Cambridge Scholars Publishing The Solo English Cantatas and Italian Odes of Thomas A. Arne

This study examines Thomas Arne’s solo cantatas and Italian odes from musical, literary and social perspectives. Arne composed these works between 1740 and 1774. As such, they provide a means of evaluating the evolving aspects of his musical style throughout his compositional career. The Italian odes have been little-studied, but provide an important gloss on Charles Burney’s comments on Arne’s inability to set the Italian language. Study of the cantata texts that Arne set reveals that they are often pastiches which make use of the words of William Congreve, Alexander Pope, Christopher Smart and others. The resulting process of adaptation and recombination re-contextualizes the borrowed material, resulting in differing emphases and changed meanings. Arne was restricted in his career opportunities because of his Catholic faith. The cantata genre provided Arne with an important creative outlet in the hedonistic atmosphere of the concerts of London’s pleasure gardens. About the Author Paul F. Rice was Professor of Musicology in the School of Music at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, until his retirement in 2018. His research interests include the operatic and concert music of eighteenth-century France and Great Britain, as well as opera in general. In addition to journal articles, he is the author of five previous books, the most recent of which is Venanzio Rauzzini in Britain (2015). He has edited scores by John Abraham Fisher and Venanzio Rauzzini for publication, and provided performing editions of music by French and British composers for CD recordings on the Naxos, Dorian and Centaur labels.