Gurn's Classical Corner

[ChamberNut]

I'm on a work-from-home routine tomorrow;  probably I'll pop in the next Haydn symphnoy disc for First-Listen Friday.

Where are you at in the cycle?  You should have been done by now. 

[karlhenning]

Where are you at in the cycle?  You should have been done by now. 

Tu as raison, mon cher.  I am not really making the grade as a Haydn enthusiast!

[DavidW]

Okay, here's how it works:

Dave gets a box set. He either rips all, some or none of it, depending on time and inclination. If it happens to get ripped, it may end up on his iPod for work purposes, depending on his mood. If a particular piece is brought into focus through message boards or magazines, whatever, he will pull it up and listen to it. Otherwise, it's a free-for-all.

I bought it on mp3 just so that I wouldn't have to rip it.   Which is funny now because I don't listen to music at work anymore!   But it made sense at the time.

[Gurn Blanston]

Keep the money in your pocket, you need it for new acquisitions!  
This is a very thoughtful post which invites careful consideration.

Not sure I can agree without qualifications. The way I see it, Romanticism --- I apply this term in its musical embodiment (let's pretend, for the sake of discussion, that musical Romanticism did exist) --- had two undercurrents: one "conservative", represented by the lineage (Schubert)-Schumann-Mendelssohn-Chopin-Brahms-Dvorak and their followers, which balanced the "Literary" approach to music with the "Classical" one (or, as in the case of Chopin and Brahms, rejected it alltogether), and one "radical", represented by the lineage Berlioz-Liszt-Wagner-Mahler and their followers, which rejected firmly the "Classical" approach and developed the "Literary" one. Interestingly enough, both pretended to build upon Beethoven's legacy.

Yes. I have always imagined 'Romanticism' (learned that from Newman. Like it? ) was split into two parts. I would start the Berlioz fork with Weber, but this is more or less it. In my post, I called them absolute and representational, this being the representational branch. They were busy illustrating books with their music.   FYI, and apropos of nothing whatsoever, this is the branch that I mainly dislike and rarely listen to. It is mainly the absolute music/Classical line that I was talking about in terms of expanding the form and adding to the complexity. It was a natural evolution of sonata form.

(Of course, this is just a simplistic scheme: overlapping between the two camps was as common as internal quarrels and dislikes within them: Liszt and Schumann were in friendly terms all along, Chopin had no use for Schumann, Berlioz strongly opposed any association with Wagner who in turn broke with Liszt. In all this embroglio, Bruckner stands as an isolated figure --- my opinion is that with all his penchant for Wagner's novelties, he was in his heart a "conservative").

Now, a few comments on "Literary approach".

Generally speaking, musicians of the Classical Age had little education about, and interest in, matters outside music. Haydn and Mozart themselves had no interest in poetry, philosophy or sciences. The world had to wait for Beethoven and Schubert to see composers actively interested and engaged in intellectual pursuits outside their trade.

Yes, certainly there was no purism in either camp. We like to think pure art for art's sake, but there was the commercial aspect looming, and bigger than ever once the "canon of works" became the tyrant of creativity. I have to clear up one injustice in your literary statement though. Just to show the dangers of generalization.   I have an annotated list of the contents of Haydn's library taken at his death. You might be overwhelmed by it, as I was.

A History of the World in 99 volumes (Haydn had 65 of them)
The first 78 volumes of the Encyclopedia of Economics (the remainder to Volume 155 weren't published until after his death)
General History of Music by Charles Burney (I would like that myself)
The first ever German dictionary (in 5 volumes)
The Plays of Shakespeare (10 volumes)
Capt. James Cook's "Complete Journal of Voyages Round the World"
The Revelation of Nature by Cardano - 17 volumes.

This only scratches the surface, I'm already tired of typing it.   I agree with you about Mozart. He was not insensitive to the workld around him, but he had priorities, and literature and philosophy were not nearly s high on the list as writing music and supporting his family, and maybe playing billiards.   OK, now back to you...

