ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to show in what ways attitudes to opera and music in early nineteenth-century Italy conditioned the constitution and role of the orchestra. This is a very important part of our understanding of opera at this time, because of the emphasis that is now put on its value in any consideration of opera composers. Dramatic articulation through orchestral contributions is a concept that has little place in either the Italian idea of the power of music, discussed in Chapter 2, or in their conception of drama in the libretto, discussed in the last chapter. Therefore it is important to realize that for Italians the orchestra was not something that existed in its own right, but only as part of a greater whole. In this respect it should be remembered that orchestral music was much less developed in Italy than elsewhere, particularly in the south, and that generally speaking “what we call a symphony [meant] nothing to them”. (1) Italian opera orchestras developed out of traditional accompaniments to singers and were therefore conceived of from the bass line upwards. As we shall see, this maintained an emphasis on the top and bottom lines of the operatic texture that was briefly referred to at the end of Chapter 2.
