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Mozart's Archaic Endings: A Linguistic Critique
- Journal of the Royal Musical Association
- Oxford University Press
- Volume 130, Part 2, 2005
- pp. 159-196
- Article
- Additional Information
Rhetorical studies of Mozart have assumed a rationalist conception of language, ignoring the empiricist model that actually dominated the Enlightenment. The two models, comparable structurally to the stile antico and style galant, collide in Mozart's learned finales. A study of three finales, from the Mass in C minor, the Concerto in E, K.449, and Die Entführung aus dem Serail, shows how Mozart negotiated irreducible contradictions within Enlightenment thought by switching between the two models.