Composers who could have achieved more
Andy Evans
found myself once again being angry with the guy for not experimenting more
with his prodigious talents - I reflected on Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy and
many more pushing the limits of the possible while Wolfy was writing pretty
tunes (I'm going to get murdered for all this..). Plus, in terms of early
talent, many composers were writing major new experimental music in their early
twenties - Prokofiev etc. Don't some composers leave you with the feeling they
could have dome more with their talents?
=== Andy Evans ===
Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.
Neil Brennen
Andy Evans wrote in message <20020630152146...@mb-cl.aol.com>...
>I was casually listening to some early Mozart on the radio this morning and
>found myself once again being angry with the guy for not experimenting more
>with his prodigious talents - I reflected on Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy
and
>many more pushing the limits of the possible while Wolfy was writing pretty
>tunes (I'm going to get murdered for all this..).
I'm hurrying to reply to this post before the assasins arrive Down Under.
Plus, in terms of early
>talent, many composers were writing major new experimental music in their
early
>twenties - Prokofiev etc. Don't some composers leave you with the feeling
they
>could have done more with their talents?
If you mean could they have been more productive, in terms of quantity of
music, yes, I suppose some of them could.
As for wishing a composer to be more avant-garde, aren't you wishing them to
be another composer then? I suppose Arthur Sullivan could have been the
father of 12-tone music had he so desired....
Andante teneramente
> found myself once again being angry with the guy for not experimenting more
> with his prodigious talents - I reflected on Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy and
> many more pushing the limits of the possible while Wolfy was writing pretty
> tunes (I'm going to get murdered for all this..). Plus, in terms of early
> talent, many composers were writing major new experimental music in their early
> twenties - Prokofiev etc. Don't some composers leave you with the feeling they
> could have dome more with their talents?
I was listening to Mozart's B flat string quartet KV 458 (Talich-Qu) just as I
read your posting, so I beg to differ. I haven't heard the quartet in a while,
so the impact was the stronger. Such intimacy, such expression! And - a nice
didactic move - at the end of some of the Talich-CDs you have one of the early
quartets. Obviously Mozart has developed enormously! Don't pretend you don't
notice hearing early and late things <g>!
To your question: Strauss comes to my mind. The only things so far that did
anything for me were Salome, Elektra and, strangely enough, Metamorphosen.
I think it was rather a matter of *taste* than anything else. The pathetic
opening of Zarathustra for instance leaves me speechless with laughter, and
in the Alpine symphony I can't hear more than nice movie music, and I could
go on like that...
Regards
David7Gable
I don't see how Mozart could possibly have done more than he did with his
talents, which is to write the greatest music yet created on this planet. But
it's possible you haven't really penetrated his beautiful surfaces yet and
discovered everything that's going on in his music. Many of his contemporaries
found much of his music abstruse or rebarbative, and even admiring critics
remarked that his music united heaven and hell. With all due respect,
Prokofiev's talent was never remotely on a level with Mozart's. Not in his
20's or at any other time.
-david gable
David7Gable
>father of 12-tone music had he so desired....
No, he couldn't have, because it couldn't have occurred to him during the
period when he lived within the musical culture of which he was a part.
-david gable
Neil Brennen
David7Gable wrote in message
<20020630163555...@mb-cr.aol.com>...
And as a part of the musical culture, he could have shaped the culture.
Don't you think that in 1890's London, Sullivan could have been more
avant-garde? Why couldn't he be ahead of his time?
As you may have guessed, my response was meant to mock the absurdity of the
question.
Johannes Röhl
> I was casually listening to some early Mozart on the radio this morning and
> found myself once again being angry with the guy for not experimenting more
> with his prodigious talents - I reflected on Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy and
Did you ever listen *seriously* to some Mozart (as you may
be missing a lot when listening casually)?
As an example of "experimenting with his talents" just take
the "little" g minor symphony, written when he was about 17
or the piano concerto K 271, written at the age of 21.
At 25 he had already pushed the genres of opera seria and
singspiel to a new artistic summit, and he still kept
experimenting.
And one could go on, take the "Haydn" quartets, the
quintets, the last 3 symphonies, Don Giovanni etc.
A lot more than pretty tunes!
> many more pushing the limits of the possible while Wolfy was writing pretty
> tunes (I'm going to get murdered for all this..). Plus, in terms of early
> talent, many composers were writing major new experimental music in their early
> twenties - Prokofiev etc. Don't some composers leave you with the feeling they
> could have dome more with their talents?
Mendelssohn (don`t get me wrong, I like a lot of his music,
but he could have been more adventurous),
R.Strauss
Johannes
Larry Rinkel
news:afnsp5$ivf$1...@slb0.atl.mindspring.net...
to mimic the styles of his most conservative contemporaries, perhaps above
all Mendelssohn and the Italian opera. The overture to Iolanthe is a perfect
example of the Mendelssohnian side of his musical "personality," complete
with the combination of a cantabile theme against a more active, scherzando
subject such as you find in the finale of the Mendelssohn violin concerto.
Similarly, when Sullian writes the ensemble "A Nice Dilemma" from "Trial by
Jury," he produces a perfect replica of a concerted ensemble such as one
would find in the operas of Donizetti and early Verdi. This kind of composer
is not likely to be ahead of his time.
Lena
[Andy:]
>>I was casually listening to some early Mozart on the radio this
>>morning and found myself once again being angry with the guy for not
>>>experimenting more with his prodigious talents - I reflected on
>>>Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy and many more pushing the limits of
>>>the possible while Wolfy was writing pretty tunes (I'm going to get
>>>murdered for all this..).
>I don't see how Mozart could possibly have done more than he did with
>his talents, which is to write the greatest music yet created on this
>planet.
(A beautiful declaration of love, if not an objective statement... :):) )
I won't murder anyone yet, but I'll thoroughly disagree with Andy.
Mozart did a huge deal more than write pretty tunes, and he certainly
experimented. E.g., the Mass in C minor, Fugue in C minor, parts
of the Magic Flute, or Cosi Fan Tutte, or... And, reading the scores of the
symphonies or quartets, one sees a lot of very interesting things going on.
Experiments come in all kinds of varieties, and Mozart's are often subtle.
There's a lot in Mozart that can be heard as proto-Beethoven.
(Not that that detracts from Beethoven, IMO.)
The pretty tunes thing doesn't I think wash at all - the allover beauty in
Mozart is a result of great technical accomplishment, IMO. OK, I have
perhaps more natural affinity for Beethoven's and Haydn's music than
for Mozart's, but I think tremendous admiration is due to the accomplishments
of all three. Every time I look at a score of a great piece by any one of
them, I'm struck by how inventive they all were, in their own ways.
(I wonder if I should start excusing myself from these composer threads.
These cause too many palpitations. :) )
Lena
Matthew B. Tepper
I'm reminded of a High Fidelity critic who suggested that a suitably
long-lived (but in our timeline, nonexistant) person *could* have been
both a pupil of Haydn and a teacher of Schoenberg. I'm not certain what
his point was. Few fictions could be odder than the fact that one of
Bruckner's pupils was Fritz Kreisler.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Top 3 worst UK exports: Mad-cow; Foot-and-mouth; Charlotte Church
David7Gable
>question.
Actually, I did gather as much.
>Why couldn't he be ahead of his time?
I doubt that anybody yet has ever actually been "ahead of his time." I don't
deny all utility to the expression but prefer Varese's version: the artist
isn't ahead of his time. Everybody else is a little bit late. But even the
person who is "ahead of his time" is shaped by his culture and operates within
a tradition even as he extends it. Or as somebody said of Varese, not even
Varese can be an orphan.
-david gable
Mark K. Ehlert
news:6b33de45.02063...@posting.google.com:
> Experiments come in all kinds of varieties, and Mozart's are
> often subtle. There's a lot in Mozart that can be heard as
> proto-Beethoven. (Not that that detracts from Beethoven, IMO.)
It shouldn't; Beethoven learned a hell of a lot - and by extension
formed his own musical language - from Mozart. Check out his very
early piano quartets and the Creatures of Prometheus ballet music,
for instance, not to mention the early piano concertos (nos. 1 and 2;
not sure about the 1783 E-flat concerto). Definite influences and
imitations at work in those pieces as far as I'm concerned.
> The pretty tunes thing doesn't I think wash at all - the allover
> beauty in Mozart is a result of great technical accomplishment,
> IMO.
Very much true in my listening and score-reading experience as well.
I believe some of the negativity thrown upon Mozart is due in no
small part to overexposure of the same 5 pieces of music and some
quite precious, dainty perfornmaces of those same works. (Pardon my
French, but why can't Mozart have balls, too?)
--
Mark K. Ehlert
To reply via e-mail, X = 3
Andy Evans
possible you haven't really penetrated his beautiful surfaces yet and
Prokofiev's talent was never remotely on a level with Mozart's. Not in his
20's or at any other time.>>
I've heard an awful lot of Mozart and played quite a bit and I'm pretty
familiar with a lot of his late work, and as much as his later works are
masterpieces I still think he could have experimented more. I'd exchange 30 of
his symphonies for one late work that went beyond the Jupiter, and 19 of his
earlier piano concerti for Prokofiev's 3rd. Let's refine the question - would
Mozart or even Bach have written fewer but greater masterpieces if their
circumstances didn't require them to turn out such a huge quantity of music?
Kevin Ward
> The pathetic
> opening of Zarathustra for instance leaves me speechless with laughter,
!!!! ????????????????? ! . . . ?
-- Kevin
Kevin Ward
> I believe some of the negativity thrown upon Mozart is due in no
> small part to overexposure of the same 5 pieces of music and some
> quite precious, dainty perfornmaces of those same works.
It can't just be daintiness and prettiness alone. Prelude to the
Afternoon of a Faun is dainty and pretty, and most people love that
piece. I do enjoy Mozart, but it took me a long while to get through
some superficial things. It seems to me there are some gimmicks Mozart
uses a lot that became clichés in classical music.
One -- I don't remember the technical name for it -- is a sort of
extended teaser note. If he were writing a melody that moved from D to
A, instead of going D - E - F# - G - A, he would maybe go D - E - F# - G
- G# -------- A. Drives me crazy! We know it's going to resolve to
A. Get on with it.
Another is Alberti bass. This is that broken triad accompaniment that
has about as much interest and variation as the disco beat some 200 years
later. I learned to hate Alberti bass at a very young age when I had to
hear my sister practice a Mozart sonata in C (the one most beginner piano
students learn) over and over.
Others use these devices, even Beethoven, but you don't hear them much
before or after the classic period. Although I enjoy Mozart's music now,
I still need a good analysis or good liner notes to do so. I need
someone to point out the innovations or I won't get past the superficial.
