Deep thought in Classical Era Music?

[Karl Henning]

No we aren't. The idea (pun intended) that music is some sort of, and even much more than, philosophy or religion is a Romantic fabrication. It is completely alien to the Baroque mentality. Bach himself defined his music as being composed

Dem höchsten Gott allein zu Ehren,
Dem Nächsten draus sich zu belehren.

that is

To the glory of the most high God, and that my neighbour may be benefited thereby.

Indeed. One of the errors here is in conflating dedicating music to a high purpose with the expression of deep, personal thoughts.

A typically Romantic conflation, I might add.

[Florestan]

Well, there was the Romantic Era which lieth between Mozart's day, and our'n. A lot of wonderful music-making, but some frankly weird ideas about Art, which we've not completely shaken off even now.

Agreed.

[Mandryka]

No we aren't. The idea (pun intended) that music is some sort of, and even much more than, philosophy or religion is a Romantic fabrication. It is completely alien to the Baroque mentality. Bach himself defined his music as being composed

Dem höchsten Gott allein zu Ehren,
Dem Nächsten draus sich zu belehren.

that is

To the glory of the most high God, and that my neighbour may be benefited thereby.

I am curious: exactly what deep ideas do you find in Brandenburg 5?

No we don't. Most of dramatic music in Mozart's time was clearly meant for entertainment. Same question: what deep ideas do you find in Don Giovanni?

Brandenburg 5/i

JSB allowed an instrument which was conventionally low down in a contemporary hierarchy (harpsichord) to take a very leading role. And consequently the music is a sort of metaphor for challenging hierarchies -- the music is a metaphor for social equality. 

Don Giovanni.

He composes music for the final sextet which makes it a hollow victory. In Mozart's hands Donna Anna's and Octavio's moralising is unsupportable, even though they're right that the Don s bad. And they were completely powerless against him too.  I think Mozart is saying that their sort of moral understanding is problematic. (Contrast the music he gives to the Commendatore)

[Gurn Blanston]

Brandenburg 5/i

JSB allowed an instrument which was conventionally low down in a contemporary hierarchy (harpsichord) to take a very leading role. And consequently the music is a sort of metaphor for challenging hierarchies -- the music is a metaphor for social equality. 

Don Giovanni.

He composes music for the final sextet which makes it a hollow victory. In Mozart's hands Donna Anna's and Octavio's moralising is unsupportable, even though they're right that the Don s bad. And they were completely powerless against him too.  I think Mozart is saying that their sort of moral understanding is problematic. (Contrast the music he gives to the Commendatore)

But those are YOUR thoughts. No one is saying that the music can't cause you to have thoughts (deep or otherwise). But you can't attribute them to the composer. If you asked Bach about portraying social equality with instruments, I just can't imagine his reaction.   

Mozart did indeed use 'bad guy' music to portray the bad guy. Not a thought though, just a convention. Every opera composer in the world at the time did the same thing. He just did it better. 

[Mandryka]

But those are YOUR thoughts. No one is saying that the music can't cause you to have thoughts (deep or otherwise). But you can't attribute them to the composer. If you asked Bach about portraying social equality with instruments, I just can't imagine his reaction.   

Mozart did indeed use 'bad guy' music to portray the bad guy. Not a thought though, just a convention. Every opera composer in the world at the time did the same thing. He just did it better. 

I don't understand the point about Mozart. My thought is he uses music which renders the good guys' judgments  problematic, in the vaudeville ending.

Re Bach, I don't see a problem. We know that Bach had read Luther, we know that Luther had ideas about equality in music and in society, both the society in this world and the next. We know that Bach made some margin notes in his bible about this very topic. We know how he disputed with his peers and superiors at work.

I'm not saying that e.g. listening to some music makes me have philosophical ideas. I'm  saying that some music was intended by its composer  to mean philosophical/emotional/spiritual deep  things.

