. There's an undercurrent of energy maintained by the woodwinds that swells up in measure 34 into a burst of passionate longing.

Next comes another regression, this time with dissonant chords (measures 37 and 39) and 32nd-note trembling in the strings (measures 40-42) that express an unhappiness that is now more passionate than before. At measure 46, a long pedal note in the bass is the first sign that something is about to happen to our hero. Between measure 49 and 60, his reverie is repeatedly interrupted by ascending arpeggios (played by the second violins) which rise a little higher each time until, at measure 61, he sees her for the first time. In an instant, the electric shock of the mezzo forte C major chord fades to pianissimo as his knees buckle, the world spins around him, and blood surges in his ears. Then the chord swells to fortissimo as his heart explodes with love.

A change of key (to C major), a change of meter (to cut time), and a new, faster tempo all express the revolution that has occurred in the young man's life. He then hears her, beginning in measure 72, in the form of a solitary melody, played in unison by the flute and first violin. It is unaccompanied (since for him, at that moment, she is all that exists), except by intermittent aftershocks in his heart, beaten out by the rest of the strings, as he slowly recovers from his paralyzed state. Her melody is not a serene one. It has irregular rhythms, dynamic and temporal surges, and asymmetric, unbalanced phrases. Evidently, she is as passionate as he is—or so he perceives her.

After her melody is over (measure 110), our lover begins a mad joyful romp up and down the scale. There is a brief pause, as if he can't believe his good fortune (measures 119-124), then the realization hits home again that she really does exist, he is really in love. By measure 151, he is shouting her name (fragments of her theme, which has now become fixed in his consciousness). Then measures 72 to 165 are repeated, as he replays in his mind the story of their encounter. Next, the bass plays pieces of her melody as his excitement builds up again. The tension reaches a high point in measures 189-192, where a dominant chord is repeated in a fast, galloping rhythm. This tension is not resolved. The woodwinds and then the strings each get a tonic chord (measures 193 and 196), but both times it dissolves away in a short three to four bar phrase with a descending melody. Resolution is impossible, since the girl is still completely oblivious to the young man's existence.

This is when doubt first enters his mind. In measure 200, the strings begin fast, staccato, chromatic, ascending and descending scales, while anguished cries from the woodwinds mean, "Oh no! What if she will never love me?" The thought is so terrifying that he loses consciousness (a three-measure rest: 231-233). When he comes to, he is calmer, but starts thinking about her (the idée fixe, in measure 240) and once more becomes agitated. Another spasm of doubt culminates in a series of dissonant chords (measures 306-312) and repetition of the "dissolving" theme that earlier symbolized the unrealizability of his love. Starting at measure 331, another calm period is haunted by ominous drumbeats and then dissonant intervals. The rest of the movement works up to one furious, desperate climax after another as he realizes that his love is hopeless and that she undoubtedly loves someone else. At the end, his passion spent, all he can do is worship her from afar. Her melody becomes a prayer, and resolves into a series of hushed, plagal cadences.

End of act one.