-- Kevin
Kevin Ward
his government discouraged innovation.
Also, what might Robert Schumann have accomplished if he'd stayed healthy? His one
and only piano concerto still stuns me, especially the third movement with its
rambling unpredictable melody. Wouldn't it have been nice to have had a No. 2 and
3?
Gustav Holst. Why didn't he write more?
Shostakovich. Why did he turn dark and murky?
-- Kevin
Tansal Arnas
> Since you mention Prokofiev, I'd say his output is a disappointment, maybe
> because his government discouraged innovation.
>
> Also, what might Robert Schumann have accomplished if he'd stayed healthy?
> His one and only piano concerto still stuns me, especially the third movement
> with its rambling unpredictable melody. Wouldn't it have been nice to have
> had a No. 2 and 3?
>
> Gustav Holst. Why didn't he write more?
>
> Shostakovich. Why did he turn dark and murky?
Probably that whole government dealy you mention above. Can't have been
easy living with the paranoia that any day you might be assassinated.
Tansal
Ypres
Schubert certainly would have banged out an immense body of work had he lived
another twenty or thirty years. I've often wondered where he would have gone
given more time.
Copland pisses me off for living so long and having such a relatively small
output.
Varese.....Well, with a microscopic output, maybe he did say it all.
Webern.....he had the time, enough of it anyway, but didn't seem to use it.
Ruggles....he destroyed countless works, leaving us with about a dozen.
Ives.......He stopped when he had to, but an Ives that would have composed for
another twenty years would have been jaw-jacking, I'm confident of it.
Sibelius...He stopped when he had to, too, but it would have been interesting
to see him compose into his 70s or 80s.
Ypres
Ypres
>talents, which is to write the greatest music yet created on this planet.
>
Gee, I can't see it that way. With his last two symphonies, his later quartets
and the Requiem already completed or significantly underway, I've always had
the feeling that he was heading for some unexpected heights. He was certainly
young enough. Moving on from where he ended could have been really
breathtaking.
Ypres
Ypres
>Shostakovich. Why did he turn dark and murky?
>
>-- Kevin
He survived WWII and Stalin. Not to turn dark and murky would have been signs
of outright maladjustment, or an undocumented lobotomy.
Ypres
Andy Evans
classical music>>
This is a good part of my point - that Mozart was satisfied to use familiar
solutions which the listener gets tired of. It's a bit like listening to a
blues band - same 12 bars, same licks - you love it and it's classic stuff but
you know roughly what's coming next. Where in Mozart is the equivalent of the
Rite of Spring, Beethoven's late quartets or Jeux?
Andy Evans
completed or significantly underway, I've always had the feeling that he was
heading for some unexpected heights.>>
That's the frustrating part of it - the quality of the late music is on another
level. But I still ask myself to what extent he would have made major
innovations had he lived longer
A. Brain
news:3D1FB6DE...@onnashville.infi.net...
> Since you mention Prokofiev, I'd say his output is a disappointment,
maybe because
> his government discouraged innovation.
>
> Also, what might Robert Schumann have accomplished if he'd stayed
healthy? His one
> and only piano concerto still stuns me, especially the third movement
with its
> rambling unpredictable melody. Wouldn't it have been nice to have had
a No. 2 and
> 3?
>
> Gustav Holst. Why didn't he write more?
>
> Shostakovich. Why did he turn dark and murky?
This discussion reminds me of what I used to talk about with friends.
Coldly considering only the benefits offered to posterity, I used to
remark, for example, that I would gladly sacrifice a decade or two of,
say, Copland's life, for a few more months of Mozart's.
Other promising composers who died young include of course Schubert,
Purcell, and Lekeu.
--
A. Brain
Remove NOSPAM for email.
Larry Rinkel
news:uQQT8.6452$uf3.1...@news2.news.adelphia.net...
You forgot Rossini, living off the fat of the land after age 35.
Rodger Whitlock
<LRi...@optonline.nete> wrote:
> You forgot Rossini, living off the fat of the land after age 35.
We probably all know that Rossini was a notable gourmand in later
life, but somewhere I've read material implying that he was
actually considered quite an authority on food, not just the
eating thereof, but its preparation.
Not that he was a chef presiding over a restaurant, but perhaps
hosting dinner parties at which the Rossini-devised menus were of
notable character and imagination.
Can anyone bring this vague image into better focus for me?
--
Rodger Whitlock
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Tag Gallagher
and third notes of four) usually add a polyphonic line to the top voice --
which BAD pianists suppress entirely by turning the left hand into a vague
strumming. Sometimes the weak beats suggest a third line. Often the
dissonances that result are striking -- and again BAD pianists suppress them
entirely. People who don't turn on to Mozart tend to label his style
harmophonic; people who do tend to call it contrapuntal. It takes more art
to bring out these details even in the easy sonata in C than it does to play
many a bravuro show-up piece by a flashly composer.
Bob Lombard
wrote:
>Mozart's Alberti bases are marvels of invention. The strong beats (first
>and third notes of four) usually add a polyphonic line to the top voice --
>which BAD pianists suppress entirely by turning the left hand into a vague
>strumming. Sometimes the weak beats suggest a third line. Often the
>dissonances that result are striking -- and again BAD pianists suppress them
>entirely. People who don't turn on to Mozart tend to label his style
>harmophonic; people who do tend to call it contrapuntal. It takes more art
>to bring out these details even in the easy sonata in C than it does to play
>many a bravuro show-up piece by a flashly composer.
>
Tell 'em, Tag.
Now that I am informed, maybe you will recommend a recording or two
that feature GOOD examples?
bl
Thomas Muething
>I don't see how Mozart could possibly have done more than he did with his
>talents, which is to write the greatest music yet created on this planet.
>
This is highly debatable. Though Norman Lebrecht, in his recent essay,
certainly went to far, I think few would doubt that Mozart's works would
have become even more interesting had he lived longer. His late works
(like the late symphonies and piano concertos) display a complexity
lacking in his early body of work, and only these few are actually
worthwile. He sounds more like Beethoven, so to speak, in his late piano
concertos, than the early Beethoven did.
Yes, Mozart is certainly a candidate who could - and would - have
achieved more.
Thomas
Robert Briggs
> Let's refine the question - would Mozart or even Bach have written
> fewer but greater masterpieces if their circumstances didn't require
> them to turn out such a huge quantity of music?
Conversely, how would we view Brahms had he turned out a Haydnesque
number of symphonies, a Mozartean number of piano concertos, etc.?
Samir Golescu
> how would we view Brahms had he turned out a Haydnesque
> number of symphonies, a Mozartean number of piano concertos, etc.?
IMHO that wasn't possible. I am not saying that as an a posteriori
rationalization ("it didn't happen so it couldn't happen") but rather as a
recognition of the fact that the differences from a Brahms symphony to
another are so numerous, so substantial, so great, that it is hardly
conceivable to have 104 of them.
regards,
SG
____________
<<I think I'd want something a little more date-specific if a new Osama
video turned up. You can't expect him to hold up that morning's paper as
it would give a little too much away -- the Peshawar Bugle, the Baghdad
Sycophant, the Tehran Fundamentalist -- but at the very least I'd expect
him to cite not just his usual ancient grievances (Andalucia in 1492,
etc.) but also some more recent ones -- say, the Saudi World Cup team's
Mossad-engineered 8-0 humiliation.>> -- Mark STEYN
Robert Briggs
> I wrote: // attribution and
> > Andy Evans wrote: // Andy's text restored
>
> Let's refine the question - would Mozart or even Bach have written
> fewer but greater masterpieces if their circumstances didn't require
> them to turn out such a huge quantity of music?
>
> > number of symphonies, a Mozartean number of piano concertos, etc.?
>
> IMHO that wasn't possible. I am not saying that as an a posteriori
> rationalization ("it didn't happen so it couldn't happen") but rather as
> a recognition of the fact that the differences from a Brahms symphony to
> another are so numerous, so substantial, so great, that it is hardly
> conceivable to have 104 of them.
Quite!
I was merely turning round Andy's question about whether Mozart and Bach
would (in some sense) have produced *greater* masterpieces if they had
been given the freedom to devote more time and effort to each of *fewer*
works.
Brahms could, *in principle*, have written 104 symphonies, but I very
much doubt that he'd have thought them jobs well done since, as you
imply, they would have to have been *very* different, with much less
opportunity for careful revision.
RX-01
> Mozart is a result of great technical accomplishment, IMO. OK, I have
> perhaps more natural affinity for Beethoven's and Haydn's music than
> for Mozart's, but I think tremendous admiration is due to the accomplishments
> of all three. Every time I look at a score of a great piece by any one of
> them, I'm struck by how inventive they all were, in their own ways.
>
> (I wonder if I should start excusing myself from these composer threads.
> These cause too many palpitations. :) )
>
> Lena
I also have an affinity for Beethoven's and Haydn's music but at the
same time find Mozart's music very inventive sometimes (i.e. Mass in C
minor). However, some posters talk about Mozart's late period or late
music. What does that mean? Of course there is an earlier and a later
period, but is there really any difference in Mozart's music
throughout these periods? Compared to Beethoven's later period music,
it seems to me Mozart composed the same music until the end of his
life.
So yes, I might find Mozart's music inventive, but I don't believe
there is any difference between his earlier and later music.
RX-01
Johannes Röhl
>
> David7Gable wrote:
>
> >I don't see how Mozart could possibly have done more than he did with his
> >talents, which is to write the greatest music yet created on this planet.
> >
> This is highly debatable. Though Norman Lebrecht, in his recent essay,
> certainly went to far, I think few would doubt that Mozart's works would
> have become even more interesting had he lived longer. His late works
> (like the late symphonies and piano concertos) display a complexity
> lacking in his early body of work, and only these few are actually
> worthwile. He sounds more like Beethoven, so to speak, in his late piano
> concertos, than the early Beethoven did.
So sounding (or being) like Beethoven is (automatically?)
better than sounding like Mozart?
I don`t get it (and I would still hold that the fifth violin
concerto and the concerto K 271, both written before he was
22 hold up very well to any later piece by him or anyone)
Even if one counts only the undoubtedly mature works
(starting roughly with the two I mentioned), there are
dozens (or hundreds) of works about anybody else would have
been proud of.
> Yes, Mozart is certainly a candidate who could - and would - have
> achieved more.
If he had lived longer, certainly (it is not at all clear to
me how one could improve on the Prague symphony or the g
minor quintet, though; not to start with Figaro or
Giovanni). But from the original posting I got the
impression that Mozart should have achieved more in his 25
years or so as a composer.
Johannes
Johannes Röhl
>
> > how would we view Brahms had he turned out a Haydnesque
> > number of symphonies, a Mozartean number of piano concertos, etc.?