[Karl Henning]

Re Bach, I don't see a problem. We know that Bach had read Luther, we know that Luther had ideas about equality in music and in society, both the society in this world and the next. We know that Bach made some margin notes in his bible about this very topic. We know how he disputed with his peers and superiors at work.

And how do we know that this is specifically what he meant by the solo harpsichord?

[Karl Henning]

Very interesting, thanks, sananton'

[kishnevi]

On the premise that Bach makes a very good overnight guest, but he has his own residence at GMG,  I've posted a reply here:
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,49.msg692844.html#msg692844

so that Papa can enjoy his own Haus.

[Gurn Blanston]

I don't understand the point about Mozart. My thought is he uses music which renders the good guys' judgments  problematic, in the vaudeville ending.

Well, the most he is saying is that there are no good guys or bad guys, that they are all shades of gray (50 or more!). It was a convention in opera seria that good guys were good and bad guys were bad. Mozart says with his music that those stereotypes need some refinement. But hey, that's opera, opera has always tried to convey things with music. It isn't deep philosophy like the Romantics indulged in, it's "how can I emulate a storm, how can I emulate a bad guy, how can I emulate love with music". There is no implication of anything more than that.

[Karl Henning]

Well, the most he is saying is that there are no good guys or bad guys, that they are all shades of gray (50 or more!). It was a convention in opera seria that good guys were good and bad guys were bad. Mozart says with his music that those stereotypes need some refinement. But hey, that's opera, opera has always tried to convey things with music. It isn't deep philosophy like the Romantics indulged in, it's "how can I emulate a storm, how can I emulate a bad guy, how can I emulate love with music". There is no implication of anything more than that.

Aye, we don't really get into opera as Grand Philosophical Rannygazoo until the Bloat of Bayreuth.

[Florestan]

Mandryka, first of all I want you to know that I removed my initial reply because it was ill-tempered and contained potentially offensive words and twists of phrases. If you read it and felt offended please accept my apologies.

Brandenburg 5/i

JSB allowed an instrument which was conventionally low down in a contemporary hierarchy (harpsichord) to take a very leading role.

This puzzles me greatly. Harpsichord, along the violin, is perhaps the quintessential Baroque instrument. Tons of great music were written for it, scores of treatises were published on how to play it, conductors used it for conducting, there was no cultivated amateur who could not play it, there was no well-to-do home without one. It was hugely popular and held in high esteem. I would say that in terms of hierarchy it was at the very top.

And consequently the music is a sort of metaphor for challenging hierarchies -- the music is a metaphor for social equality.

This is how you hear it but I strongly doubt that this is what Bach intended.

Don Giovanni.

He composes music for the final sextet which makes it a hollow victory. In Mozart's hands Donna Anna's and Octavio's moralising is unsupportable,

I don't get this either. Unsupportable, how? Musically, dramatically? Do you cover your ears or close your eyes at that moment?

And they were completely powerless against him too.

Nothing extraordinary here. Good guys completely powerless against villains abound in opera and literature.

  I think Mozart is saying that their sort of moral understanding is problematic.

Donna Anna is a seduced woman whose father has been murdered by the seducer. Is it problematic to you that she should seek justice?

[Florestan]

You might find this article on the Brandenburg Concertos informative.  It was written by Philip Pickett, an English musician, recorder player and director of early music ensembles, notably The New London Consort.

Very interesting, thanks. It's highly speculative but at least based on Baroque worldview and mentality, not on ours.

[mc ukrneal]

Well, the most he is saying is that there are no good guys or bad guys, that they are all shades of gray (50 or more!). It was a convention in opera seria that good guys were good and bad guys were bad. Mozart says with his music that those stereotypes need some refinement. But hey, that's opera, opera has always tried to convey things with music. It isn't deep philosophy like the Romantics indulged in, it's "how can I emulate a storm, how can I emulate a bad guy, how can I emulate love with music". There is no implication of anything more than that.

