{"id":155,"date":"2025-11-19T21:18:58","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T21:18:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/figarofiles\/?page_id=155"},"modified":"2026-02-02T03:30:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T03:30:21","slug":"pop-music-for-mozart","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/commons.mtholyoke.edu\/figarofiles\/deeper-dives\/pop-music-for-mozart\/","title":{"rendered":"Pop Music For Mozart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by: Siggy Ehrlich ’26<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image taken from Lady Gaga’s 2025 appearance on the cover of HITS magazine<\/a> – her latest styling era takes inspiration from Baroque era fashion<\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Who was the Lady Gaga (creating iconic music and imagery known widely) of Mozart\u2019s time? Was it Mozart with his concertos and symphonies? Despite what we generally think of as pop music today having popped up in mainstream culture in the last 100 years, pop music has been around in varying forms for centuries. At the time of Le Nozze di Figaro\u2019s<\/em> premiere at the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1786, two main types of popular music were common in Vienna, the German Lied and the French Vaudeville song. These song types influenced operatic composition, but were also present in daily life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

German Lieder<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The German Lied was common for Mozart and his day-to-day life in a German-speaking region in what is now modern-day Austria. Despite the Lied tradition being commonly associated with Franz Schubert, it was a long-standing tradition by the time he popularized it. A large collection of German Lieder was published in 1767, the Lieder der Deutschen<\/em>, and the songs were both secular and sacred works. Lieder and keyboard parts in the second half of the eighteenth century were reimagined in Vienna while retaining its \u201cdistinct diatonic clarity and fondness for sparse textures.\u201d1<\/a><\/sup> Vienna began to develop its own distinctive Lieder style around the same time that Mozart relocated to Vienna and would have been immersed in Viennese musical culture. Mozart wrote multiple Lieder and his music is also thought to have influenced some of Schubert\u2019s Lieder.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Anton Depauly, portrait of Franz Schubert, ca. 1827 – Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

French Vaudeville<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The French Vaudeville was a comedic song style that was very popular in French society. Vaudeville was common in both everyday life and in theater.3<\/a><\/sup> It was closely connected with urban songs, but with the development of opera comique<\/em>, French Vaudeville began to move into the elite opera sphere in the early eighteenth century.4<\/a><\/sup> It combined common tunes, many of which are referenced in common nursery rhymes that persist to today,5<\/a><\/sup> with satirical lyrics that covered a variety of topics including love, drinking songs, village stories, and more.6<\/a><\/sup> Beaumarchais had written vaudeville songs for other theatrical works and was familiar with it for Le Mariage<\/em>. In Vienna, Mozart and Austrian audiences would have been familiar with the vaudeville song, as in 1752 the Burgtheater began to perform predominately French works.7<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Le Mariage de Figaro<\/em> and Le Nozze di Figaro<\/em> make use of stage songs with the most popular coming from Cherubino in Act 2 of both the play and opera. In the play, it is to the tune of a common folk song that the audience would have recognized and have engaged with in previous contexts known as \u201cMarlborough.\u201d In English it is the same tune as \u201cHe\u2019s A Jolly Good Fellow.\u201d Cherubino\u2019s song is an example of romances<\/em> which were on a simple yet tragic love story, which was more exemplified in Le Mariage<\/em> which is about his infatuation with the Countess. He sings about being in love with her and how it pains him to be unable to be with the Countess, his Godmother.8<\/a><\/sup> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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“Malbrough,” from Chansons et rondes enfantines (1870) – Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/sup><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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