>
> IMHO that wasn't possible. I am not saying that as an a posteriori
> rationalization ("it didn't happen so it couldn't happen") but rather as a
> recognition of the fact that the differences from a Brahms symphony to
> another are so numerous, so substantial, so great, that it is hardly
> conceivable to have 104 of them.
(I hope you are not hinting on the converse that Haydn's
symphonies are so similar, so insubstantial etc. that it was
no big deal to churn them out by the half dozen ;-))
actually, Brahms seems to have been his most severe critic;
the symphonies were written (rather published) in about ten
years (1876-1887) he could easily have written 9 or so (like
Beethoven or Dvorak), if he had started earlier or kept
going until the end of his life. (I am am not sure if I'd
prefer a 6th or 7th to the sonatas for violin and the
clarinet pieces, though)
There is a story that Brahms said about the slow mvmt. from
Haynds #88 that he wanted his 9th symphony to sound like
this.
greetings
Johannes
Johannes Röhl
>
> len...@yahoo.com (Lena) wrote in message
> > The pretty tunes thing doesn't I think wash at all - the allover beauty in
> > Mozart is a result of great technical accomplishment, IMO. OK, I have
> > perhaps more natural affinity for Beethoven's and Haydn's music than
> > for Mozart's, but I think tremendous admiration is due to the accomplishments
> > of all three. Every time I look at a score of a great piece by any one of
> > them, I'm struck by how inventive they all were, in their own ways.
> I also have an affinity for Beethoven's and Haydn's music but at the
> same time find Mozart's music very inventive sometimes (i.e. Mass in C
> minor). However, some posters talk about Mozart's late period or late
> music. What does that mean? Of course there is an earlier and a later
> period, but is there really any difference in Mozart's music
> throughout these periods? Compared to Beethoven's later period music,
> it seems to me Mozart composed the same music until the end of his
> life.
>
> So yes, I might find Mozart's music inventive, but I don't believe
> there is any difference between his earlier and later music.
There are probably very few composers whose works tend to
fall so nicely into "periods" as Beethoven, but certainly
one can make out some development in Mozarts oeuvre as well.
I do not know if there are periods, though. Just compare the
Paris symphony with the Prague or Jupiter, quite a big
difference!
And of course there are relatively early works that are
highly inventive masterpieces, above all K 271, but also the
violin concerti, the sinfonia concertante, the little g
minor.
As is "late" period I would onyl take the last year or so
where some people detect a somewhat different, more lyrical,
serene style (e.g. K 595, 622 etc.), but I am not sure if
this really qualifies as a new period.
Johannes
Andy Evans
much doubt that he'd have thought them jobs well done>>
Funny, then, how we routinely accept the sometimes frenetic output of Bach and
Mozart at face value without wondering what they could have achieved with a
more leisurely and considered creative environment. It's facile to remark that
in times past people simply worked harder, though there may be truth in such a
statement. It's a more interesting question to ask whether Mozart suffered from
burnout like a few infant prodigies (cf child actors) - after all he'd been
writing for literally years and years by the age of 30. Such burnout would be
common in sportspeople - look at snooker phenomenon Ronnie O'Sullivan, the
greatest natural talent in the game. He alternates between jaw dropping
brilliance and utter boredom. Maybe we should re-assess Mozart as a child
prodigy who burned out then at the last minute recovered his brilliance, as
O'Sullivan did recently to become World Champion.
Simon Roberts
wrote:
Maybe we should re-assess Mozart as a child
>prodigy who burned out then at the last minute recovered his brilliance, as
>O'Sullivan did recently to become World Champion.
If you like - but which works do you think represent the burnout period
(assuming there is one)?
Simon
Andy Evans
(assuming there is one)? >>
By virtue of the fact that you have asked it, you know already that this is not
an easy question to answer, and I wouldn't try to give you a facile answer.
Maybe Mozart's output - like that of Bach - never fell below a level of
competence and beauty. I think we can assume that this is a basic truth - he
was no Wordsworth. But several posts have taken for granted that there was a
'later period' which was a level higher than the rest of his output and showed
- let us say - more mental commitment and creative torment. What's to say that
he didn't, prior to this, experience a period of 'coasting' on his considerable
skills? It's one interpretation.
Adrian Hunter
because
> his government discouraged innovation.
>
> Also, what might Robert Schumann have accomplished if he'd stayed healthy?
His one
> and only piano concerto still stuns me, especially the third movement with
its
> rambling unpredictable melody. Wouldn't it have been nice to have had a
No. 2 and
> 3?
>
> Gustav Holst. Why didn't he write more?
>
> Shostakovich. Why did he turn dark and murky?
>
> -- Kevin
>
Having just listened to the 11th and 12th Quartets this evening, I think the
dark and murky side is a valuable contribution to music...
Adrian
Roberto Poli
> Mozart's Alberti bases are marvels of invention. The strong beats (first
> and third notes of four) usually add a polyphonic line to the top voice --
> which BAD pianists suppress entirely by turning the left hand into a vague
> strumming. Sometimes the weak beats suggest a third line. Often the
> dissonances that result are striking -- and again BAD pianists suppress them
> entirely.
I can't stand when people refer to the Alberti bass as to 'the
accompaniment'. I would say that, most of the time, it is the first
note of a group of four that determines a compound melody. The third
is eventually the one that might 'suggest' a third line. Imagine what
a bore as a 'melody' would be the second and fourth notes of a group
of four in the left hand in the C Major K545 (i): G G G G G G G G G
G.... ;-)
People who don't turn on to Mozart tend to label his style
> harmophonic; people who do tend to call it contrapuntal.
There's more counterpoint in Mozart (or Chopin, for that matter) than
people usually think.
>It takes more art
> to bring out these details even in the easy sonata in C than it does to play
> many a bravuro show-up piece by a flashly composer.
Playing Mozart ain't easy, Tag. IMO, playing Mozart's piano works is
like playing chamber music and being three or four instruments at the
same time. You make it sound like there are lots of BAD pianists
around. Maybe you're right... :)
Best,
RP
Simon Roberts
"Andy Evans" <aeatarts...@aol.comnohawker> wrote in message
news:20020701181242...@mb-ms.aol.com...
> If you like - but which works do you think represent the burnout
period
> (assuming there is one)? >>
>
> By virtue of the fact that you have asked it, you know already that
this is not
> an easy question to answer, and I wouldn't try to give you a facile
answer.
> Maybe Mozart's output - like that of Bach - never fell below a level
of
> competence and beauty. I think we can assume that this is a basic
truth - he
> was no Wordsworth. But several posts have taken for granted that there
was a
> 'later period' which was a level higher than the rest of his output
and showed
> - let us say - more mental commitment and creative torment. What's to
say that
> he didn't, prior to this, experience a period of 'coasting' on his
considerable
> skills? It's one interpretation.
Sure, but then one can still ask when that period was and which works
are examples. I don't know whether you can fit it into "periods" unless
some of those occur each year. His worst piano concerto (aside from the
juvenile compilations) is late, 537, his least interesting (to these
ears, anyway) mature symphonic movement, minuets aside, is 551/i. Eine
kleine Nachtmusik, which I loathe (not quite the same thing, of course),
is relatively late too. Is any of his piano concertos better than 453 or
459? String quartets? Is any better than 387? Certainly not the last
four, which are relatively late. I don't think there's a dud among his
operas after Idomeneo (one could perhaps start earlier); the only mature
opera ever called into question (I'm rather fond of it, however) is
Clemenza - one of his very last works. Etc.
Simon
Matthew B. Tepper
news:slrn3vsai1j...@pobox.upenn.edu:
I think this parallel could be far better applied to Mendelssohn.
--
Matthew B. Tepper: WWW, science fiction, classical music, ducks!
My personal home page -- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/index.html
My main music page --- http://home.earthlink.net/~oy/berlioz.html
To write to me, do for my address what Androcles did for the lion
Top 3 worst UK exports: Mad-cow; Foot-and-mouth; Charlotte Church
Kevin Ward
> Mozart's Alberti bases are marvels of invention. The strong beats (first
> and third notes of four) usually add a polyphonic line to the top voice --
> which BAD pianists suppress entirely by turning the left hand into a vague
> strumming. Sometimes the weak beats suggest a third line. Often the
> dissonances that result are striking -- and again BAD pianists suppress them
> entirely.
Even worse pianists, complete tyros like me, bring them out again inadvertently
by hanging on the notes trying to find the next one. Thus I have noticed the
dissonance
and to some extent the suggestion of inner voices just by fooling around. But I
likely would not have noticed them just by listening -- not without commentary
like yours. Granted, you don't often hear good pianists play these easy pieces.
-- Kevin
Larry Rinkel
> "Mark K. Ehlert" wrote:
>
> > I believe some of the negativity thrown upon Mozart is due in no
> > small part to overexposure of the same 5 pieces of music and some
> > quite precious, dainty perfornmaces of those same works.
>
> It can't just be daintiness and prettiness alone. Prelude to the
> Afternoon of a Faun is dainty and pretty, and most people love that
> piece. I do enjoy Mozart, but it took me a long while to get through
> some superficial things. It seems to me there are some gimmicks Mozart
> uses a lot that became clichés in classical music.
>
> One -- I don't remember the technical name for it -- is a sort of
> extended teaser note. If he were writing a melody that moved from D to
> A, instead of going D - E - F# - G - A, he would maybe go D - E - F# - G
> - G# -------- A. Drives me crazy! We know it's going to resolve to
> A. Get on with it.
>
> Another is Alberti bass. This is that broken triad accompaniment that
> has about as much interest and variation as the disco beat some 200 years
> later. I learned to hate Alberti bass at a very young age when I had to
> hear my sister practice a Mozart sonata in C (the one most beginner piano
> students learn) over and over.
>
> Others use these devices, even Beethoven, but you don't hear them much
> before or after the classic period.
Chopin uses the Alberti bass frequently (think of the F minor etude from Op.
10, or the Db major nocturne). With Chopin, however, the increased resonance
of the new piano causes him to spread the register for the bass figurations
far more, so that the first note of the Alberti figure tends to be in the
deep bass register, while the remaining notes may be an octave or more
higher. This also results in some cruel stretches for the left hand.
Although I enjoy Mozart's music now,
> I still need a good analysis or good liner notes to do so. I need
> someone to point out the innovations or I won't get past the superficial.