Things changed dramatically after 1830, when a whole new generation of musicians who were much better educated and much more open, intellectually speaking, than their predecessors became active. Schumann, Berlioz, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Wagner were avid readers of poetry and philosophy or were involved in multifaceted artistic circles of painters and writers. It was inevitable that this intellectual efflorescence made its way into their music.

A telling, although unjustly harsh, comment in this respect is made by Adrian Leverkuhn, the imaginary composer from Thomas Mann's masterpiece Doktor Faustus: the main merit of Romanticism is that it took the music away from its state of communal brassband and inserted it into the general intellectual movement of the epoch. (quoted from memory).

Yes, even the 'classicists' were influenced by literature, it was the thing to be at the time. Many of them also wrote at length (e.g. - Schumann and Mendelssohn). So there was an inevitability about literature and music blending together, the main difference was the degree to which a composer could keep separation there. IMO, Brahms was a master of that. He let the writers write and the composers compose.

This is not to say that the Classicists were somehow intellectually inferior to the Romantics, but it helps putting things into perspective.

Yes, music connected with the general spirit of the age, which was Romantic Nationalism.

This is true as well. Again, music was linked with the general spirit of the age, which was Enlightenment Universalism.

Yes and there emerged other styles, previously unheard of: Russian, Scandinavian etc. But, nationalistic intents aside, I think the music itself speaks as universally as any of the Classical Era.

Well, it does because that's how we choose to listen to it. But if we were to transport ourselves back to the time when it was being written and listened to, I think the composers (particularly the representational branch) had different expectations of their audience, and wanted them to hear things in the way that they were composed, and transmit those concrete ideas to them. Otherwise, it would be absolute music too. The German composers were speaking German to their German audiences, and they didn't really care if non-Germans 'got it'. And too, the French. The non-Wagnerian French, that is.

Interesting analogy, but I have to amend it a bit. I've seen the entropy mentioned also in the thread about classical music's death, but it's always rather incorrecly applied (the engineer in me is speaking now. ). The second law of thermodynamics, which is where the whole concept of entropy originates, states that entropy of an isolated system tends to increase or stay the same; it never decreases as long as the system remains isolated. And that's the key word that prevents the concept to be applied in any open system. Music as a whole is such an open system: it receives "energy" and "information' from a lot of other systems and that is why it did not die around 1850, when the "Literary approach" injected new life in it; neither did it die around 1910, when the "Schoenberg approach" injected new life in it etc, and this is why I see no reason to lament its incoming death. (I apologize for this digression)

That being said, the "Classical approach" around 1900 was certainly an isolated system (within a larger open system). No wonder it faded away. On the other hand, tonality itself wasn't, and tonal music continued far into the 20th century and not just as a relic of the past, avant-garde extremism and propaganda notwithstanding. Enescu, Prokofiev, Ravel, Bartok, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Richard Strauss, de Falla and a bunch of others cannot be dismissed as mere retrogrades.

Well, not being an engineer, and having a huge interest in thing like evolution, I learned about entropy while studying that, so my vision of it is less than strict. But evolution of species and evolution of music are analogous in many ways. If you look back to pre-Renaissance times you see that musical styles were developed, and they matured and got more and more complex (harmony for 40 parts!) and then there was an abrupt change to where something that had been developing in a small way on the side was seen as superior, and the whole complex system would go down and become a relic and the new idea would grow. Like when Baroque polyphony reached its peak and the reaction was to take italian opera homophony and make it as simple as possible (galant) and that grew into Classicism. And so on and so on. Cyclical.

BTW, "troglodyte" in Romanian has a completely different meaning than in English, namely "wretched, miserable, barbarian". When I first read your last sentence I was really angered to have Rachmaninoff called as such, but then I googled for the English word and calmed down. We're still friends!  0:)

And on this optimistic tone I now conclude my long post, hoping that it makes some sense to you and others here.  

