Exploring Bach’s B-Minor Mass ed. by Yo Tomita, Robin A. Leaver, and Jan Smaczny (review)

Reviewed by: History, Imagination, and the Performance of Music David Dolata History, Imagination, and the Performance of Music. By Peter Walls . Rochester, NY: Boydell and Brewer, 2003. [ xiv, 184 p. ISBN 1-84383-005-1. $70.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Until twenty or so years ago, many traditional performers and musicologists viewed performance practice (a.k.a. Historically Informed Performance or HIP) with suspicion, despite its official designation as one of musicology's subspecialties. Recently the gap between the two camps has begun to narrow, partly due to the realization that the "authenticity police" do not represent mainstream HIPsters, but also in some measure as a result of recent works by well respected scholars and performers who address specific performance practice issues in a balanced and thoughtful manner. Among the most notable of these practical sources are Colin Lawson and Robin Stowell's introduction to The Historical Performance of Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), Performance Practice (for music before and after 1600), edited by Howard Mayer Brown and Stanley Sadie (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), and the Early Music America series of performance practice guides for Medieval, Renaissance, and Seventeenth-century Music edited respectively by Ross Duffin (APerformer's Guide to Medieval Music [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000]), Jeffery Kite-Powell (A Performer's Guide to Renaissance Music [New York: Schirmer, 1994]), and Stewart Carter (A Performer's Guide to Seventeenth-Century Music [New York: Schirmer, 1997]), the last two with revised editions in preparation. To this list should be added Clive Brown's Classical and Romantic Performing Practice from 1750- 1900 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). Several other books treat the broader philosophical controversies that performance practice seems to excite. These include Nicholas Kenyon, et. al.'s Authenticity and Early Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), Richard Taruskin's Text and Act (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), Paul Henry Lang's Performance and Musicology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), and Peter Kivy's Authenticities: [End Page 451] Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995). Two other volumes directly address the charges of those who feel threatened enough by performance practice that they go so far as to question its value: John Butt's Playing with History: The Historical Approach to Musical Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), and the book under review here, Peter Walls's polemic, History, Imagination, and the Performance of Music. The book is based on a series of lectures Walls presented in 2000 under the auspices of Magdalen College and calls to mind the conversational style of Stravinsky's lectures, Poetics of Music (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1947), and other such similar collections. While Butt's Playing with History appeals to the musical philosopher, Walls's book, by no means lacking in philosophical perspective, is directed toward the performing musician, the person at the center of the vortex who must ultimately make the decisions. Full of wit, humor, and clever turns of phrase, the book is a pleasure to read. Walls's direct personal style and engaging manner draws the reader into his world, and the copious musical examples bring abstract issues into sharp focus, even if many of the facsimiles appear blurred as if they were actually faxed across the ages. In his introduction, Walls evenhandedly articulates the main criticisms leveled at HIP. The chapters that follow, relatively concise, to the point, and well-organized, are devoted to detailed individual discussions of various aspects of the debate. Through an examination of Johann Sebastian Bach's Adagio from the G Minor Sonata for Solo Violin, BWV 1001, the second chapter, "Escaping Tradition, Embracing History," demonstrates the role changing personal taste plays in reception history. Cutely titled "Measure for Measure or As You Like It?," the third chapter is comprised of several case studies in support of Walls's assertion that performance practice research and actual music making are and should be entirely distinct and separate activities. On a less controversial note, chapter 4, "What's the Score?," describes the benefits of even the most minimal primary source score study and demonstrates that scores with few performance indications can still offer a great deal of useful information...

Although it is the current viewpoint among scholars that the separate choral “Et incarnatus” of Bach's B-Minor Mass was an afterthought, considerations of symmetry, tonal structure, and traditions of Roman Catholic mass composition suggest that Bach must have planned the independent “Et incarnatus” from the beginning. This conclusion is reinforced by a study of the autograph and by a musical analysis of the “Et in unum” duet and its parody. It would seem that Bach deliberately inserted the choral “Et incarnatus” in the autograph on an extractable leaf in order to provide his missa tota with alternative performing options, both Lutheran and Roman Catholic. A performance that avoids the structural and musical weaknesses of both these confessional alternatives is both possible and preferable, and would be fully in line with Bach's old-age universalist orientations. This calls for a change in the prevailing performance practice.