>
> -- Kevin
>
Kevin Ward
> I can't stand when people refer to the Alberti bass as to 'the
> accompaniment'. I would say that, most of the time, it is the first
> note of a group of four that determines a compound melody. The third
> is eventually the one that might 'suggest' a third line. Imagine what
> a bore as a 'melody' would be the second and fourth notes of a group
> of four in the left hand in the C Major K545 (i): G G G G G G G G G
> G.... ;-)
Sadly, that's the way I often hear it, as a string of G's with a couple of notes bouncing
repeatedly underneath. Why this should bother me (and in truth I'm not going to burn Mozart
CD's over it) I can't say, when something clearly more contrapuntal, the fugue from Bach's
Toccata in Fugue in Dm, pounds away incessantly on its fifth interval while notes bounce
beneath it also. Ultimately it's just a matter of taste I guess.
-- Kevin
Larry Rinkel
Mozart's innovations are not as spectacular or overt as Stravinsky's, but
who before him wrote anything like the mature piano concertos or the major
operas? Piano concertos existed before Mozart, Haydn writes a delightful one
in D major, but who before Mozart merged operatic aria with concerto style
to make the soloist a kind of great instrumental actor, dominating the stage
and interacting with the rest of the ensemble, especially the winds, in a
way that is thoroughly original?
The operas, Mozart's central works in many people's opinions, go even
farther in terms of their dramatic insight and musical creativity. Who
before Mozart so decisively departed from the baroque tradition of opera
seria and created believable characters with the depth of Susannah, Figaro,
the Count and Countess, Fiordiligi, Guglielmo, Pamina, Elvira, Leporello, et
al.? Certainly not Gluck, whose figures are classical statues by comparison.
Handel maybe in fine opera serias like Giulio Cesare and Orlando, but I
don't know if Mozart would have known these works; in any case, Handel is
always constricted by the opera seria convention of his time. Above all
Mozart's genius shines through in the concerted finales to his greatest
operas, where he writes extended interconnected multi-part movements with a
range yet unheard of. You can find extended finales in the operas of
Mozart's contemporaries, as in Cimarosa and Paisiello, but the one from the
former's Matrimonio Segreto, pleasant though it is, pales besides the second
act finale of Figaro, and no one had yet created an operatic finale even
remotely comparable in power to the ending of Don Giovanni. Listening to
Mozart's weaker contemporaries (have you ever actually heard anything by
Antonio Salieri?) is an excellent way to gain some perspective on Mozart's
genius.
One could go further to talk of Mozart's harmonic language, the intensity of
his use of chromaticism (as in the A minor rondo K 511), or his deeply
expressive use of the minor mode (as in the Quartet in D minor, K 421). Or
his instrumentation - just to take his use of the clarinets of his time as
an example. And one can find much that is inventive and in no way formulaic
in Mozart's phrase structures. In fact the same complaint you're making
about Mozart reared its head about a month ago here, and I'll quote from two
of my replies at that time:
a) "It is true that some compositional fingerprints are found often enough
in
Mozart that you might call them "formulas," though I think the term has only
limited applicability and significance. For instance, at the ends of his
slow movements Mozart often uses a feminine cadence (in other words, the V
chord on the strong beat resolving to the I chord on a weaker beat) over a
tonic pedal in the bass. But this is minor. In fact, one of Mozart's
remarkable qualities was the way he always expanded his musical phrases,
never relying on simple repetition of an opening phrase but always varying
and re-thinking the shape of the continuation. There's a most interesting
essay by Edward Lowinsky entitled "On Mozart's Rhythm," where he compares
Mozart's phrase structures to those of Dittersdorf and JC Bach, to show how
these lesser composers relied lazily on repetition of their phrases instead
of expanding and developing their musical ideas. You're welcome to pick up
the Naxos recordings of Dittersdorf's Symphonies after Ovid's Metamorphoses
to hear a composer who deserves the epithet "formulaic," but he's not
Mozart." (It is worth pointing out here, BTW, that recent scholarship has
called into doubt the theory that Mozart wrote everything in his head
spontaneously without ever using sketches. The six Haydn quartets, for
instance, were known to have taken two years to complete, and Mozart himself
refers to the particular difficulty he had in creating them.)
b) Elsewhere, I mentioned "the phrase structure at the opening of the
Figaro overture, where instead of "conventional" 4-bar groupings you have
less symmetrical groups of 7 (3+4), then 4 (2+2), then 6 bars before the
pattern - symmetrically - repeats. I don't know if the "average" listener
recognizes the rhythms as such, but I would guess she finds something
delightful and vivacious in Mozart's rhythm that she would not find (for
example) in Dittersdorf's."
Though not all of Mozart's works are equally valuable by any means, I think
in reality Mozart is the opposite of your "burnout."
Dan Koren
> I was casually listening to some early Mozart on the radio this morning and
> found myself once again being angry with the guy for not experimenting more
> with his prodigious talents - I reflected on Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy and
> many more pushing the limits of the possible while Wolfy was writing pretty
> tunes (I'm going to get murdered for all this..). Plus, in terms of early
> talent, many composers were writing major new experimental music in their early
> twenties - Prokofiev etc. Don't some composers leave you with the feeling they
> could have dome more with their talents?
>
But of course. As Tom Lehrer so appropriately put it,
"when Mozart was my age he'd been dead for 3 years"
:)
dk
Dan Koren
>
> Let's refine the question - would
> Mozart or even Bach have written
> fewer but greater masterpieces if
> their circumstances didn't require
> them to turn out such a huge quantity
> of music?
>
Fewer? Maybe.
Greater? You gotta be kidding.
dk
Dan Koren
> It seems to me there are some gimmicks Mozart uses a lot that became clichés in
> classical music>>
>
> This is a good part of my point - that Mozart was satisfied to use familiar
> solutions which the listener gets tired of. It's a bit like listening to a
> blues band - same 12 bars, same licks - you love it and it's classic stuff but
> you know roughly what's coming next. Where in Mozart is the equivalent of the
> Rite of Spring, Beethoven's late quartets or Jeux?
>
K421, K465, K466, K491, K497, K498,
K499, K546, K550, K551, K608, K626,
etc...
None of which is of course as ugly
as Beethoven's late quartets, or
the Rite.
dk
Dan Koren
>
> You make it sound like there are lots of BAD pianists
> around. Maybe you're right... :)
>
There are too many BAD pianists around
-- that's exactly what I've been saying
all the time.... :)
dk
Wayne Reimer
<...>>
> I'm reminded of a High Fidelity critic who suggested that a suitably
> long-lived (but in our timeline, nonexistant) person *could* have been
> both a pupil of Haydn and a teacher of Schoenberg. I'm not certain what
> his point was. Few fictions could be odder than the fact that one of
> Bruckner's pupils was Fritz Kreisler.
>
>
That's funny...I don't find the Bruckner/Kreisler thing very odd at all.
Particularly in light of Kreisler's String Quartet.
wr
Wayne Reimer
> With his last two symphonies, his later quartets and the Requiem already
> completed or significantly underway, I've always had the feeling that he was
> heading for some unexpected heights.>>
>
> That's the frustrating part of it - the quality of the late music is on another
> level. But I still ask myself to what extent he would have made major
> innovations had he lived longer
Well, who knows, if he'd lived longer he might gone on to write really
sublime music, instead of the mock sublime he left us with. Yeah, I
know, zillions of people think what he left was really sublime already,
but I think it could have gotten better had he aged. More concentrated,
more powerful, more spiritual, more whatever positive adjective you want
to supply. I say he was just starting to hit his real, authentically
Mozartean stride when he died. Had he lived to keep developing for
another 30 years, we might have had something like Webern in the
Classical style from him, just as one example of the possibilities. Or
maybe the opposite, a Schubertian or Brucknerian extension of time. But
whatever direction, I'm sure he would have gone on to even better things,
hard as that is for some to imagine.
wr
Sonarrat Citalis
> Let's refine the question - would
> Mozart or even Bach have written fewer but greater masterpieces if their
> circumstances didn't require them to turn out such a huge quantity of music?
Fewer? Yes. Greater? Absolutely not.
--
-Sonarrat Citalis.
New Bach, Szymanowski, Scriabin at http://www.mp3.com/Sonarrat/
Signature at http://sonarrat.stormloader.com/sonarratsig.html
Sonarrat Citalis
news:c1c5ead9.02070...@posting.google.com...
Sorry - I didn't mean to give a near-identical answer to DK! I'll give
something more in-depth in response...
One of the considerations that makes me feel this way is, Mozart saw much of his
music performed within his lifetime. Not all of it, but quite a bit. So over
time, he became better and better at creating music that came through in
performance. It's too much of a romantic view to suggest that after absorbing
performances of his own music until he knew what worked, he sat down and said "I
have to write a masterpiece" and out comes Don Giovanni, but that's what I'm
trying to get across in a blunt way. I can't say if the same holds true for JS
Bach, but at the very least, he studied the music of both earlier and
contemporary composers exhaustively and gleaned from them the means with which
to bring his art to a peak. And at any rate, he was to his time what Alban Berg
was to his time as far as experimenting and pushing boundaries.
Sonarrat Citalis
news:3D20C0C0...@physik.uni-giessen.de...
> > >I don't see how Mozart could possibly have done more than he did with his
> > >talents, which is to write the greatest music yet created on this planet.
> > >
> > This is highly debatable. Though Norman Lebrecht, in his recent essay,
> > certainly went to far, I think few would doubt that Mozart's works would
> > have become even more interesting had he lived longer. His late works
> > (like the late symphonies and piano concertos) display a complexity
> > lacking in his early body of work, and only these few are actually
> > worthwile. He sounds more like Beethoven, so to speak, in his late piano
> > concertos, than the early Beethoven did.
>
> So sounding (or being) like Beethoven is (automatically?)
> better than sounding like Mozart?
> I don`t get it (and I would still hold that the fifth violin
> concerto and the concerto K 271, both written before he was
> 22 hold up very well to any later piece by him or anyone)
Agreed. The K. 271 is his 9th piano concerto, out of 27. Name another composer
who wrote even nine piano concertos! I don't even know if the furiously
productive Haydn qualifies. And this is as good as it gets: it is the only one
out of all his concertos where the piano brashly interrupts during the tutti,
and the thematic quality and what Einstein called its "daring scale" don't even
get approached again until several more years have passed.
Sonarrat Citalis
"Mark K. Ehlert" <ludwig...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns923DB750FC04Clu...@152.65.161.36...
> len...@yahoo.com (Lena) wrote in
> news:6b33de45.02063...@posting.google.com:
>
> > Experiments come in all kinds of varieties, and Mozart's are
> > often subtle. There's a lot in Mozart that can be heard as
> > proto-Beethoven. (Not that that detracts from Beethoven, IMO.)
>
> It shouldn't; Beethoven learned a hell of a lot - and by extension
> formed his own musical language - from Mozart. Check out his very
> early piano quartets and the Creatures of Prometheus ballet music,
> for instance, not to mention the early piano concertos (nos. 1 and 2;
> not sure about the 1783 E-flat concerto). Definite influences and
> imitations at work in those pieces as far as I'm concerned.