  Yes, I was using it in the English sense of being a throwback, a Luddite, a caveman when all the other cavemen have died off. I would never call Rach a wretched, miserable barbarian (unless he pissed me off, of course ).

Anyway, I see we have more points on which we agree than on which we disagree. I don't suppose that I need to tell you that it is one of my great "pet peeves" to have people wasting their precious time trying to decide on whether or not composer X is Classical or Romantic.   Better to listen to the music. Those terms are virtually impossible to define within the context of music itself, so settling those arguments is just not going to happen.




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Listening to:
Malcolm Binns - Op 101 Sonata #28 in A for Fortepiano 1st mvmt - Elwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung

[DavidW]

I only find classification of composers important for the purpose of my spreadsheet.  Overall constant attempts to define eras is a waste of time.  Just because there is an obvious global transition when you compare one century to another doesn't mean that one has to pretend that there clean delineations between music styles.  It goes from one type to another so slowly that the difference is only obvious in hindsight.

[karlhenning]

I only find classification of composers important for the purpose of my spreadsheet.  Overall constant attempts to define eras is a waste of time.

But don't you feel that Pelléas et Mélisande is the last glorious afterglow of the Waaagnerian Era, rather than, as Murgatroyd Pippin-Chandler claims in his monograph, the first 'modernist' opera?

[Florestan]

I have to clear up one injustice in your literary statement though. Just to show the dangers of generalization.   I have an annotated list of the contents of Haydn's library taken at his death. You might be overwhelmed by it, as I was.

A History of the World in 99 volumes (Haydn had 65 of them)
The first 78 volumes of the Encyclopedia of Economics (the remainder to Volume 155 weren't published until after his death)
General History of Music by Charles Burney (I would like that myself)
The first ever German dictionary (in 5 volumes)
The Plays of Shakespeare (10 volumes)
Capt. James Cook's "Complete Journal of Voyages Round the World"
The Revelation of Nature by Cardano - 17 volumes.

This only scratches the surface, I'm already tired of typing it.

Wow, this is indeed a revelation! Where did you find that list?

I stand corrected, and gladly so. It's an extremely pleasant surprise for me that Haydn had such wide interests besides music (provided he read those books, of course.  ).

Now, this exchange started from my question about drawing the boundaries of the "classical corner". Is it safe then to conclude that Mendelssohn-Chopin-Schumann-Brahms is a legitimate territorial claim?

[DavidW]

But don't you feel that Pelléas et Mélisande is the last glorious afterglow of the Waaagnerian Era, rather than, as Murgatroyd Pippin-Chandler claims in his monograph, the first 'modernist' opera?

Makes Wagner sound like a nuclear bomb.

[Gurn Blanston]

Wow, this is indeed a revelation! Where did you find that list?

I stand corrected, and gladly so. It's an extremely pleasant surprise for me that Haydn had such wide interests besides music (provided he read those books, of course.   ).

"Haydn and his World" edited by Elaine Sisman. There is an entire essay on his library, of which that came off page 1. He read a lot of them because he made marginal notes.

Now, this exchange started from my question about drawing the boundaries of the "classical corner". Is it safe then to conclude that Mendelssohn-Chopin-Schumann-Brahms is a legitimate territorial claim?

Oh, absolutely. They are from the Late Classical, the period immediately following the Latest Gurnian. Of course, Mendelssohn and Chopin were composing in the 1820's, so we never lost them anyway.

[DavidW]

Maybe we should just call it Gurn's Industrial Revolution Music.  Or music to revolutionize an industry by... gets the chronology about right.

[Gurn Blanston]

I only find classification of composers important for the purpose of my spreadsheet.  Overall constant attempts to define eras is a waste of time.  Just because there is an obvious global transition when you compare one century to another doesn't mean that one has to pretend that there clean delineations between music styles.  It goes from one type to another so slowly that the difference is only obvious in hindsight.