Teaching & Learning Guide for: Nabobs Revisited: A Cultural History of British Imperialism and the Indian Question in Late‐Eighteenth‐Century Britain

Reviewed by: Opera’s Orbit: Musical Drama and the Influence of Opera in Arcadian Rome Bruno Forment Opera’s Orbit: Musical Drama and the Influence of Opera in Arcadian Rome. By Stefanie Tcharos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. [xiv, 320 p. ISBN 9780521116657. $95.] Music examples, illustrations, bibliography, index. Musical genres are thorny things. Representing artifacts of the classifying imagination, generic designations defy categorization along clear-cut lines, let alone transhistorical definition. Witness the example of Joseph Haydn’s early keyboard works, many of which were originally designated as divertimenti or partitas by their creator, but were soon renamed sonatas. Or consider the origins of Mozart’s two-act serenata Il Re Pastore (1775) in a three-act dramma per musica (1751) by Pietro Meta -stasio. Of course, as Stefanie Tcharos acknowledges, “categorizations and genre titles were seminal and effective,” if only within their own cultural context and “in spite of their inability to hold any real consistency, categorical protectionism, and enclosure” (p. 13). It is the modern scholar’s task to come to grips with the “multiple manifestations of form and presentation” (p. 162) of each genre by redressing its social dimensions as performative event. Stefanie Tcharos boldly accepts this challenge in Opera’s Orbit: Musical Drama and the Influence of Opera in Arcadian Rome, but whether she succeeds in her daunting quest remains to be seen. Tcharos’s work area is the late-seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Roman stage, which she does not understand as an “actual stage of a particular theater or a context in which a given composer’s works were performed” (p. 1), nor as a “collection of discrete formal texts” (p. 2), but rather as a “metaphorical and symbolic” stage, and a “highly problematic” (p. 1) one at that. As she stresses throughout her opening chapter, “Enclosures, Crises, Polemics: Opera Production in 1690s Arcadian Rome” (pp. 20–45), opera lived an uncertain existence in the transitory decades at hand, now enjoying unrestricted freedom under such bons vivants as Alexander VIII, then facing outright proscription under Innocents XI and XII. But “despite the conventional wisdom which argues that the upheavals of papal policies regarding opera . . . were to the detriment of Roman theatrical life,” Tcharos asserts that the “city’s peculiar predicament and necessary pocketing of opera culture into various private corners had creative advantages,” allowing “for a variety of opera models” and a “change from the more singular adherence to the institutionalized formulas that dominated Venice’s theater scene” (p. 22). Opera’s “sphere of influence” or “orbit” (the term is Mikhail Bakthin’s) thus reached further than the actual dramma per musica; it also encompassed the three genres Tcharos turns to in the central chapters of her book: the oratorio, serenata, and cantata. The first of these chapters, “Disrupting the Oratorio” (pp. 46–97), combines an interpretation of Arcangelo Spagna’s Discorso intorno a gl’oratorii (1706) with discussions of Pietro Ottoboni’s Il martirio di Sant’Eu -stachio (1690) and Alessandro Scarlatti’s two Giuditta oratorios (1694 and 1697) to argue that the late-seventeenth-century Roman oratorio tended to be “resolutely ‘anti-opera’ in official function,” while at the same time being “intimately bound with conceptions of the theatrical” (p. 46). Notwithstanding their mission to “erase all that opera signified morally and socially” (p. 46), various oratorios in fact incorporated theatrical features, including stage decorations and dance in the case of Sant’Eustachio. Unfortunately, Tcharos omits several aspects that could have helped her chart the inextricable ties between the Roman oratorio and opera with more historical depth and precision than [End Page 780] happens to be the case. It is a mystery, for instance, why she ignores the long tradition of the mystery play and sacra rappresentazione, many examples of which—reports and drawings tell us—enacted martyrs’ lives in equally “theatrical” and musical fashion as Ottoboni’s Sant’Eustachio did. Nor do we learn more about the dramaturgical and, by extension, generic affinities of the oratorio with other religious entertainments of propagandist—and operatic—allure, such as the Jesuit school drama and hagio-graphic opera of Seicento Rome; only Il Sant’Alessio is briefly mentioned, on page 66. Third and...

