Includes bibliographical references (p. 393-407) and index.
Contents
Prelude : L'Orfeo, or the anxiety of the moderns -- Bach's cycle. The arrested procession ; A crystal flying like a bullet ; There is no time like God's time -- Interlude : Jean-Jacques contra Augustinum : a little treatise on moral-political theology -- Mozart's arrow. Mozart at play ; The hidden center ; Between incoherence and inauthenticity : Don Giovanni and Faust ; Die Zauberflote, or the self-assertion of the moderns -- Postlude : between utopia and melancholy : Beethoven and the aesthetic state.