The first few piano concertos don't count - they're adaptations of sonatas by
Karl Phillip Emmanuel Bach!
Sonarrat Citalis
> Since you mention Prokofiev, I'd say his output is a disappointment, maybe
because
> his government discouraged innovation.
Duh!
> Also, what might Robert Schumann have accomplished if he'd stayed healthy?
His one
> and only piano concerto still stuns me, especially the third movement with its
> rambling unpredictable melody. Wouldn't it have been nice to have had a No. 2
and
> 3?
There is an Introduction and Allegro appassionnato in G major for piano and
orchestra, Op. 92, and a Concert allegro with introduction in D major for piano
and orchestra, Op. 134. Perahia has recorded all three with Abbado:
http://music.barnesandnoble.com/search/product.asp?ean=74646457726
Sonarrat Citalis
> I was casually listening to some early Mozart on the radio this morning and
> found myself once again being angry with the guy for not experimenting more
> with his prodigious talents - I reflected on Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy
and
> many more pushing the limits of the possible while Wolfy was writing pretty
> tunes (I'm going to get murdered for all this..). Plus, in terms of early
> talent, many composers were writing major new experimental music in their
early
> twenties - Prokofiev etc. Don't some composers leave you with the feeling they
> could have dome more with their talents?
Scriabin!
Dan Koren
>
> One of the considerations that makes me feel this way is, Mozart saw much of his
> music performed within his lifetime. Not all of it, but quite a bit. So over
> time, he became better and better at creating music that came through in
> performance. It's too much of a romantic view to suggest that after absorbing
> performances of his own music until he knew what worked, he sat down and said "I
> have to write a masterpiece" and out comes Don Giovanni, but that's what I'm
> trying to get across in a blunt way. I can't say if the same holds true for JS
> Bach, but at the very least, he studied the music of both earlier and
> contemporary composers exhaustively and gleaned from them the means with which
> to bring his art to a peak. And at any rate, he was to his time what Alban Berg
> was to his time as far as experimenting and pushing boundaries.
Someone is being insulted here. I'll
leave it as an exercise to the reader
to figure out who that is.
dk
Sonarrat Citalis
Is it Don Giovanni? If so, I humbly submit my heartfelt apologies.
Andy Evans
numerous instances - e.g. Piano Concerto 9 mentioned - of writing challenging
material which stands out from his other output at that time. Rather than
taking time and brooding on his discoveries he continues to write quantities of
less demanding music. Maybe it's not so much a literal case of burnout as the
fact that he - like Bach - was a performer who not only heard his works
performed but performed himself (as has been pointed out). Maybe the analogy is
to a member of a rock band - there's a continuous need for new material to
perform so there's a continuous quantity written. Amongst this material,
whenever there's an exceptional moment of inspiration we have a work that
stands out from the rest. Not implausible.
derma...@_spam_mail.kar.net
> With his last two symphonies, his later quartets and the Requiem already
> completed or significantly underway, I've always had the feeling that he was
> heading for some unexpected heights.>>
>
> That's the frustrating part of it - the quality of the late music is on another
> level. But I still ask myself to what extent he would have made major
> innovations had he lived longer
As I see there are so many brave people here with enormous insight of
prediction of Mozart development ("had he lived longer") and in the same
time, a painful discontent of what he didn't manage in terms of
inventiveness etc. They desperately toss his earthy life all through in
hopes to find a hole where posthumous further improvements might start.
There is such a hole indeed! Where? Don Giovanni , the last but one
scene. ou will have to follow the hero's path, though.... Don't regret
missing the subsequent fugato onstage - you will listen to it
nevermore... instead you will have to enjoy the new, refurbished Mozart
under the stage ad infinitum!
Cheers ... so far
Commendatore
derma...@_spam_mail.kar.net
> Sure, but then one can still ask when that period was and which works
> are examples. I don't know whether you can fit it into "periods" unless
> some of those occur each year.
Taking in account your last statement that I fully agree with, it is not
clear to me what are you going to prove below. Still existence of some
questionable badly defined periods of 'coasting'? Looks like you have
been
*forced* to build a stochastic model of Mozart creativity based on your
*subjective* preferences (that showed both independent and impeccable
taste
of yours as always).
BTW, your short list of preferences in Mozart made me think about
Humbert Humbert.... (-:
> His worst piano concerto (aside from the
> juvenile compilations) is late, 537,
Well, OK it yields its neighbours and the piano part seems to be
underworked
for some reasons but at least it is mature Mozart PC style and as such
is quite interesting to me, no less than early concerts at least.
> his least interesting (to these
> ears, anyway) mature symphonic movement, minuets aside, is 551/i.
I am afraid it is too subjective to be put as an argument. And even
though it were an *objective* true what it would have proved?
> Eine
> kleine Nachtmusik, which I loathe (not quite the same thing, of course),
The task is to make it to the second movement. The further on - the
easier (-: especially when it is performed by a string quartet
>
> is relatively late too. Is any of his piano concertos better than 453 or
> 459?
"Better" is a wrong word here.
If you're trying to study "periods of coasting" you should trace the
development of his style (or, to be correct, stagnation..... or even
worse....). So you mean that there were no inventiveness since K. 459
and
thus K.466 and on appeared to be mere repetition in terms of this
enigmatic
(just to me, I guess) inventiveness?!
> String quartets? Is any better than 387?
Yes, sure - at least not worse!
I love K.421, 464, 465 and the other 2 are not so bad, really
> Certainly not the last
> four, which are relatively late.
may be less inspired but in terms of "inventiveness".....
> I don't think there's a dud among his
> operas after Idomeneo (one could perhaps start earlier); the only mature
> opera ever called into question (I'm rather fond of it, however) is
> Clemenza - one of his very last works. Etc.
>
OK. But again what's your point? The fact of appearance of relatively
less
great, less profound, less successful, less inspired pieces in his late
years. But
it is quite trivial, especially in view of a considerable variety of
circumstances he composed his works in (purposes, tastes and levels of
personalities who commissioned his works - , etc. etc.)
Apparently there was a turning point in his life. It is 1782 when he
discovered J.S.Bach.
There are many wonderful things dated from that time when he had just
been
exposed to Bach and tried to "synthesize", adopt and experiment with
that
great 'scholarly' style. To me the greatest achievement of this sort is
K.426 (2 piano version). Certainly it must not be judged from Bachian
point
of view.
But how about the great simplicity and refinement in the latest pieces ,
like K.618 or in K.595 and the beyond of K. 608, K.594 etc. Were those
things addressed to his contemporaries or to us, thankless?....
Cheers
Boris
Simon Roberts
<derman_NO_@_SPAM_mail.kar.net> wrote:
>Simon Roberts wrote:
>
>> Sure, but then one can still ask when that period was and which works
>> are examples. I don't know whether you can fit it into "periods" unless
>> some of those occur each year.
>
>Taking in account your last statement that I fully agree with, it is not
>clear to me what are you going to prove below. Still existence of some
>questionable badly defined periods of 'coasting'? Looks like you have
>been
>*forced* to build a stochastic model of Mozart creativity based on your
>*subjective* preferences (that showed both independent and impeccable
>taste
>of yours as always).
Well, there's nothing objective about any of this, is there? At any rate,
if there is, the proponent of the proposition to which we are responding
has not provided one example of a work that's evidence of "coasting"...
My point, to answer a question you put at the end, was merely that
dividing Mozart's rather short life into periods, one of which (assuming
this to be a contiguous chunk rather than, say, alternate Sundays)
consists of coasting, followed by a sort of rebirth at the end, doesn't
seem to hold up. Much of his best music (or, if you prefer, his music I'm
most fond of) is from the K300s and 400s, which is why I came up the
examples I offered.
Simon
Andy Evans
seem to hold up. Much of his best music (or, if you prefer, his music I'm
most fond of) is from the K300s and 400s>>
As for the 'coasting' I do believe that Mozart wrote a lot of very good but not
great music and some great music. I take your point that it doesn't seem to be
related to a 'period', and that a number of special works occur at different
points. I also take the point that while I'm looking for something more radical
in terms of innovation, others are simply looking for more and better of
Mozart's actual style, or not even looking.
Matthew B. Tepper
> Agreed. The K. 271 is his 9th piano concerto, out of 27. Name
> another composer who wrote even nine piano concertos!
I think FJ Haydn wrote a whole bunch, of which all but a few are missing.
Mark K. Ehlert
>
> "Mark K. Ehlert" <ludwig...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns923DB750FC04Clu...@152.65.161.36...
>> len...@yahoo.com (Lena) wrote in
>> news:6b33de45.02063...@posting.google.com:
>>
>> > Experiments come in all kinds of varieties, and Mozart's are
>> > often subtle. There's a lot in Mozart that can be heard as
>> > proto-Beethoven. (Not that that detracts from Beethoven,
>> > IMO.)
>>
>> It shouldn't; Beethoven learned a hell of a lot - and by
>> extension formed his own musical language - from Mozart. Check
>> out his very early piano quartets and the Creatures of
>> Prometheus ballet music, for instance, not to mention the early
>> piano concertos (nos. 1 and 2; not sure about the 1783 E-flat
>> concerto). Definite influences and imitations at work in those
>> pieces as far as I'm concerned.
>
> The first few piano concertos don't count - they're adaptations
> of sonatas by Karl Phillip Emmanuel Bach!
I was referring to Beethoven's early concertos, not Mozart's.
And Mozart's adaptations came from a whole bunch of composers. Was
Emanual Bach one of them? I know J.C. Bach had a few movements
arranged by the young Salzburgian.
--
Mark K. Ehlert
To reply via e-mail, X = 3
James Kahn
>.... Maybe the analogy is
>to a member of a rock band - there's a continuous need for new material to
>perform so there's a continuous quantity written. Amongst this material,
>whenever there's an exceptional moment of inspiration we have a work that
>stands out from the rest. Not implausible.
Except that a fair reading of the historical record is that such "moments
of inspiration" became less and less exceptional from 1775 to, say, 1788.
They don't look like random events as much as progressive improvement.
The exceptions increasingly became the times when for whatever reason he had
to knock out some contredances or minuets, or perhaps when he experimented
with something.
--
Jim
New York, NY
(Please remove "nospam." to get my e-mail address)
http://www.panix.com/~kahn
Simon Roberts
wrote:
>
>And Mozart's adaptations came from a whole bunch of composers. Was
>Emanual Bach one of them?
I don't think so; I'm sure I would like them more if they were.....
Simon
Lena
> Mozart's innovations are not as spectacular or overt as Stravinsky's, but
> who before him wrote anything like the mature piano concertos or the major
> operas?
