More Gratuitous Musickal Posting (TM)

I snapped off this piece last evening and have been hesitating about whether or not to post it. Even I recognize it as one of my geekier outbursts. Having slept on it I decided that I would go ahead and put it up, but in order to keep people like Bill from getting apoplexy, I'll put it below the fold.

You've been warned.

Following up on my earlier questioning about the musical selections for the movie Casanova, I stumbled across a listing for the soundtrack while over at Fausta's place.

Now I don't pretend to be an expert on the subject, but my initial suspicions that the musical selections for the movie might not be the best representations of Venice in 1750 (when the action of the movie takes place) seem to be confirmed. Here are the listed composers:

Tomaso Albinoni (1671-1751). He was Venetian, it's true, but we don't have any of his music from after about 1720. (Apparently, a good deal of it was lost in the Allied bombing of Dresden.) Thirty years was a long time, musically speaking, during that period.

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713). I love Corelli, although I didn't remember hearing any here. However, he lived at least two generations before the time of the film and represented the high baroque, not the rococo.

Francesco Durante (1684-1755). I'm not familiar with his work, but a quick bit of research reveals he was a Neopolitan who concentrated on sacred music. Not really the thing for fun-loving, licentious Venice.

Leonardo Leo (1694-1744). Again, I don't know him. But again, he was a Neopolitan who wrote sacred and theatrical music.

Vicente Martin y Soler (1754-1806). Not only was he born after the time of the movie, he was Spanish (Valencia).

Giovanni Paisiello (1741-1816). He was from Taranto and specialized in Italian opera. Again, though, too late for action in 1750.

Jean-Phillipe Rameau - I had already mentioned him. Perhaps the closest composer to the spirit of the time, but again he was French.

Antonio Vivaldi - I already mentioned him.

Johan Helmich Roman (1694-1758). The timing is right, but the man was Swedish.

Incidently, Handel's name doesn't appear on the playlist. However, I swear I heard a snippet and there is a track marked "various composers", so he's probably in there.

Now I don't mean to be nit-picky about this (well, yes I do) and there's nothing wrong with any of this music in and of itself. But if you're going to set a story in a specific time and place, how much more difficult is it to figure out what the people of that time and place were likely to have heard in their palaces, concert halls and churches and use that?