all are figures of fun (Tutto nel mondo è burla ... Tutti gabbati!...Ma ride ben chi ride La risata final. / "Everything in the world is a jest ... but he laughs well who laughs the final laugh"). The entire company repeats his proclamation in a bewildering ten-voice fugue. Music and drama Verdi scored Falstaff for three flutes (third doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, four trombones, timpani, percussion (triangle, cymbals, bass drum), harp, and strings. In addition, a guitar, natural horn, and bell are heard from offstage. Unlike most of Verdi's earlier operatic scores, Falstaff is through-composed. No list of numbers is printed in the published full score. The score differs from much of Verdi's earlier work by having no overture: there are seven bars for the orchestra before the first voice (Dr Caius) enters. The critic Rodney Milnes comments that "enjoyment... shines from every bar in its irresistible forward impulse, its effortless melody, its rhythmic vitality, and sureness of dramatic pace and construction." In The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, Roger Parker writes that: The opera was described by its creators as a commedia lirica. McDonald commented in 2009 that Falstaff is very different – a stylistic departure – from Verdi's earlier work. In McDonald's view most of the musical expression is in the dialogue, and there is only one traditional aria. The result is that "such stylistic economy – more sophisticated, more challenging than he had employed before – is the keynote of the work." McDonald argues that consciously or unconsciously, Verdi was developing the idiom that would come to dominate the music of the 20th century: "the lyricism is abbreviated, glanced at rather than indulged. Melodies bloom suddenly and then vanish, replaced by contrasting tempo or an unexpected phrase that introduces another character or idea". In McDonald's view the orchestral writing acts as a sophisticated commentator on the action. It has influenced at least one of Verdi's operatic successors: in 1952 Imogen Holst, musical assistant to Benjamin Britten, wrote, after a performance of Falstaff, "I realised for the first time how much Ben owes to [Verdi]. There are orchestral bits which are just as funny to listen to as the comic instrumental bits in A. Herring!" The extent to which Falstaff is a "Shakespearian" opera has often been debated by critics. Although the action is taken