[... excellent post (as usual) cut...]
To Larry's examples I'd add this (of many possibilities): one could do worse
than study the first movement of the quartet K. 464 fairly closely.
The endings of phrases are carefully varied and "interlocked" to form
a larger phrase structure. The phrases are set on a very strict 4-bar
grid in this instance, but this doesn't seem monotonous, on the
contrary - the underlying grid helps the listener feel the
connections between different phrases. The "combinatorial
counterpoint" device of setting two or more theme fragments against
each other, which Mozart practices often, is used here too.
There's an effective use of alternating chromatic and diatonic
passages, and similar alternations in texture. There's a chromatic
inflection in the very start, and Mozart also uses "chromatic completion"
in the beginning of the exposition (the last chromatic note to appear
is the fairly natural A# leading to the dominant of the dominant, B).
(The other notes here come quite naturally from the fairly typical - for
Mozart - sequence of keys touched on: dominant inflection in A major,
then A minor to C major to B major.)
Even the more "problematic" movements, such as Jupiter/i aren't short on
ideas. Among other things I like the stop and start "efforts" at
modulation away from the tonic in the exposition; here Mozart
modulates away from the tonic in a couple of steps, each time falling
back, then modulating a bit further. The usual combinatorial counterpoint
is here too. The second theme group contains significant development.
The main problem with this movement is perhaps one of balance.
The ideas don't come off well in performance but look better on paper,
almost. The reason for this is anyone's guess (lack of time?), and perhaps
others don't feel the same way about it, anyway. Besides, the movement
also contains some powerful passages (the development, especially).
So I agree with Simon on this movement, but find that there are many things
of interest here, anyway.
> Though not all of Mozart's works are equally valuable by any means, I think
> in reality Mozart is the opposite of your "burnout."
These effing composer evaluation threads though do cause significant
"burnout"... :)
Lena
Andy Evans
inspiration" became less and less exceptional from 1775 to, say, 1788.
They don't look like random events as much as progressive improvement.>>
Thank you and others for the historical information - I've found this thread
very interesting so far - I'm a musician not a musicologist and I have to rely
on others more informed than me for the actual historical details. Andy
Wolfgang Schelongowski
Kevin Ward <kwa...@onnashville.infi.net> writes:
>Andante teneramente wrote:
>> The pathetic
>> opening of Zarathustra for instance leaves me speechless with laughter,
>!!!! ????????????????? ! . . . ?
The problem may be that "pathetic" is _not_ the translation of the
German "pathetisch" or the French "pathetique".
--
"Some people are heroes. And some people jot down notes."
-- Terry Pratchett, The Truth
Samir Golescu
On Mon, 1 Jul 2002, Larry Rinkel wrote:
> Chopin uses the Alberti bass frequently (think of the F minor etude from Op.
> 10, or the Db major nocturne). With Chopin, however, the increased resonance
> of the new piano causes him to spread the register for the bass figurations
> far more, so that the first note of the Alberti figure tends to be in the
> deep bass register, while the remaining notes may be an octave or more
> higher. This also results in some cruel stretches for the left hand.
With all respect, much and many of Chopin's left-hand textures have little
to do with Alberti bass in the classical sense (only if one stretches the
meaning a lot). Also, IMHO there is no comparison between Chopin's and, I
dare say, ANY other tonal piano composer before or since in terms of
originality and variety of left-hand textures. Mozart, just between us --
don't let anybody hear me --, wasn't *particularly* imaginative in that
respect (which is by no means a judgment on the composer in general,
just on that aspect!). If I had a choice *on this parameter*, Haydn would
make it before Mozart. Only my 2c.
regards,
SG
Andante teneramente
> In <3D1FA020...@onnashville.infi.net>
> Kevin Ward <kwa...@onnashville.infi.net> writes:
>
> >Andante teneramente wrote:
>
> >> The pathetic
> >> opening of Zarathustra for instance leaves me speechless with laughter,
>
> >!!!! ????????????????? ! . . . ?
>
> The problem may be that "pathetic" is _not_ the translation of the
> German "pathetisch" or the French "pathetique".
Oh my, I just looked it up in my dictionary. The meaning
"exciting or stirring emotion or passion" or "marked by strong
emotion" in which I used "pathetic" (as in german) is obsolete.
I didn't mean "pitiful" or anything else along that line.
Thanks for clarification.
Regards
Larry Rinkel
I would like to know what pieces you would call not-so-great vs. some you
would call great.
- LR (who could cheerfully live without most of the early piano sonatas, for
instance, as well as the commonly cut arias in Figaro Act IV or the Z/L duet
in DG).
Larry Rinkel
news:Pine.GSO.4.31.02070...@ux13.cso.uiuc.edu...
Golescu?
Certainly I'd agree as to the variety of Chopin's pianistic textures. I
would even agree that Mozart's go farther than simple iterations of the
Alberti bass. But I do think those in Chopin that I've mentioned have their
roots in the Alberti bass (even if the broken chords are in first, second,
or third inversions).
ulvi
> a sort of rebirth at the end, doesn't
> seem to hold up. Much of his best music (or, if you prefer, his music
> I'm most fond of) is from the K300s and 400s>>
> Boris has made the point that the 'rebirth' could be due to exposure
> to Bach. As for the 'coasting' I do believe that Mozart wrote a lot of
> very good but not great music and some great music. I take your point
> that it doesn't seem to be related to a 'period', and that a number of
> special works occur at different points. I also take the point that
> while I'm looking for something more radical in terms of innovation,
> others are simply looking for more and better of Mozart's actual
> style, or not even looking.
Why is "innovation" by itself so important to you? Music, after all,
is not science (or technology), and innovation has value only to the
extent it serves an expressive purpose. Composers like Hummel,
WF and JC Bach and others were very innovative, but much of their music
sucks despite their innovations. On the other hand, much of the greatest
music out there is not "path-breakingly" innovative for its time but
instead is a fusion of existing techniques, past innovatons etc.
As for Mozart: There are only two composers who wrote nothing but
masterpieces: JS Bach and (to a much lesser extent) Haydn. All the other
greats wrote lots of fluff along with masterpieces of varying greatness.
It's important to realize that starting with Beethoven composers
became increasingly self-conscious of how "posterity" will regard their
work, so they started to be more picky about what they published.
Beethoven made copious sketches before setting anything permanently
on paper, Brahms destroyed most of his music, Bruckner's obsession
with revising and re-revising his work is well known, etc. Mozart
lived somewhat before this period self-consciousness, and it's fair
to assume that almost all of the music he composed survives. It is
not surprising then that there is more "Mozart fluff" out there than
Beethoven fluff, for example. While it's true that generally Mozart
wrote more interesting music as he matured, there are many masterpieces
from early years, and in general early Mozart is far more interesting
than, say, early Schubert (which I find almost unlistenable).
Ulvi
Mark K. Ehlert
news:Xns923FA0AB38EFF...@209.204.42.57:
> As for Mozart: There are only two composers who wrote nothing
> but masterpieces: JS Bach and (to a much lesser extent) Haydn.
Huh? "Masterpieces" of a "much lesser extent"? I'm confused here.
> All the other greats wrote lots of fluff along with masterpieces
> of varying greatness.
Well, there are those Haydn baryton trios and German dances too. (I
don't know much Bach, so I can't give examples there, if there are
any.)
> It's important to realize that starting
> with Beethoven composers became increasingly self-conscious of
> how "posterity" will regard their work, so they started to be
> more picky about what they published.
Or perhaps even how folks in their own times would regard their
works. Funny, I was thinking of the word "self-conscious" too as I
read the earlier parts of this thread.
Larry Rinkel
news:6b33de45.0207...@posting.google.com...
> "Larry Rinkel" <LRi...@optonline.nete> wrote
>
> > Mozart's innovations are not as spectacular or overt as Stravinsky's,
but
> > who before him wrote anything like the mature piano concertos or the
major
> > operas?
>
> [... excellent post (as usual) cut...]
Aw, shucks...
>
> To Larry's examples I'd add this (of many possibilities): one could do
worse
> than study the first movement of the quartet K. 464 fairly closely.
>
> The endings of phrases are carefully varied and "interlocked" to form
> a larger phrase structure. The phrases are set on a very strict 4-bar
> grid in this instance, but this doesn't seem monotonous, on the
> contrary - the underlying grid helps the listener feel the
> connections between different phrases. The "combinatorial
> counterpoint" device of setting two or more theme fragments against
> each other, which Mozart practices often, is used here too.
I wouldn't want to suggest that 4-bar phrases are inherently "square" or
inferior to more irregular phrase structures. A great deal of music proceeds
in 4-bar phrases excellently well. But within that grid as you say, there is
great variety and even asymmetry. And some non-4-bar phrases as well - such
as a little 2-bar phrase near the exposition of K 464:i, which however gets
"regularized" into a 4-bar phrase in the recap! The menuet has some 5-bar
and 6-bar phrases, and the theme of the variations movement has an 8-bar 1st
period and a 10-bar 2nd period. It would have been a lot easier for a
composer to "coast along" producing predictable phrase rhythms, but that
isn't Mozart's way.
>
> There's an effective use of alternating chromatic and diatonic
> passages, and similar alternations in texture. There's a chromatic
> inflection in the very start, and Mozart also uses "chromatic completion"
> in the beginning of the exposition (the last chromatic note to appear
> is the fairly natural A# leading to the dominant of the dominant, B).
> (The other notes here come quite naturally from the fairly typical - for
> Mozart - sequence of keys touched on: dominant inflection in A major,
> then A minor to C major to B major.)
>
> Even the more "problematic" movements, such as Jupiter/i aren't short on
> ideas. Among other things I like the stop and start "efforts" at
> modulation away from the tonic in the exposition; here Mozart
> modulates away from the tonic in a couple of steps, each time falling
> back, then modulating a bit further. The usual combinatorial counterpoint
> is here too. The second theme group contains significant development.
>
> The main problem with this movement is perhaps one of balance.
> The ideas don't come off well in performance but look better on paper,
> almost. The reason for this is anyone's guess (lack of time?), and perhaps
> others don't feel the same way about it, anyway. Besides, the movement
> also contains some powerful passages (the development, especially).
> So I agree with Simon on this movement, but find that there are many
things
> of interest here, anyway.
I see what you both mean; however, for whatever reason the movement does not
disappoint me when I hear it.
>
> > Though not all of Mozart's works are equally valuable by any means, I
think
> > in reality Mozart is the opposite of your "burnout."
>
> These effing composer evaluation threads though do cause significant
> "burnout"... :)
Before spending time at classical music message boards and newsgroups, I
never thought I would have to defend Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc.
