Rossini:

1792-1868, Italian composer, wrote 39 operas, songs, sacred & chamber music & piano pieces, setting new standards for both comic & serious opera before retiring while still in his thirties, at the height of his popularity.  Between 1810–1823 he wrote 34 operas for the Italian stage (Venice, Milan, Ferrara, Naples); he used a formulaic approach for overtures & a certain amount of self-borrowing.  He produced his most popular works- the comic operas L'italiana in Algeri, The Barber of Seville, and La Cenerentola, (high water marks for opera buffa tradition inherited from Cimarosa).  He also composed opera seria works- Otello, Tancredi and Semiramide, all admired for their innovation in melody, harmonic, instrumental colour & dramatic form.  His final opera was Guillaume Tell (1829),

 

Huguenots:

aka Les Huguenots, French opera by Meyerbeer, libretto by Scribe & Deschamps; a popular & spectacular example grand opera style; 5 acts, premiered in Paris in 1836 where it was well received; it would play another thousand performances there in the century that followed.  Berlioz, Verdi & Liszt hailed it as a masterpiece. Even Heinrich Heine gave it a positive assessment.

 

Rossini (on the Les Huguenots):

Spengler tells us that when Rossini was asked to comment on the music of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots he said: "I heard nothing resembling it."  This would seem to be apocryphal.  Rossini & Meyerbeer far from being musical enemies were friends.  Meyerbeer considered Rossini his mentor.  In 1824, as director of the Théâtre-Italien in Paris, Rossini introduced Meyerbeer's opera Il crociato in Egitto.  Rossini's withdrawal from opera 1830-1855 has never been explained but it seems unlikely that it was due to Meyerbeer’s success (as some suggest).  Meyerbeer was one of many guest performers at Rossini’s Saturday evenings salons in Paris between 1858 & 1868.  Rossini was on friendly terms with Meyerbeer, visiting him regularly, and wrote a memorial elegy for male voice choir on Meyerbeer's death in 1864.

 

Asiatic schools (of paintings): * see EndNote<A>

Spengler’s “Asiatic schools” probably refers to Anatolia, also known as Asia Minor; a region which includes Ionia, a Greek colony home to the city state of Ephesus & the isle of Kos.  The most famous Greek painter from this region was Apelles, born in the 4th century in Ionia.  He studied under Ephorus of Ephesus & later with Pamphilus at Sicyon.  His artwork combined the Dorian thoroughness with Ionic grace.  Apelles executed works depicting the tyrant of Sicyon & later at the court of Philip II, would paint both Phillip & his son Alexander.  His paintings of Alexander became famous.  He eventually became the recognized court painter of Macedon.  Pliny the Elder tell us that his skill at drawing the human face was such that he could produce recognizable images with just a few strokes.

 

Sicyonian school (of paintings):

Sicyon was a city in the Greek Peloponnesus, NW of Corinth, 2 miles S of the Gulf of Corinth; founded by Argos, attained greatest power under the tyrant Cleisthenes (6th century BC).  It reached its zenith as an art centre in the 4th century BC.  The Sicyonic school of painting, founded by Eupompus , produced such artists as Pamphilus and Apelles.  Eupompus was eclipsed by his successors & is chiefly remembered for the advice he gave to Lysippus (to follow nature rather than any master).  Following Eupompus the school was led by Pamphilus of Amphipolis.  Under his influence painting became a regular part of Greek classical education.  A number of his pupils went on to become well-known painters.  Notable among these were Melanthius, Pausias and Apelles (the painter of Alexander the Great).

 

Egyptian Thebes:

Egyptian city located along the Nile about 500 miles south of the Mediterranean; initially it was the district capital of the 4th Upper Egyptian nome; during the Middle Kingdom & New Kingdom eras it served as the capital of Egypt for long periods.

 

Cnossus (new art): * see EndNote<B>

A city referenced by Greek writers.  The palace of Knossos became the ceremonial & political centre of the Minoan civilization.  In the initial period (2,000 BC), the urban population stood at 18,000, growing to 100,000 by 1700 BC.  The city was abandoned circa 1200 BC.  Minoan frescoes were unique & distinctive, quite different from anything the Egyptians produced. 

 

Tell-el-Amarna (new art): * see EndNote<C>

site of the ruins of the city of Akhetaton (“Horizon of Aton”) in Upper Egypt.  Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) built the city in 1348 BC on the east bank of the Nile.  Akhenaten tried to shift Egyptian religion away from its traditional gods.  This new capital represented his abandoning the worship of Amon & turning instead to Aton.  This change was not widely accepted.  Soon after his death (1332), his monuments were dismantled & hidden, his statues were destroyed, and his name excluded from the king lists.  The court returned to Thebes, and Tell-el-Amarna was abandoned.  The art work of this period (known as the Amarna), is a sudden break from styles of the earlier dynasties.

 

Nietzsche (critique of Wagner applicable to Manet)

see above page 291

 

contemplation-painting:

painting based on the mind’s eye of the artist, his vision (rather than a view of nature)

 

Inhaltsmalerei:

German for content painting

 

Megalopolis:

a term coined by Patrick Geddes in his 1915 book Cities in Evolution & later used by Spengler, it describes the first stage in urban overdevelopment and social decline; it has also been interpreted as meaning "supercity".

 

music after Wagner, painting after Cezanne, Leibl and Menzel:

Wagner died in 1883, Cezanne in 1906, Leibl in 1900 and Menzel 1905.  They represent artists from the early autumn period, Modem Art.  The artist deals with art problems & works to excite the megalopolitan consciousness.  Music & painting are transformed into craft arts, the art of a technician.  After this period we see the end of form-development.  It now becomes meaningless, empty, artificial, pretentious architecture and ornament, and is reduced to imitating archaic and exotic themes & forms.

 

superfluities:

the state of being more than is sufficient or required; excessive.