The work: --------- Le Nozze di Figaro ossia la folle giornata (KV 492) Dramma giocoso in quattro atti (Burgtheater Vienna, 1-May-1786) (The Marriage of Figaro) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (*27-Jan-1756 Salzburg, +5-Dec-1791 Vienna) Libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte (Emanuele Conegliano) (*10-Mar-1749 Ceneda, +17-Aug-1838 New York) based on the comedy "Le mariage de Figaro" (Paris, 1784) by Beaumarchais (Pierre Augustin Caron) (*24-Jan-1732 Paris, +19-May-1799 Paris) Transcribed from G. Ricordi & C. Editori, Milano 1985 by Michael Bednarek [mb@nrhs.health.nsw.gov.au] Background: ----------- The score I used is much more than a piano excerpt; in fact, I'm convinced that some parts are unplayable: it really is a condensed orchestral score. I transcribed these pieces for the pleasure of seeing W.A. Mozart at work and, my own practical instrumental skills being limited, making the sounds come to live. I'm grateful to the author of "MOZART", a notation program like no other in its very pleasing method of using the computer keyboard economically to enter a musical score. The piece: ---------- Aria - No.24: "Il capro e la capretta" (Soprano) Atto IV. Seguito della Scena III. Figaro complained to Marcellina about Susanna's seeming infidelity and leaves. Marcellina reflects on how difficult it is for women to live with those jealous men [http://www.orc.soton.ac.uk/ngb/figaro.html] As with most pieces I did for "Nozze", the orchestra is here represented by MIDI instrument 49 "String Ensemble 1", and Marcellina 74 "Flute". Spatial orientation has Marcellina centred, high strings left, low strings right. Details: -------- I have never seen or heard this aria, and the next (No. 25 "In quegli anni"), in any of the about eight different performances of "Nozze" that I know. So transcribing them is a rare pleasure of bringing them to my ears for the first time. It is of course also slightly dangerous because I might get the tempi wrong. It is not clear to me why these two arias seem to be traditionally omitted: although they are probably not the pinnacle of Mozart's work, they would put some flesh on Marcellina's and Basilio's roles, the latter being an especially thin and unrewarding role. But maybe therein lies the problem: in most perfor- mances these roles are given to lesser singers -Peter Schreier on EMI's 1964 recording not withstanding- and thus the director looking to shorten this fairly long work finds two easy targets. To be sure, No. 24 has probably more than its fair share of coloratura, but that alone is no reason to write it off as a mere soprano show piece. Leading back to the reprise in bar 36 with only three notes is obviously not only extremely economic but also very surprising to the listener; this bar alone makes the aria worthwhile. I also like the use of simple note repetition in bar 63 -forte and in unison- to emphasize a point. I tried to follow Ricordis' slightly unusual practice of stem direction: for A and B the direction seems to be determined by its neighbours - fair enough, although I prefer a more rigid approach -A up, B down- for reasons of easier readability. Trills are written explicitly and noted in the score except in bars 64ff where they couldn't be heard in my opinion. I decided in the last minute to use ex- plicit trills in bar 91, which forced me to use narrower margins to accommodate them in the last line of the score; I then had to insert a few spaces into every line to fill the wider body of the page. The overall appearance of the score has probably slightly suffered from this. Also: I couldn't resist to write what were originally bars eight and nine as a repeat; this turned out to be a fortuitous decision as the score not only regained proper bar numbering (the counting of MOZART is off by one because I didn't observe its strict rule regarding anacruces), but it also fitted on four pages. There may be a mistake by Ricordi in bar 58 on the three-count: gCB sounds very dissonant. I ordered a full orchestral score and will check it. I am grateful for notification of any mistakes I may have made, or just for a brief email from anyone who used this file. Michael Bednarek March 2007: I was asked to provide a transposition to F for this piece, which prompted me to revisit it. On that occasion, I notated the trills properly and introduced some tremolo notation. PS: I checked the full orchestral score regarding the above mentioned dissonance in bar 58 and it's correct "come scritto".