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@tgm.com.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.25: "In quegli anni in cui val poco" (Tenore) Atto IV. Seguito della Scena V. Basilio explains the complicated cabale to Bartolo and recalls the time when he was younger [thanks to 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 Basilio, as befitting a tenor, is 57 "Trumpet". Spatial orientation has Basilio a bit to the right, high strings are left, low strings right. Details: -------- I have never seen or heard this aria, and the previous (No. 24 "Il capro e la capretta"), 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. In fact, this Basilio's only solo aria in the opera, Bartolo has at least No. 4 "La vendetta!" which is never omitted. But maybe therein lies the problem: in most performances 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. The aria itself is designed on a fairly grand scale: Andante, Minuetto, Allegro, and most of the melodic movement is in large intervals. 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 and grace notes are written explicitly and noted in the score. However, as I said elsewhere, subtracting the time for grace notes solely from the associated main note is clearly wrong: some time needs to be subtracted from the preceding note/rest, especially in the case of three grace notes. Similar to what I did in No.24, I couldn't resist to shorten the score by utilising repeats (bars 30, 56, 104-112). Again, this turned out to be a fortuitous decision as the score now fits on five pages. The dynamics "Fp" for the dotted minim (1/2) in bar 66 for the orchestra have been written as a "F"-crotchet (1/4) plus a "p"-minim (1/2). I am grateful for notification of any mistakes I may have made, or just for a brief email from anyone who used this file. Enjoy! Michael Bednarek http://mbednarek.com/ May 2006: Someone sent me an e-mail, pointing out that the tempo of this piece was way too slow. I listened to the MIDI file on my web site and found not much wrong with the tempi, but the balance between soloist and orchestra was wrong and a few dynamics were too abrupt. I also found that the tempo change in bar 41 was not there when I opened the MOZART score in the current version of the program, MOZART 2005 (or V-8); the original transcription was done in MOZART V-4. I have recently bought the Brilliant box of all Mozart works on 172 CDs, which includes this aria in its version of Le nozze di Figaro; it turns out that my selection of tempi was pretty close. Given the problems with the MOZART score as published on my web site, and with a few features now available in MOZART that weren't before (e.g. trills, lyrics), I decided to re-write the piece using the current MOZART version. On my soundcard, the balance is now better and the dynamics are more natural.