Reminiscence and Recall in Three Early Settings of Metastasio's Alessandro nell' Indie

Abstract

Musical reminiscence or recall of the type that became familiar in nineteenth-century opera was not a common feature of the late Baroque opera seria. Any instances of musical recall that do occur seem to fall into one of two categories: firstly, those where a musical motive, with a particular association, is used to link a series of musical ‘numbers’; secondly, those instances where the repetition of a text later in a scene or act prompts a repeat, or partial repeat of the original music. From amongst the vast corpus of eighteenth-century Italian librettos, Metastasio's Alessandro nell' Indie (1729) is one such piece that contains a notable instance of textual repetition used for the purpose of increasing dramatic conflict. I am not the first to comment on the unusual qualities of this libretto. Several notable scholars, including Friedrich Chrysander, Michael Robinson and Winton Dean, have drawn attention to the musical reminiscences that portions of this libretto have engendered, particularly in settings by Leonardo Vinci and G. F. Handel. Yet there has been little attempt to explain this particular phenomenon in musico-dramatic terms, nor to compare the approaches of such diverse composers as Vinci, Handel and Hasse to the problems that the textual recall produces. This, then, is the purpose of my paper.