I don;t think I would agree (at least not entirely). Mozart's Magic Flute is very much connected with philosophy. The ideas of freemasonry were in most ways less common I think, and certainly to put them in an opera like this quite unusual. I've also seen references that talk about the opera connected to enlightenment philosophy. I also don't subscribe to the idea that Wagner or some later romantic pieces are deeper. They are different. After all, the Ring can be taken as a fantasy story with morals rather than a philosophical message per se.

[Opus106]

I don't get this either. Unsupportable, how? Musically, dramatically? Do you cover your ears or close your eyes at that moment?

There was a time (still is?) when that final scene was rarely performed. The opera ended when the Don fell to his doom. A couple of reasons for this, which I remember from reading Wikipedia, was that conductors/directors felt that an opera should no longer continue without the protagonist and the final scene was, musically speaking, a notch down in a sense compared to the drama of the penultimate. Anything else, I'm not sure. [Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken.]

[Florestan]

The concluding ensemble delivers the moral of the opera – "Such is the end of the evildoer: the death of a sinner always reflects his life" ("Questo è il fin di chi fa mal, e de' perfidi la morte alla vita è sempre ugual"). In the past, the final ensemble was sometimes omitted by conductors who claimed that the opera should end when the title character dies. However, this approach has not survived, and today's conductors almost always include the finale in its entirety. The return to D major and the innocent simplicity of the last few bars conclude the opera.

It would have been interesting to specify some conductors who omitted the finale. The reason itself, that the opera should end when the title character dies, is not very convincing. Kind of saying "we know better than Mozart how it should be".

[Opus106]

It would have been interesting to specify some conductors who omitted the finale. The reason itself, that the opera should end when the title character dies, is not very convincing. Kind of saying "we know better than Mozart how it should be".

Here's one more reference:

Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” usually concludes these days with a moralizing sextet: after the rogue Giovanni has descended to hell, his fed-up servant Leporello, the women he wronged and the fiancées he enraged proclaim, “Questo è il fin di chi fa mal” (“Such is the end of the evildoer”). The sextet was usually omitted until the mid-20th century, and an artistic argument can certainly be made for its exclusion, since the opera ends on a note of heightened drama with Giovanni’s fiery death.

There is also a historical justification for excluding it. Most opera companies today (including the Metropolitan) use a compendium of the versions that Mozart wrote for performances in 1787 in Prague and 1788 in Vienna.

[Florestan]

Mozart, for starters.

If I understand you correctly, Mozart added the final sextet after the Prague premiere?

[Florestan]

You understand correctly what I said, but unfortunately I was mistaken. It's the other way around (or said to have been), namely that Mozart left it out for the Vienna premiere.

And yet you wrote

(not having it would have gotten in censored in Vienna, hence the addition)

I'm really confused. 

[Florestan]

Yes... ignore that first bit. It's a story I once thought up that has remained lodged somewhere in my brain (despite having corrected it, early on) and every once in a while it still comes to the fore. Nonetheless, it is not accurate.

OK. 

From Wikipedia: The opera's final ensemble was generally omitted until the mid-20th century, and does not appear in the Viennese libretto of 1788. Well, then damned be the sextet! 

[Karl Henning]

I don;t think I would agree (at least not entirely). Mozart's Magic Flute is very much connected with philosophy. The ideas of freemasonry were in most ways less common I think, and certainly to put them in an opera like this quite unusual. I've also seen references that talk about the opera connected to enlightenment philosophy. I also don't subscribe to the idea that Wagner or some later romantic pieces are deeper. They are different. After all, the Ring can be taken as a fantasy story with morals rather than a philosophical message per se.

Well, my point was not whose music is deeper, but that W. (Romantic artist that he was) intended high-falutin' stuff.

For the most part, I don't see the allegorical components of Die Zauberflöte as proto-Wagner, but as a vernacular application of the genre's roots in mythology (viz. Monteverdi's L'Orfeo).

Again, to see Mozart's operas as crypto-autobiography is at once bad musicology, and a "Bluff the Listener" triumph for Peter Shaffer.