AMS Philadelphia 2009 Abstracts - American Musicological Society

Abstracts Friday noon 77
and partimenti throughout the conservatorii where musical training was concentrated. Just as
fluent and sophisticated musical phrases can be assembled from a relatively small number of
schemata, so theatrical situations of comedy and poignancy can be derived from the interplay
of the commedia dell’arte stock characters. To illustrate these connections, we will perform a
commedia dell’arte pantomime for which Mozart composed the music and devised the plot
in 1783. The pantomime, which was performed during Vienna’s Carnival season, featured
Mozart as Arlecchino alongside friends and relatives who played Pantalone, il Dottore, Pierò,
and Colombine. Only the first violin part and the sketchiest outline of the action survives:
the rest will be extemporized by members of the workshop (and perhaps even by members of
the audience).