Volume 26, Number 9 · May 31, 1979
Too Much Opera?
By Charles Rosen
The Operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, Vol. I: Eraclea
edited by Donald Jay Grout
Harvard University Press, 192 pp., $18.50 (paper)
The Operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, Vol. II: Marco Attilio Regolo
edited by Donald Jay Grout, edited by Joscelyn Godwin
Harvard University Press, 224 pp., $20.00 (paper)
The Operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, Vol. III: Griselda
edited by Donald Jay Grout
Harvard University Press, 256 pp., $18.50 (paper)
The Operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, Vol. IV: The Faithful Princess
edited by Donald Jay Grout
Harvard University Press, 208 pp., $18.50 (paper)
The Operas of Alessandro Scarlatti, Vol. V: Massimo Puppieno
edited by Donald Jay Grout, edited by H. Colin Slim
Harvard University Press, 153 pp., $18.50 (paper)
Italian Opera 1640-1770
edited by Howard M. Brown
Garland Publishing, 50 vols. pp., $60.00 per volume
It should be a cause for rejoicing that much of our ignorance of the history of music is permanent, irrevocable. In economic and social history, a statistical sampling or a well-established general trend can sometimes stand in for a large number of missing specific facts: we do not need to know the details of every market transaction, every marriage contract. In the history of music, as of any other art, nothing can supply the absence of the individual work. Knowledge of the work itself is not simply one of the prerequisites of research in music history, but the goal. Economic history does not exist until the data are grouped and generalized: for music history, generalization is either a second best, or an intermediate step on the road that starts with the work and returns to it with greater understanding.
Review, 6426 words
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