Di una ricorrente reminiscenza beethoveniana in Bellini

In an extended section in the second act of Norma (1831) entitled “Coro e sortita di Oroveso”, Bellini quotes almost literally from the first movement of Beethoven’s piano sonata op. 27 n. 2, the so-called “Moonlight” sonata. This borrowing was first noticed by Alberto Mazzuccato in 1842, and afterwards only occasionally mentioned, but without much emphasis – probably to avoid suspects of plagiarism. Quite surprisingly, Bellini used this music in in other two operas before Norma: Zaira (1829) and Bianca e Fernando (1826), his second opera. Bellini was a great admirer of German music, an interest encouraged by his teacher Nicolò Zingarelli. According to Florimo, Bellini would spend many hours a day transcribing in full score the parts of Haydn’s quartets and Mozart’s quintets for strings. His love for Beethoven’s music is also well documented. I argue that Bellini repeatedly borrowed from Op. 27 n. 2 because in this music he found a brilliant and modern usage of the same compositional techniques he was taught in Naples. Indeed, the first movement of Op. 27 n. 2, is highly formulaic – which is probably linked to its improvisational character. Beethoven opens with a four-bar introduction made with a Romanesca à la Sammartini and a cadenza doppia “with the anticipation of the seventh” (Gasparini , L’armonico pratico al cimbalo). Another cadenza doppia, expanded over two bars through a double neighbor figure, appears in measures 39-40, again a technique shown by Gasparini. Other formulae, such as compound cadences and the Le-Sol-Fi schema, appear throughout the piece. Bellini’s version of the “moonlight” music is highly personal. He preserves the “phrygian” tetrachord in bass, but sets it in a major mode context, creating a fascinating modal ambiguity. Similarly, the modulation to III in mm. 7-9 of Beethoven (via a ii-V-I progression) becomes in Bellini a modulation to bIII, with a chromatic shift ⑥-b⑥-⑤ in the bass. The three version of Bellini’s chorus are also different: they show a progression from school work to a definite artistic individuality, and allow to gauge the spread of the “moonlight” myth through different dramatic contexts.