How Musically Cosmopolitan Are You?

[king ubu]

Same here, I guess I could easily do a few months on Italians and/or French and/or Flemish ... less familiar with eastern. Well, I know Rachmaninov's piano concertos, plenty of Bartók, some Scriabin, tons of Chopin ... but I think the deal breaker might be the vocal music there. I don't understand a word of any Slavic language, nor of Hungarian (okay, I can say "köszönöm", but that's about it) etc. I need opera and voices, lots of voices ... and I need them singing in Italian, all the time  - not listening to Beethoven and Haydn and Mozart etc. for a while: not a problem. Not listening to ... Puccini, Verdi, Rossini, Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Händel's Italian cantatas, Luigi Rossi (and of course also Mozart's Italian operas, after all it doesn't get more beautiful than "Così fan tutte" - and that entire piece is quite un-germanic I think) etc. etc.: big problem.

[Gurn Blanston]

You mean, suich a Russian deluge as Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Shostakovitch, Borodin, Glazunov, Taneyev, Khatchaturian, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Gliere, Arensky, Myaskovsky, right? 

No, I was thinking of Liszt, Wagner, Rubinstein, that sort.     No need to be cosmopolitan when it comes to looking for what I don't like, much of it is right in Germany! 

[Todd]

Huh?

OK, so to you he's German. 

[Chronochromie]

So, of my top 15 composers at present, 6 are Austro-German, 4 French, 2 Hungarian, 1 Italian, 1 Greek and 1 Russian. I could never do a "no-X nationality" month thingy though, nor do I want to.

[Jo498]

Neither Handel nor Mozart were all that Germanic but they were also not just emulating the Italian style, at least for the Italians in their time they were still the "Germans".

Liszt was Austro-Hungarian, much more Austro from his parents and upbringing but he also was a wannabe-Magyar and as he has some claim to that, it probably ought to be respected.

[Spineur]

I can go without beer for a long time, but without french and italian wines absolutely not !!  Love also Californian and New Zeland wines as well and lets not forget some Tokay on the way.  And a little shot of whisky and vodka to make sure I sleep well...

[Florestan]

OK, so to you he's German.

Liszt was Austro-Hungarian, much more Austro from his parents and upbringing but he also was a wannabe-Magyar and as he has some claim to that, it probably ought to be respected.

How Hungarian Was Liszt?

[king ubu]

Hm, I guess things are being mixed here, no?

There's the Viennese classical core repertoire ... and there's various cultural spheres that are related in different ways at different points in time and it makes little sense to draw such lines that only pretend to be clear-cut - such as lumping Liszt with "Germanic" ... "Austro-hungarian" isn't quite "Germanic" anyways, not sure what that tells us about Haydn or Mozart or Schubert, but aren't they quite different in many respects from, say, Schumann or Mendelssohn? Obviously there are strong ties, but just because plenty of Austrians also loved the ridiculous small man in the thirties, and just because they share the same language, that doesn't necessarily mean they form a complete cultural unity. Yet again, obviously many german-speaking subjects of the Austrian emperor were tied more strongly to German culture than to Hungarian or other eastern parts of Kakania ... but then those ties would still differentiate them from Prussia and other German territories.

Not sure I have a point, not sure what the point of this thread really is, not wanting to attack anyone at all - but things tend to be somewhat more complicated.

[Jo498]

The musical ties from Viennese classicism to Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms etc. are fairly obvious. So I do not think that to speak of a "Austro-German" tradition lasting from the mid/late 18th until the early 20th century is an outlandish construction. Of course, these stylistic models held also for many composers from other countries or traditions.
There are also strong traditions in French opera that were clearly distinguished from the Italian opera already in their time, e.g. the important role of the ballett that might go back all the way to Lully and the dancing Sun King.

Then there are the "ethnic/nationalist" composers in the 19th century who often were strongly influenced by the dominating Austro-German style but took pains to establish some identifiable Hungarian/Czech/Russian music.

Of course it gets complicated in detail, e.g. Tchaikovsky might be quintessentially Russian for Westerners but he was critized for being too westernized by some of his Russian contemporaries.
Or the establishment of German language opera between Mozart and Weber (including those two) had to draw on the Italian and French opera traditions because there was nothing else (except maybe trite and simple Singspiel).

[Brian]

I wonder, are we happy to define "musically cosmopolitan" only by geography?

[Florestan]

I wonder, are we happy to define "musically cosmopolitan" only by geography?

By all means, feel free to define it in whichever way makes you happy. 

[North Star]

I wonder, are we happy to define "musically cosmopolitan" only by geography?

Sibelius wouldn't offer you any Cosmopolitans: "Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public pure cold water."  0:)

[king ubu]

Well, akvavit looks a lot like water 

[Jo498]

water of life

[North Star]

water of life

uisge beatha

[Maestro267]

Any "top 10" I come up with would probably contain just Beethoven and Mahler of the Austro-Germans. The rest would be British, Russian, Polish, American.

[jochanaan]

Bruckner and Mahler are two of the very greatest composers and I have been listening to Mahler Symphony 1 and 3 (after hearing it in concert) a lot recently; my favourite composers, however, tend to be British, Russian, American and Scandinavian.

Bruckner was Austrian, but you're safe with Mahler.  He was actually a Bohemian Jew.