Tonal Organization in 'Buffo' Finales and the Act II Finale of 'Le nozze di Figaro' Author(s): John Platoff Source: Music & Letters, Vol. 72, No. 3 (Aug., 1991), pp. 387-403 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/736215 Accessed: 26-02-2019 18:45 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Music & Letters This content downloaded from 132.174.255.206 on Tue, 26 Feb 2019 18:45:02 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms TONAL ORGANIZATION IN 'BUFFO' FINALES AND THE ACT II FINALE OF 'LE NOZZE DI FIGARO' BY JOHN PLATOFF THE TONAL PLAN of the finale to Act II of Mozart and Da Ponte's Le nozze di Fzgaro is an admirably clear structure, and one that has drawn nearly as much ap- proving comment from analysts as the opera itself has received from audiences.' The reasons for this favourable view of the finale's tonal scheme are not hard to find: its eight sections or movements move from the tonic of E flat to the dominant and then by a descending third to G, from which point the return to the tonic occurs through a regular series of falling fifths (see Table I).