Schoenberg's Transformation of Musical Language. By Ethan Haimo. (Music in the 20th Century.) New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. [x, 430 p. ISBN-10: 0521865425; ISBN-13: 9780521865425. $90.] Bibliographical references, index, illustrations, music examples. In Schoenberg's Transformation of Musical Language, author Ethan Haimo posits a thesis regarding the conventionally accepted periodization and related labeling of Schoenberg's musical output. Finding the traditional three-part division (tonal; atonal; twelve-tone) to be inadequate, and the label to be so broad as to be meaningless, Haimo proposes three new periods, each with subdivisions. In this book he addresses a musical transformation-and the significance of that transformation-that the conventional tonal-atonal division has previously obscured. To begin, Haimo traces those elements that remain more or less constant in Schoenberg's music from circa 1899 to circa 1908, i.e., spanning what would traditionally be considered the tonal phase of his output and the first part of the atonal phase. In a carefully constructed and copiously illustrated argument, he makes an excellent case for considering these works to be part of a single stylistic span, demonstrating how the traditionally problematized repertory of 1908 (such as the Second String Quartet, op. 10 and the song cycle Das Buch der hangenden Garten, op. 15) is connected to Schoenberg's earlier works. One of the novelties of Haimo's approach- and one that is sure to be controversial for some readers-is that he does not try to explain the works of 1908 without reference to their predecessors, nor does he try to explain them as vestigial tonal works; instead he establishes the traits of Schoenberg's musical language from the turn of the century and traces their evolution through 1908. Although it has become commonplace to see a sudden break with past conventions in Schoenberg's works of 1908, Haimo thinks otherwise, and the evidence that he presents shows that conventionally-cited symptoms of such a break, such as the cessation of centric tonal function, actually occurred somewhat earlier in Schoenberg's output. Therefore, Haimo reassigns the break with the past to the so-called athematic works composed in 1909, such as the third of the Three Piano Pieces, op. 11, the fifth of the Five Orchestra Pieces, op. 16, and the monodrama Erwartung, op. 17, the first works to present an interruption in Schoenberg's otherwise unified artistic outlook. In reassigning this break, Haimo also recognizes the significant variety of musical approaches evident in the works formerly lumped together as atonal. With his new division of Schoenberg's output, Haimo confronts a hidebound model and proposes a more meaningful one that illuminates rather than obscures the richness of Schoenberg's music. As Haimo explains in the book's preface, it is his intention to trace the evolution of Schoenberg's musical ideas in order to explain the transformation of his musical language from 1899 to 1909. To that end, he offers neither comprehensive analyses nor complete coverage of Schoenberg's music composed during this time period; instead, he presents a complex of historical, biographical, and analytical evidence to illustrate the remarkable transformation, while confronting conventional assumptions and analytical methods that, as he illustrates, often stand in the way of a complete understanding of the essence of Schoenberg's musical style. Key to his argument is the concept of incremental innovation, a process in which each new work introduces some new trait along with many traits carried over from the past. It is the abandonment of this process in the athematic works of 1909-works in which there is more that is new than old-that inspires Haimo to locate the break with tradition at that juncture. After the first chapter, in which Haimo lays out his revisionist thesis, the book evolves in chapters that examine specific works, or groups of works, in light of their aesthetic origins and musical style. …