>
> Lena
Larry
Kevin Ward
-- Kevin
Neil Brennen
Larry Rinkel wrote in message ...
>Before spending time at classical music message boards and newsgroups, I
>never thought I would have to defend Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc.
I never thought a classical music group would be flooded with trolls pushing
pop-tarts, exploited and voiceless children, and krossover krap.
Thomas Muething
>Shostakovich. Why did he turn dark and murky?
>
He grew.
Thomas
Thomas Muething
>I was casually listening to some early Mozart on the radio this morning and
>found myself once again being angry with the guy for not experimenting more
>with his prodigious talents -
>
I think Joachim Raff could have been a(n even) better composer than he
actually was, largely for the same reason you named for Mozart; he wrote
too much too fast, and never really developed his art beyond a certain
point. Among his contemporaries, he was probably the perfect craftsman
and maybe thew best orchestrator, but had he written less music (there
are 261 opus numbers + unpublished works), he probably would eventually
become more progressive.
Thomas
Andy Evans
became increasingly self-conscious of how "posterity" will regard their
work, so they started to be more picky about what they published.>>
Very interesting point indeed. That explains quite a lot! Regarding innovation
- why is it important? To me innovation is a very important part of creativity,
and has virtues in itself - a) It moves the art form forward so is necessary
for progress b) it shows a desire to work at the frontiers of the possible,
where admittedly mistakes can be made but discoveries are crucial c) as a
corrollory of the latter, it shows freshness and strength of purpose in the
composer, as opposed to more mechanical repetition of known solutions,
indicating that the coposer may be in a higher mental state of creativity d)
individualism is a necessary part of developing a unique language which
differenciates the creator from others. These are some of the most obvious
things I can think of. As you say, rebelliousness is no guarantee of quality,
but conversely it's hard to think of any great creators who were not
innovative.
LaVirtuosa
deified] composers neglecting new possibilities for counterpoint and
fugal writing.
*************Val
aeatarts...@aol.comnohawker (Andy Evans) wrote in message news:<20020630152146...@mb-cl.aol.com>...
> I was casually listening to some early Mozart on the radio this morning and
> found myself once again being angry with the guy for not experimenting more
> with his prodigious talents - I reflected on Beethoven, Stravinsky, Debussy and
> many more pushing the limits of the possible while Wolfy was writing pretty
> tunes (I'm going to get murdered for all this..). Plus, in terms of early
> talent, many composers were writing major new experimental music in their early
> twenties - Prokofiev etc. Don't some composers leave you with the feeling they
> could have dome more with their talents?
Dan Koren
> "Dan Koren" <dank...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:c1c5ead9.02070...@posting.google.com...
> > "Sonarrat Citalis" <sona...@postmark.net> wrote in message
> news:<u_bU8.14$wz3...@news.oracle.com>...
>
> > > One of the considerations that makes me feel this way is, Mozart saw much of
> his
> > > music performed within his lifetime. Not all of it, but quite a bit. So
> over
> > > time, he became better and better at creating music that came through in
> > > performance. It's too much of a romantic view to suggest that after
> absorbing
> > > performances of his own music until he knew what worked, he sat down and
> said "I
> > > have to write a masterpiece" and out comes Don Giovanni, but that's what I'm
> > > trying to get across in a blunt way. I can't say if the same holds true for
> JS
> > > Bach, but at the very least, he studied the music of both earlier and
> > > contemporary composers exhaustively and gleaned from them the means with
> which
> > > to bring his art to a peak. And at any rate, he was to his time what Alban
> Berg
> > > was to his time as far as experimenting and pushing boundaries.
> >
> > Someone is being insulted here. I'll
> > leave it as an exercise to the reader
> > to figure out who that is.
>
> Is it Don Giovanni? If so, I
humbly submit my heartfelt apologies.
It certainly wasn't Alban Berg :)
dk
Dan Koren
>
> Well, who knows, if he'd lived longer he might gone on to write really
> sublime music, instead of the mock sublime he left us with. Yeah, I
> know, zillions of people think what he left was really sublime already,
> but I think it could have gotten better had he aged.
Only cheese gets better by aging.
dk
Matthew B. Tepper
news:c1c5ead9.02070...@posting.google.com:
I take it you prefer new wine, then?
sch...@gefen.cc.biu.ac.il
: Wayne Reimer <wr...@pacbell.net> wrote in message news:<MPG.178ae0b54...@news.sf.sbcglobal.net>...
And red wine.
-----
Richard Schultz sch...@mail.biu.ac.il
Department of Chemistry, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
Opinions expressed are mine alone, and not those of Bar-Ilan University
-----
"Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad."
Lena
> "Lena" <len...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:6b33de45.0207...@posting.google.com...
> > "Larry Rinkel" <LRi...@optonline.nete> wrote
> >
> > > Mozart's innovations are not as spectacular or overt as Stravinsky's,
> but
> > > who before him wrote anything like the mature piano concertos or the
> major
> > > operas?
> >
> > [... excellent post (as usual) cut...]
>
> Aw, shucks...
Or alternatively, you could try the Kerman/Rosen chutzpah method in
acknowledging compliments. :)
> > To Larry's examples I'd add this (of many possibilities): one could do
> worse
> > than study the first movement of the quartet K. 464 fairly closely.
> >
> > The endings of phrases are carefully varied and "interlocked" to form
> > a larger phrase structure. The phrases are set on a very strict 4-bar
> > grid in this instance, but this doesn't seem monotonous, on the
> > contrary - the underlying grid helps the listener feel the
> > connections between different phrases. [...]
> I wouldn't want to suggest that 4-bar phrases are inherently "square" or
> inferior to more irregular phrase structures. A great deal of music proceeds
> in 4-bar phrases excellently well. But within that grid as you say, there is
> great variety and even asymmetry.
Yes - I like (for example) the 5+3 phrasing in the beginning of the
main
Allegro of the Prague symphony.
> And some non-4-bar phrases as well - such
> as a little 2-bar phrase near the exposition of K 464:i, which however gets
> "regularized" into a 4-bar phrase in the recap!
Yeah you're quite right, of course. (I didn't mean to imply that
there are
zero departures from the 4-bar grid here.)
> The menuet has some 5-bar
> and 6-bar phrases, and the theme of the variations movement has an 8-bar 1st
> period and a 10-bar 2nd period. It would have been a lot easier for a
> composer to "coast along" producing predictable phrase rhythms, but that
> isn't Mozart's way.
(And sometimes an unexpected departure from regularity is more
striking even than overall irregularity...!)
[Jupiter/i]
> I see what you both mean; however, for whatever reason the movement does not
> disappoint me when I hear it.
Well, I don't know that I want to complain excessively about it
either.
> Before spending time at classical music message boards and newsgroups, I
> never thought I would have to defend Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc.
(laugh!!)
I don't think a composer is automatically due a lot of genuflection -
but
there are, possibly, well, reasons why some music, including Mozart's,
has survived for centuries. :)
And music evokes fairly strong feelings; I suppose when you literally
love
a piece or a composer, it can be a little disturbing to hear the
glibbest and
most superficial sort of negative evaluations. (I don't mean anyone
here in particular, certainly not Andy.)
(Though I confess I at least ultimately don't care at all about how
others
evaluate a piece... :) )
Lena
Larry Rinkel
> "Larry Rinkel" <LRi...@optonline.nete> wrote in message
news:<WQtU8.9570$68.3...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net>...
> > "Lena" <len...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:6b33de45.0207...@posting.google.com...
> > > "Larry Rinkel" <LRi...@optonline.nete> wrote
> > >
> > > > Mozart's innovations are not as spectacular or overt as
Stravinsky's,
> > but
> > > > who before him wrote anything like the mature piano concertos or the
> > major
> > > > operas?
> > >
> > > [... excellent post (as usual) cut...]
> >
> > Aw, shucks...
>
> Or alternatively, you could try the Kerman/Rosen chutzpah method in
> acknowledging compliments. :)
Could you demonstrate, so I can apply said method in the future?
>
[snip]
> > Before spending time at classical music message boards and newsgroups, I
> > never thought I would have to defend Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, etc.
>
> (laugh!!)
>
> I don't think a composer is automatically due a lot of genuflection -
> but
> there are, possibly, well, reasons why some music, including Mozart's,
> has survived for centuries. :)
Unless it's all a conspiracy. . . .
Andy Evans
piece.>>
I think that's true of most of us - certainly true of me. I've had (as a
psychologist) the interesting experience of talking first hand to composers
about composition. Far from making things simpler, it just underlines how
complex and ephemeral a thing one's muse is. How much more difficult, then, to
piece together the motivations and muses of past composers. At times, though, I
can't help speculating. Unfortunately I'm no musicologist and I'm constantly
grateful to those who supply the biographical details that I lack, and which
are essential to check out the viability of hypothetical thinking. Andy
Johannes Röhl
>
> I confess I at least ultimately don't care at all about how others evaluate a
> piece.>>
>
> I think that's true of most of us - certainly true of me. I've had (as a
> psychologist) the interesting experience of talking first hand to composers
> about composition. Far from making things simpler, it just underlines how
> complex and ephemeral a thing one's muse is. How much more difficult, then, to
> piece together the motivations and muses of past composers. At times, though, I
But the motivation of the composer to write a certain piece
is only very loosely connected with the quality of the piece
in question, isn't it? And you can never really know the
motivation (some people like Berlioz are even known to have
made up nice biographical background stories to make
themselves and their art more interesting...)
The creative process is certainly a worthwhile research
topic, but some mystery will probably always remain...
> can't help speculating. Unfortunately I'm no musicologist and I'm constantly
> grateful to those who supply the biographical details that I lack, and which
> are essential to check out the viability of hypothetical thinking. Andy
I think the biographical line of interpretation can be
terribly misleading as well, especially with a composer like
Mozart where so many legends (most of them false) surround
his life and work (Just consider that he wrote the last
three symphonies within about two months or so, so the g
minor cannot be the result of a phase of deep depression; he
just decided two write one dramatic/tragic g minor symphony
and one triumphant C major)
Johannes
Andy Evans
loosely connected with the quality of the piece
in question, isn't it?>>
It depends how wide a definition you use for motivation. If you contrast 'high
motivation' as energetic, fast working, inspired with 'low motivation' as
apathetic, burned out, then the connection should be pretty strong.
Peter
And perhaps Humperdinck could have worked a bit harder to create another opera of the stature of Haensel und
Gretel?
Margaret Mikulska
was more or less parallel to the development of symphony from a lighter
genre to the genre whose character we now associate with the symphony.
