preview

The Magic Flute Analysis

Decent Essays

The recitative tells the story and the aria responds emotionally to what just happened.
The recitative refers to song-speech. It is derived from the Italian verb meaning “to recite” and its purpose is to portray the quality of speech. The no. 4 recitative of The Magic Flute is where we are introduced to the Queen of the Night. The recitative is in the key of B-flat major and continues the Allegro maestoso tempo marking of the entrance music. It starts with a syncopated accompaniment figure which is useful in creating a disturbed and restless mood, making listeners wary of the Queen of the Night.
Mozart adopts secco accompagnato, an old style from the Baroque operas. However, Mozart did not entirely utilise the Baroque opera styles and structures. Baroque arias were characteristically in the ternary form, which was a reason for their downfall as the music did not move with a strong sense of direction- it always ends where it started, which stopped the progress. Mozart changed it in a number of ways. He used the orchestra as a filling more complex than in earlier music, and a way for mood setting, which is a crucial difference compared to before. When the Queen of the night starts to sing, dry chords are played in the orchestra to keep the singer in tune and also emphasise certain words. The secco accompaniment brings the music to modulate to the relative G minor. This leads into the aria.
The aria is kind of in binary form, however it is not exactly binary as the two parts are not related. The first part starts in G minor in Larghetto and shows us the introverted, worried and anxious side of the Queen as she remembers the horror of her daughter’s kidnapping. The second part of the aria is back to B-flat major and is in Allegro moderato. This part portrays her bossy and commanding personality as she orders Tamino to rescue her daughter. This aria would be more appropriately classified as through-composed as the music follows the text.
The Queen of the Night attempts to create a firm image of herself, but the music betrays her. It shows her lack of control. The very rapid shifting between emotions suggests that she is fickle and shows that her façade is extremely shallow.
In the recitative, Mozart uses a

Get Access