The Kyries of J. S. Bach's B-minor Mass and Gottlob Harrer's D-major Mass (Harwv 32): Between Late Baroque and the Style Galant Jordi Rifé i Santaló JrhichIcomposer'soneohannheoftheSebastiancomposedzenithsownwork.Bach'sinthetheKyrieItshistoryMassconception1andinofBmusictheminorGloriaisasdated(BWVwellfor1733,as232)perhapsthetherepresentsCourtyearintheofin oneofthezenithsinthehistoryofmusicaswellasperhapsinthe Icomposer'sownwork.Itsconception1isdated1733,theyearin hichhecomposedtheKyrieandtheGloriafortheCourtof Dresden,undertheruleofFrederickAugustusII,ElectorofSaxony (andKingofPolandasAugustIII).WhiletheSanctushadalready beencomposedin1724,therestoftheMass-Credo,2Sanctus, Benedictus,andAgnusDei-wascompletedbetween1748and1749.3 'ChristophWolff,JohannSebastianBach:HIMúsicosabio,vol.2(Barcelona:Robinbook, 2003),146.SeealsoChristophWolff,JohannSebastianBach.Messeinh-Moll(Kassel: Bärenreiter,2009),10-15.1wouldalsoliketothankProf.Dr.ChristophWolfffor thekindness,generosity,andadvicehehasgivenmeinmyresearch,andthankas wellthewholegroupofresearchersandlibrariansoftheBachArchiveinLeipzig. ChristophWolff,ť"Etincarnatus'and'Crucifixus':TheEarliestandtheLatest SettingsofBach'sB-MinorMass,"Eighteenth-CenturyMusicinTheoryandPractice:Essays inHonorofAlfredMann,ed.MaryAnnParker(Stuyvesant,NY:PendragonPress, 1994).TheCrucifixuswasbasedonthefirstvocalmovementinťťWeinen,Klagen, Sorgen,Zagen"BWV12,composedinWeimarin1714. ForallinformationaboutthecompositionoftheB-minorMass,seeWolff,(2003), op.cit.,221-25and(2009),op.cit.,13-20and134-35. BACH:JournaloftheRiemenschneiderBachInstituteofBaldwinWallaceUniversity Comparison of Bach and Harrer Kyries 69 Gottlob Harrer's4 Mass in D major (HarWV 32) was compos in December 1735 and was also created for the court in Dresden. Harrer wrote several works,5 but so far only two of his masses are known to have survived: the Mass in D major and the Mass in F major (HarWV 33). The two masses contrast in style and construction : the instrumental and vocal resources of the Mass in D major are clearly used in the style of a concert mass, whereas instruments play a lesser role in the Mass in F major, being absent in the Credo and Agnus Dei and appearing colla parte in the Kyrie, Gloria, and Sanctus. These aspects make the Mass in F closer in musical style to the masses of the early Baroque. Its Kyrie has therefore been discarded for the purposes of the present study. The reason for comparing the two Kyries (that of Bach's Mass in B minor and Harrer's Mass in D major) is based on seven common characteristics: 1) both works were intended for performance at a Catholic religious service, 2) both were written for the court in Dresden, 3) both were conceived as a Missa solemnis^ 4) the gap between the composition of the two Kyries is two years - 1733 and 1735 - close enough in time to make their distinctive features noteworthy; 5) Harrer was Bach's successor as Cantor at the Leipzig Thomaskirche (which in itself brings added interest that helps discern analogies and differences between the two works and, in the process, corroborates the aesthetic and stylistic changes already indicated by other scholars),6 6) they are similar in their timbrai and textural treatment, and 7) samples from the two Masses indicate that the Kyries present the generative material from which the other parts of the Masses are later developed (in a more or less recurrent manner). 4AI1 references to Harrer's music should be cross-referenced with Ulrike Kollmar, Gottlob Harrer (1703-1755), Kapellmeister des Grafen Heinrich von Brühl am sächschichpolnischen Hof und Thomaskantor in Leipzig (Beeskow and Berlin: Ortus Musikverlag, 2006). 5See Kollmar, 1 74-248, and Andreas Glöckner, "Handschriftliche Musikalien aus den Nachlässen von Carl Gotthelf Gerlach und Gottlob Harrer in den Verlagsangeboten des Hauses Breitkopf 1761 bis 1769," Bach-Jahrbuch (1984): 107-16. 6See, in this respect, Kollmar, op. cit., and Michael Maul, " Vero berühmbter Chor": Die Leipziger Thomasschule und ihre Kantoren ,121 2-1 804 (Leipzig: Lehmstedt Verlag, 201 2), 258-66. 70 Bach The objective of t compositions, with both the style and hypothesis that th music, which fluct My basic sources f editions of Johan 232) - and the Lateini musikJ Finally, the methodology used seeks to encompass the parameters of any musical analysis with regard to its timbrai or formal aspects, as well as those concerning the relationship between music and text. I believe that these parameters can give us indicators suitable for developing these objectives and this hypothesis. Comparative Analysis of the Kyries Table 1 below offers a detailed comparison between the Kyries of Bach's Mass in B minor and Harrer's Mass in D major, using various parameters that reveal the analogies and differences between the two composers: 7Both for study purposes and for the examples appearing in this work, I have based my references on Johann Sebastian Bach, Neue Ausgabe Sämtlicher Werke , Frühfassungen...

