ABSTRACT
The masque is interesting because it focuses on particular and recurrent features of Giacomo Meyerbeer's style—the pastoral topos, exemplified in the Chorus of Shepherds, and the military mode in the Festmarsch for the entry of the guests. Meyerbeer's new incidental music to his brother's play is made up of an overture and 13 pieces—some of them short, others more extensive. The music rises and falls in eerie reflection, and soon the danger materializes as the queen mother Julie and the privy counsellor Count Rantzau enter, walking in deep conversation. The love theme fixes the association, and is immediately challenged by the unexpected entry of his father, the Pastor Struensee, his tranquil and portentous theme confirming the symbolic juxtapositioning. The pacific Meyerbeer, basically uneasy with Prussian militarism, was haunted by the rhythm, which entered operatic vocabulary forcefully through Spontini's heroic minuets. The music for Struensee was the last big work written while Meyerbeer was Prussian Generalmusikdirektor.