In other words, the symphony on M's youth was a light-weight piece used
to open and close a concert (first mvt and perhaps 2nd (and 3rd, if
applicable) for the opening, the finale for the closing). Some of his
operatic overtures were performed as symphonies and if an overture
didn't form a full symphony or couldn't be used as such, he would write
a finale to it (as in the case of La finta giardiniera and a few
others). This is what symphony was at that time. Only his last five
(Linz, Prague, and 1788) symphonies are comparable in *character* with
what we now understand as a symphony: a major work for orchestra,
perhaps even *the* major orchestral genre. So yes, his first 30 or so
are just works of different kind from the symphony in the modern sense.
No, he couldn't experiment more. All but the last 6 were written before
he came to Vienna (and the sixth-last, Haffner K 385 was written in
Vienna but as a serenade for Salzburg, not to be confused with the
Haffner serenade K 250 - same family, different person, different
occasion). Some were written for Salzburg, some for Italy. First, he
had to write what the public or his employer wanted, not to mention
paying attention to what his father advised him. It would have been
both unthinkable and inadvisable to experiment at that stage of his own
developement and in his situation. Haydn could experiment with
symphonies because his employer, Eszterhazy, who was basically his
entire public until some time in H's career, left him a lot of artistic
freedom. (Also, Haydn started composing pretty late in life, when he
was otherwise closer to psychological maturity.) Mozart was in a
different situation: the bulk of his symphonies was written at a young
age when he needed to establish himself as a serious composer (as
opposed to a child prodigy) and that wasn't the time for experimenting.
He just had to please the public. We should be glad that he didn't
listen too much to his father who kept encouraging him to write in
"popular" style, in a way that even unmusical people would find
something attractive in his music. But even Leopold Mozart advised his
son not to present his early symphonies to the public during the trip to
Mannheim and Paris (IIRC), since he might regret showing his still
immature works now that he's older. ("One gets more discerning with
age", wrote Leopold Mozart.)
Second, some number of M's symphonies were written when he was a child,
when successful imitation of various styles was already an achievement.
Originality would come later. In fact, he was very proud that he could
write in any style required of him. Once he learned to imitate, he
could write works that were sufficiently fashionable, but no more
derivative. Only when he established himself as a mature composer, he
could experiment. But in Vienna he was at first busy as a piano
virtuoso and needed piano ctos for his own use; he needed solo piano and
piano & violin works for his pupils; the few operas took time and
efforts. These may be some reasons why he wrote almost no symphonies in
his Vienna period; in any case, it's really unfair to judge his
symphonic output by the dozens of works written in his youth. They
simply belonged to another genre.
Your redefined question is, I'm afraid, ill-posed: in their era every
composer was expected to turn out a lot of music; they couldn't be
composers in their times if they didn't write so much. Music was to a
large extent a commodity and it has to be produced in large quantities.
Furthermore, the idea that each composition has to be a masterpiece is
anachronistic in an era when art was a commodity. Music was mostly
disposable - the idea of performing older works was still new, works and
style went ouf of fashion just like clothing and jewelry, were discarded
and new works had to be produced. (Note that some aristocrats composed
just for the fun of it, but their works are hardly among the greatest we
know.)
-Margaret
-Margaret
Andy Evans wrote:
> I've heard an awful lot of Mozart and played quite a bit and I'm pretty
> familiar with a lot of his late work, and as much as his later works are
> masterpieces I still think he could have experimented more. I'd exchange 30 of
> his symphonies for one late work that went beyond the Jupiter, and 19 of his
> earlier piano concerti for Prokofiev's 3rd. Let's refine the question - would
> Mozart or even Bach have written fewer but greater masterpieces if their
> circumstances didn't require them to turn out such a huge quantity of music?
> === Andy Evans ===
> Visit our Website:- http://www.artsandmedia.com
> Audio, music and health pages and interesting links.
--
mikulska at silvertone dot princeton dot edu
Margaret Mikulska
Ypres wrote:
>
> >I don't see how Mozart could possibly have done more than he did with his
> >talents, which is to write the greatest music yet created on this planet.
> >
> >-david gable
>
> Gee, I can't see it that way. With his last two symphonies, his later quartets
> and the Requiem already completed or significantly underway, I've always had
> the feeling that he was heading for some unexpected heights. He was certainly
> young enough. Moving on from where he ended could have been really
> breathtaking.
I suppose so, especially when you listen to music by Mozart's
contemporaries who survived him at least a bit into the 19th century.
It's hard to imagine that Mozart would be indifferent to the new trends
in music - trends that were obvious soon after his death (or even
before). In piano music, consider Johann Ladislav Dussik or *late*
Clementi (the early works by Clementi are still quite conservative); in
symphonies, Johann Martin Kraus (1756-1792, thus barely surviving
Mozart). And not to forget late Haydn, esp. the two oratorios. I think
this is audible in Mozart's Requiem fragment (and if the Kyrie in d K
341 comes indeed from the last Vienna years, we can deplore even more
the lost opportunities).
(And listen to Antonio Rosetti's Symphony in g minor Murray A 41 (there
is a recording on Teldec), remembering that the work was written in 1787
- before Mozart's K 550. There was something in the air, but too late
for Mozart.)
-Margaret
Margaret Mikulska
Larry Rinkel wrote:
> (It is worth pointing out here, BTW, that recent scholarship has
> called into doubt the theory that Mozart wrote everything in his head
> spontaneously without ever using sketches.
This "recent scholarship" goes back 150 years ago, when the first
serious Mozart biographer, Otto Jahn, clearly stated that the infamous
"Letter to ..." in which a fictitious Mozart claims the above was a
forgery by Rochlitz, the editor of the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung
and the author of several anecdotes "for friends of music", supposedly
describing various from Mozart's life (which he didn't even witness,
although some of them are plausible). In view of that and of the
enormous number of *extant* sketches, drafts, contrapuntal studies,
fragments, and other flotsam & jetsam from the composer's desk - larger
than that left by a great many other composers - there is no doubt
whatsoever that Mozart did not "write everything in his head". You can
examine all the extant sketches in the catalogue edited by Ulrich Konrad
and published in 1999; the catalogue of fragments should be out this
year, and a third volume of this stuff will be published in due course
(before 2006 anyway).
The catalogue of sketches only (not fragments, drafts, or studies)
consists of one hundred double-sided leaves of paper, most of them
filled on both sides of the leaves. These are only the extant sketches
- it's reasonable to assume that Mozart didn't keep every single piece
of music paper and that part of what he kept for a while got lost.
Furthermore, the majority of sketches come from the 10+ years in Vienna;
sketches from his previous 20 years of composing (Salzburg and the
travels) are much more rare. There is no reason, however, to assume
that he didn't sketch just as much in his earlier years. Moreover, many
works were written during the travels and therefore he probably
discarded a lot instead of stuffing his luggage with paper. Finally,
Mozart didn't just move from Salzburg to Vienna, in which case he might
have taken with him the whole pile of manuscripts, completed,
unfinished, fragmentary, together with sketches he thought he might
use. He went from Salzburg to Munich to complete and supervise the
premiere of Idomeneo, and although he was hoping for a job in Munich, he
went there just for a few weeks (which became a few months). From
Munich we was called to Vienna by Colloredo and went to Vienna without
stopping by Salzburg - in fact he probably didn't expect yet to stay in
Vienna forever. So there must have been manuscripts, including
sketches, which were forever left in Salzburg and got lost. In other
words, what we have is almost certainly only a modest part of the
original body of sketches.
The existence of an extremely large number of sketches, drafts, and
fragments was stubbornly ignored by most Mozart scholars. Even
Einstein's revision of the Köchel catalogue misses many of them and the
6th edition doesn't improve this situation a bit. Despite of Jahn's
biography, in which he wrote that we do disservice to Mozart by claiming
that he just wrote down everything from his head while in reality he
worked hard, the image of the eternal child & idiot savant effortlessly
writing down, without thinking, whatever the Muse dictates him blinded
even reasonable scholars. No wonder that many an ignorant popularizer
swallowed the story and thus even after one and a half century we are
stuck with this myth.
And yes, Mozart himself wrote that although people think that composing
comes easily to him, this is not true - he has to work really hard. But
this doesn't fit into the Romantic image of Mozart - nor does the pile
of sketches - and thus is conveniently ignored.
Margaret Mikulska
Johannes Röhl wrote:
> I think the biographical line of interpretation can be
> terribly misleading as well, especially with a composer like
> Mozart where so many legends (most of them false) surround
> his life and work (Just consider that he wrote the last
> three symphonies within about two months or so, so the g
> minor cannot be the result of a phase of deep depression; he
> just decided two write one dramatic/tragic g minor symphony
> and one triumphant C major)
This "about two months or so" borders on another legend or myth. Note
that a great many people write that the the last three symphonies were
written within 6 weeks (late June through early August), while in
reality the six weeks in question was the time between the completion of
K 543 and K 551. Anybody can see that if K 543 had been already
finished, the six weeks could be, at the very most, the time when Mozart
worked on *two* symphonies only. Furthermore, there is an implicit and
most likely false assumption here that Mozart composed "sequentially",
i.e., didn't proceed to another work until he finished the previous
one. Paper, watermark, ink, hadwriting analysis shows that many works
were written over months and even years, with interruptions. Nothing is
known about beginnings of the work on any of the three symphonies.
Mozart's own catalogue reports only the date of completion (and even
that is not always accurate - this we can't rely on this 100% here,
either). For all we know, he could have started writing them months
earlier and worked on them more or less simultaneously. That would fit
better with what we know - as opposed to fantasizing - about his
compositional method and habits. In other words, we know nothing about
the time it took him to write the three last symphonies. The "six
weeks" or "two months" bit is pure fantasmagory. But, once again, it
fits the Romantic image of Mozart.
Margaret Mikulska
> > of sonatas by Karl Phillip Emmanuel Bach!
>
> I was referring to Beethoven's early concertos, not Mozart's.
>
> And Mozart's adaptations came from a whole bunch of composers. Was
> Emanual Bach one of them? I know J.C. Bach had a few movements
> arranged by the young Salzburgian.
Yes, the finale of K 40 is an arrangement of a movement by CPE Bach.
The first four of Mozart's Concertos (K 37, 39, 40, 41) are arrangement
of sonata mvts by Schobert, Raupach, Eckard, Honauer, and CPE Bach.
Except for Bach, they were German composers living in Paris whose works
Mozart got to know during his Great Tour in 1763-1766. Schobert in
particular is very interesting; I encourage people to listened to some
of his works: for keyboard solo and vhamber music. The works were
written soon after the return from the trip, in 1767.
The three concertos K 107, not included in the popular numbering 1-27,
are arrangements of three sonatas by J Chr. Bach. Nothing is really
known about the circumstances of their composition; the suggested date
is "early 1770s". They might have been written for performances during
one of the trips to Italy, although we don't know if Mozart performed
them there.