In the late first century CE, the myth of Narcissus became one of the most frequently represented subjects in Roman wall painting. The well-known, often reproduced images from the House of Octavius...

EARLY AND LATE ROMANTICS Beethoven's Theatrical Quartets: Opp. 59, 74 and 95. By Nancy November. (Music in Context.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. [xiii, 282 p. ISBN 9781107035454 (hardcover), $95; ISBN 9781107496798 (e-book), $76.] Music examples, illustrations, facsimiles, tables, bibliography, index.Nancy November's Beethoven's Theatrical Quartets: Opp. 59, 74, and 95 is the first fulllength study of Beethoven's five middleperiod quartets since Gerald Abraham's 1942 monograph for Oxford's Musical Pilgrim series (Beethoven's Second-Period Quartets [London: Oxford University Press, 1942]). While the 71 years separating these two publications have yielded numerous and diverse studies of Beethoven's quartets- most notably Joseph Kerman's groundbreaking exegesis of the entire cycle (The Beethoven Quartets [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966; reprint, New York: W. W. Norton, 1979])-scholars have tended to conceive of the middle-period quartets as transitional works, works that forecast but do not quite achieve the complexity and expressive depth of the last five quartets (plus the Grosse Fuge ), the beating heart of Beethoven's late period.Until recently, the literature has also had relatively little to say on these quartets' historical and cultural context. In part because of the string quartet's symbolic status as the epitome of abstract, absolute musical expression, the notion that these works ought to be studied in relation to the time and place of their composition long thought to be superfluous. The introductory essays in The Beethoven Quartet Companion, edited by Robert Winter and Robert Martin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), represented an important first step toward a more holistic approach. Such an approach, however, has been slow to emerge. Angus Watson's survey of the entire chamber music oeuvre (Beethoven's Chamber Music in Context [Woodbridge, Suffolk, Eng.: Boydell Press, 2010]) perhaps comes closest, but as a practical listening guide, it necessarily sacrifices depth for breadth.November's book addresses both of these scholarly lacunae, but it also does more than this. Drawing together reception history, music analysis, social and cultural backgrounds, historiography, performance practice, and sketch studies, it offers sophisticated and original perspectives both on individual quartets and on the five quartets as a group. It also contributes new insights to a growing literature that considers how our understanding of Beethoven's music has been mediated by ideological forces that emerged during his lifetime and have remained intrinsic to musical culture ever since.The book is divided into an introduction and eight chapters. The introduction and first two chapters establish the book's agenda and explore the middle-period quartets in broad outline, focusing on such issues as genre, function, canonicity, historiography, and performance. Each of the next five chapters is devoted to a single quartet. The final chapter weaves together a number of loose strands regarding the quartets' reception and offers some provocative concluding thoughts.November begins by critiquing three core paradigms in Beethoven studies: the division of his career into three style periods, the notion of heroic Beethoven, and the persistent analytical focus on the musical score, as opposed to the music's physicality, visual codes, and social meanings (p. 3). While all three critiques will be familiar to Beethoven scholars, they have particular resonance in the context of these five quartets, works that have often been understood in relation to Beethoven's middle-period symphonic style rather than on their own terms. She seeks to carve out some new aesthetic spaces (p. 2) for these works by considering each quartet alongside the contemporary theories, practices, and ideas that informed its design.In lieu of the traditional tripartite view of Beethoven's career, and crucially for her thesis, November posits a epoch (roughly 1800-1815) during which Beethoven was particularly engaged with, and sought further involvement with, theatrical works and theatrical concepts (p. …

In 1972, Martha Vicinus edited Suffer and Be Still, a groundbreaking collection that introduced Victorian women into mainstream historical scholarship. Five years later, Vicinus brought out A Widen...

