Libertinage

What Dominique Pagani says

Dominique Pagani approaches eighteenth-century libertinism as a pursuit of pleasure, in a century he describes as thirsting for happiness. He links it to Laclos, Sade, Fragonard and Da Ponte. In Così fan tutte, he points out that the farewell quintet, pure pretence, nonetheless carries Mozart's most deeply moving music1. Through Valmont's letter about Madame de Tourvel, he shows that the libertine calculates the gap to be crossed and seeks out obstacles and duration: for him, it takes time to reach pleasure2. He sets against this lesson the cherry idyll of the Confessions, which stays at the edge of libertinism and takes Rousseau from pleasure to happiness2. He also places the happiness of the fifth walk beyond the pleasures of aristocratic libertinism3. Finally, he analyses libertine pleasure as a privilege of power, which Rousseau's triangle and the character of Susanna open up to the happiness of the popular masses4.

1. 1MOZART PERVERS POLYMORPHE • Pagani Parle Musique1 Jun 2022
2. 2Dominique Pagani : De la débauche du sens à l'orgie du sentiment29 May 2023
3. 3#1 Bien-et Mé-faits de l'amnésie...8 Oct 2020
4. 4Musicosophie 13. Mozart restitué2 Feb 2021

Introduction produced automatically from the 4 sessions on this theme, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the sessions.