Everything is labeled in hindsight. It makes it easier to get it into the liner notes...   I think that my 3 main divisions, given earlier in this thread, are sufficient for all practical purposes. And they have the added bonus of not carrying any other philosophical baggage, they are merely descriptive of the prevailing musical style.

[Florestan]

"Haydn and his World" edited by Elaine Sisman. There is an entire essay on his library, of which that came off page 1. He read a lot of them because he made marginal notes.

I was hoping for that.  Very nice, thanks for the info!  0:)

Oh, absolutely. They are from the Late Classical, the period immediately following the Latest Gurnian. Of course, Mendelssohn and Chopin were composing in the 1820's, so we never lost them anyway.

Excellent! 

[Antoine Marchand]

I was hoping for that.   Very nice, thanks for the info!  0:)

Excellent!  

Replies 701, 703 and 723 are real gems; they are full of ideas, some intuitions and odd/delightful information.

Congratulations Florestan and Gurn! I have enjoyed every word.

[Gurn Blanston]

Replies 701, 703 and 723 are real gems; they are full of ideas, some intuitions and odd/delightful information.

Congratulations Florestan and Gurn! I have enjoyed every word.

Well, thanks, Antoine. I'm pleased you found it interesting. Clearly it is something of importance to us, enough to have thought about it for a while. I invite you to share some thoughts about it if you would like to.

[Gurn Blanston]

Gurn, just curious have you heard any of Stravinsky's neo-classical work, like Pulcinella?

My total listening of Stravinsky equals;

The Firebird
Rite of Spring
Oedipus Rex
Petrouchka
Symphony of Psalms
3 pieces for Clarinet

Thus, not enough to categorize his periods, so to speak. FWIW, I enjoyed all of those.




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Listening to:
Maria Joao Pires / Hüseyin Sermet - Schubert Rondo in D for Piano 4 Hands D 608 - Allegretto

[DavidW]

My total listening of Stravinsky equals;

The Firebird
Rite of Spring
Oedipus Rex
Petrouchka
Symphony of Psalms
3 pieces for Clarinet

Thus, not enough to categorize his periods, so to speak. FWIW, I enjoyed all of those.




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Listening to:
Maria Joao Pires / Hüseyin Sermet - Schubert Rondo in D for Piano 4 Hands D 608 - Allegretto

You do not have the Dumbarton Oaks Concerto!?!  Epic Fail!!

[Gurn Blanston]

You do not have the Dumbarton Oaks Concerto!?!  Epic Fail!!

And yet, I've survived somehow.   To balance it out, I DO have the complete works of Schubert for Piano 4 Hands.   One doesn't need to have heard a composer's entire oeuvre to decide if that is where his specialty lies...



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Listening to:
Maria Joao Pires / Hüseyin Sermet - Schubert 2 German Dances in G for Piano 4 Hands D 618

[DavidW]

And yet, I've survived somehow.

That's because before then I didn't know.

[Gurn Blanston]

Gurn I think you may get a real kick out of some of his neo-classical pieces/period of 1920-1954 (emphasis on traditional form, classical elegance & clarity). I was listening to his Pulcinella ballet (1920) earlier and it's fashioned out of some pieces by the 18th century composer Pergolesi (a melage of operas, canatas, trio-sonatas & other pieces of his). The orchestration recalls a lean 18th century ensemble & 18th century melodies (though that and other elements are tinkered with using a variety of Igor's own trademark 'devices', imbuing his own personal stamp on the music so to speak). I think you may like it, since you're inclined toward the classical era itself, it's a refreshing spin.

DavidW, Dumbarton Oaks is great, Boulez called it Brandenburg #7.

Well, thanks for that information, James. I'll put both of those pieces on my shopping list.



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Listening to:
Maria Rose, fortepiano - Hummel Op 002 #3 Sonata #1 in C for Fortepiano 3rd mvmt - Rondo

[DavidW]

DavidW, Dumbarton Oaks is great, Boulez called it Brandenburg #7.

I like that, it seems like a very appropriate name.