Er ist der Vater, wir sind die Bub'n: Essays In Honor of Christoph Wolff. Edited by Paul Corneilson and Peter Wollny. Ann Arbor, MI: Steglein, 2010. [xiv, 234 p. ISBN 9780981985015. $50.] Music examples, illustrations, index. Ein formlicher Sebastian und Philipp Emanuel Bach-Kultus. Sara Levy und ihr musikalisches Wirken, mit einer Doku mentensammlung zur musik - alischen Familiengeschichte der Vorfahren von Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. By Peter Wollny. (Beitrage zur Geschichte der Bach-Rezeption, Bd. 2.) Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hartel, 2010. [145 p. ISBN 9783765103902. i24.] Illustrations, bibliography, index. The volume Er ist der Vater, wir sind die Bub'n (He is the father, we are the boys) takes its title from a statement allegedly made in 1789 by Mozart to Johann Fried - rich Doles, cantor at Leipzig's St. Thomas church, in reference to Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. However, the title clearly serves a dual purpose, as the present volume serves as a Festschrift for Christoph Wolff, the highly influential scholar of the music of Bach, his sons, and, others, on the occasion of Wolff's seventieth birthday. Though lacking what would have been a valuable bibliography of Wolff's extensive scholarship, the volume is adorned with other equally reverential set pieces: a dedicatory acrostic poem by Lisa DeSiro and a closing musical tribute by Robert D. Levin. The main body of the volume consists of ten separately authored chapters, of which five are in German and five in English, focusing primarily on aspects of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's compositional thinking. In the first chapter, Uwe Wolf presents specific details of the revisions made by C. P. E. Bach in the autograph manuscript of J. S. Bach's B-minor Mass, BWV 232. In clarifying the stages of the revisions, Wolf offers information useful to the understanding of the text that appears in that manuscript, which has appeared in several facsimile editions and is available in a high-resolution scan online (available at http://www.bach-digital.de/receive /BachDigitalSource_source_00001048, accessed 15 September 2011) as well as a means toward understanding the editorial decisions that one encounters in the numerous editions of the B-minor Mass. Darrell M. Berg's article treats the process of melodic variation in C. P. E. Bach's music, examining the utilization of this technique in his formal structures and considering the resulting pieces in the context of late eighteenth-century instrumental forms. Laura Buch discusses the closely allied notion of improvisation as manifest in Bach's trios. In this she addresses both simple embellishment and the effect on the trio genre of the increasing significance of the keyboard part. Ulrich Leisinger's contribution examines musical declamation as exhibited in Bach's text setting, which, as with the previous chapters, situates Bach within the transition between baroque and modern styles. Peter Wollny's chapter on the Easter cantata Gott hat den Herrn auferwecket examines the documents associated with that compostion, in a manner which Wollny has perfected, in elucidating biographical details of the composer's professional ambitions. Paul Corneilson reviews the music composed by Bach for Johann Heinrich Michel as a means of examining the parameters in which Bach worked in composing for his Hamburg soloists while also providing musical insight into the biography of Bach's primary Hamburg copyist. Jason B. Grant describes the depiction of the the city of Hamburg in four occassional works by C. P. E. Bach which reference the city and specific sites in the city, providing insight into its citizens' attitudes toward it. Wolfram Ensslin and Tobias Rimek examine his use of pastiche and arrangements of pre-existing music as demonstrated in the chorale settings in the composer's vocal works, providing among other copious details a 25-page index of chorales and their source attributions. Christine Blanken provides valuable details of the reception of C. …

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A CABINET JOB REPRESENTS the zenith of a political career, whether in Russia or elsewhere. Yet the turnover of cabinet members is affected, albeit in varying degrees, by the duration of the government, that is, the length of its stay in office. The goal of this study is to analyse ministerial turnover in Russia. The chronological scope of the study is about 14 years, from July 1990, when the first transitional prime minister, Ivan Silaev, was appointed, to February 2004, when the cabinet of Mikhail Kas'yanov was dissolved. The study seeks to address several questions. First, I will discuss the duration of Russian governments in a comparative perspective. Second, I will analyse the turnover of ministers in Russia. Specifically, I will examine rotation across governments and types of ministerial specialisation. I will also consider the cases of short-term and long-lasting ministers. Finally, I will inquire into the turnover of deputy prime ministers and first deputy prime ministers, who constitute a 'buffer group' between prime minister and ordinary ministers in the Russian

Reviewed by: Mozart in Context ed. by Simon P. Keefe Alyson McLamore Mozart in Context. Edited by Simon P. Keefe. (Composers in Context.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. [xviii, 333 p. ISBN 9781107181052 (hardcover), $99.99; ISBN 9781316632444 (paperback), $29.99; also available as e-book, ISBN and price vary.] Illustrations, tables, music examples, contributors, abbreviations, bibliography, worklists, index. In 1862, Hector Berlioz observed, "We are beginning to understand Mozart" (Hugh Macdonald, "Berlioz and Mozart," in The Cambridge Companion to Berlioz, ed. Peter Bloom, Cambridge Companions to Music [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000], 222). Almost 160 years later, our understanding continues to evolve with the publication of Mozart in Context. In this inaugural volume in the series Composers in Context, Cambridge University Press promises "lively, accessible and concise essays by leading scholars on the many contexts—professional, political, intellectual, social and cultural—that have a bearing on [each composer's] work" (p. ii). Mozart in Context delivers on most—but not all—of those promises. The editor of Mozart in Context, Simon Keefe, is a familiar name to scholars of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He has published five books about [End Page 437] Mozart and has overseen several previous compendia, including two volumes of Mozart Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006 and 2015) as well as The Cambridge Companion to Mozart (Cambridge Companions to Music [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003]). In all these prior endeavors, the notion of "context" has loomed large. Indeed, the first volume of Mozart Studies noted that "the principal concern of much Mozart research has been to situate the composer and his music in increasingly well-informed biographical, historical, critical and analytical contexts" (Mozart Studies, p. ii); the second Mozart Studies concurred, stating that "cultural, historical and reception-related contexts are central to understanding Mozart" (Mozart Studies 2, p. ii); and the first section of The Cambridge Companion to Mozart mirrors the title of the volume currently under review with the designation "Mozart in Context" (Cambridge Companion to Mozart, p. v). Given these similarities of intent, the question of target audience becomes an important distinguishing factor. The two volumes of Mozart Studies are clearly aimed at scholars; in fact, they hope to draw "attention to areas primed for future investigation" (Mozart Studies, p. ii). In contrast, The Cambridge Companion to Mozart "brings new, up-to-date scholarship into a public arena" and is "intended for students, scholars and music lovers alike" (Cambridge Companion to Mozart, p. 2). Mozart in Context, however, seemingly aspires to embrace both the purposes and the readership of all these previous publications: "Probing diverse Mozartian contexts in a variety of ways, the contributors reflect the vitality of existing scholarship and point towards areas primed for further study" and are "essential reading for students and scholars of late-eighteenth-century music and for Mozart aficionados and music-lovers in general" (p. i). The breadth of these ambitions is Mozart in Context's primary virtue as well as a contributor to its shortcomings. The anthology of essays is divided into five parts: "Personality, Work, Worldview," "Towns, Cities, Countries," "Career Contexts and Environments," "Performers and Performance," and "Reception and Legacy." The essays themselves are about as diverse as thirty-five contributions could possibly be. As promised, they are all short, ranging from six to ten pages. The outlier—Christoph Großpietsch's study of "Mozart Iconography"—contains portrait reproductions on three-quarters of its nineteen pages. The entries vary considerably in their structure, however. Some are lovely, self-contained essays, making a clear claim at the start and working their way through supportive evidence. Standouts in this regard are Keefe's own three contributions, "Personal Relationships," "Mozart the Performer-Composer," and "Biographical and Critical Traditions"; Adeline Mueller's "Learning and Teaching" and "Mythmaking"; Jessica Waldoff's "Mozart and Freemasonry" and "Mozart and Finances"; Kathryn L. Libin's "Prague"; Rupert Ridgewell's "Publishing" and "Editing Mozart"; Ian Woodfield's "Reactions to Mozart in His Lifetime"; and Stephen Rumph's "Mozart in Theory and Analysis." Unsurprisingly, these essays are the richest in their scholarly apparatus, offering a wealth of primary-source documentation as well as references to relevant and recent scholarship (by means of much-appreciated footnotes rather...