Mozart

[Jo498]

One could argue, more truthful to the facts, something different, ie that the piano sonata as a genre was in Mozart's time not as "ambitious" as the chamber music or the symphony and the expectations that they (should) be as "profound" and "weighty" as the latter two are misplaced.

I am not denying this at all. I wrote basically the same above. But this clearly changed with Beethoven, despite the practice into the 19th century. Regardless of practice this is obvious from the music itself (and we also have letters to Beethoven by amateurs complaining that some sonatas were too difficult to play).

Far from contradicting, your quote is in fact supporting my point. Part of which was that Mozart did NOT (or only very rarely) transcend this contemporary limitation in the piano sonatas whereas Clementi and clearly Beethoven with his 3rd sonata that is, like the Kreutzer written in a "concertante style", including a cadenza!
And very often a part of what makes a body of work great is transforming genres and transcending the limitations of fashions and lesser contemporaries. Mozart did this in a huge way with the singspiel and piano concerto and in some way with opera buffa, symphony, string quartet etc. With the possible exceptions I mentioned above, he did not do this in the case of the piano sonata. I don't see his as a "fault" but it's nevertheless an aspect that shows and eventually makes them lesser works than e.g. the piano concertos. (I concede that I cannot make this point wrt piano sonatas vs. piano+violin sonatas although I tend to value the latter slightly higher

See above. Maybe your appreciation for Mozart's piano sonatas would increase if you stopped comparing them either to contemporary genres very different in scope and functionality or to piano sonatas from a later age when the genre was transformed completely.

I seriously doubt this. All of this is post hoc explanation, not something I brought to listening before. I have been listening to at least some of these sonatas for over 30 years, long before I thought one bit about the relative weight of genres. I'd have thought symphonies and concertos more important but no clue about other genres.

[Jo498]

For weightiness, The Art of Fugue. For profundity, The Goldberg Variations.

I don't know whether Scarlatti's 30 Essercizi or Couperin's L'Art de Toucher le Clavecin are as systematic an exploration of effects and structures as AoF -- that would give them what I'm calling weightiness. And I don't know whether the pieces in variation form in the Handel suites have hidden symmetries and numerological cyphers like The Goldberg Variations -- which would give it profundity.   

Numerology seems about the most shallow kind of profundity music could have, as it seems mostly external (it's a bit like cramming a book full of esoteric historical or scientific details like Eco or Neal Stephenson do), I think Bach is much better than that, despite numerology and symbolism. Of course Handel doesn't have this, least of all in the keyboard music, a lot of which already written in Hamburg when he was 20. He was an entertainer and entrepreneur who only sometimes got profound by accident. A bit like Mozart, the music had to fit the demands of the market but they sometimes managed to make it emotionally deep nevertheless.

Bach was an exception, but only to some extent. After all, some of the keyboard music is what he published and that remained in circulation. So there must have been some demand for it. And not only for teaching (both composition and playing), but also for entertainment. And the more gallant/virtuoso pieces like the Italian concerto and some of the Partitas were apparently no contradiction to profundity.

Most of this seems beside the point I was trying to make. Because virtually every instrumental music in the 18th century was (also) supposed to be "diverting music for private (or how many people might have attended some gathering in a minor court) entertainment". It's no special feature of the piano sonata vs. violin concerto vs. string quartet. Thus it can hardly explain differences between the genres, if there are any.
If anything, more "public" music like concerti or opera should be more likely to be "shallow crowd pleasers" than more intimate music addressed mostly at the players themselves and a small circle of friends who would appreciate musical sublety.
Of course, such stark oppositions are always an oversimplification.* And it did change, i.e. the idea that music could and should be "sublime" instead of "merely (or mostly) divertissement" became stronger but not in same way at the same pace for every genre.

What I was saying is that Mozart played a rôle  in transforming music from "mere entertainment" to "sublime" (or in any case towards more sophisticated entertainment ) but I think that he transformed the (piano) concerto (and several other genres) far more in this direction than the piano sonata. The reasons are speculative and probably historical accidents as Mozart would alway have time first of all for opera (most financial and reputational gains) and then concerto or symphony for public concerts (with a clear preference for concerti in his Vienna years, probably because this let him showcase his strengths both as composer and virtuoso). For publication the differences between quartets, violin and piano sonatas should have been rather small, so we probably cannot exactly know why he wrote three groups of 3-6 piano sonatas each between 1775 and 1780 and only a few "isolated" single works afterwards but 10 string quartets and many other large scale chamber works from 1782-90. The group of works where he seems closest to the "Bachian" (or Beethovenian) stance, namely exploring music "for its own sake" are the quartets dedicated to Haydn.

* these aspects can often be found right next to each other within the same work, an extreme and supreme example of this is The Magic Flute.

[Mandryka]

Just a very quick point, Jo, in reaction to your phrase "emotionally deep."

In baroque music you often only know what sort of emotions you should aim to arouse in the audience during a performance because you've looked at the external things. One very clear example is in BWV 684, which is based on the hymn Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam. I would argue that the only way to really know how to play it, and as it happens what affects to aim for to give it "emotional depth", is by looking at what Luther said about Jesus's baptism (the blood of the crucifixion flowing in the Jordan, that sort of thing.)

Egarr argues similarly for the toccata of the BWV 830 - an examination of the numerology encoded in the score takes him to seeing certain rhythmic devices as being musical representations of Christ staggering under the weight of the cross on the road to Calvary - and playing them as a staggering gesture is rather effective.

So no, I don't agree that external things are shallow - on the contrary, I think they are the key to seeing the things you think make for depth in musical performance, the sentiments the players arouse.

I would also argue that just greatness in architecture is partly constituted by the structure of the building, greatness in composed music is partly constituted by the structure of the composition.

[Scion7]

meanwhile, give Eschenbach's box set of Mozart's sonatas a spin .....

[Spotted Horses]

I'd say that to deny  how much greater their overall achievement is, is underestimating the piano concertos.

Mozart took the (piano) concerto genre from comparably modest scale and scope it had with the Bach sons etc. and transformed it and created about 20 great works, still all different from each other. He did nothing like this with the piano sonata. The sonatas are all good, there are some remarkable ones (like the c minor or the last one) but Mozart himself apparently cared so little about the genre (or there was just very little demand) that after K 333 he only wrote a handful, one of which is a tiny sonatina (545).
Apparently the K numbers of the earlier ones are off, the earliest six stem already from 1775 (their revised edition K numbers are in the 180s, not 280s) and 330-333 might be as early as 1778 or as late as 1782). If this dating is correct, the earliest set is among the most accomplished works of that time; I still find the violin concerti and a few symphonies from that period more interesting.

Anyway, as a body of work they don't come close to Mozart's piano concertos or Beethoven's piano sonatas either within each composers oeuvre or in the history of the genre.
Interestingly, the grandest sonatas are all from the period of the great piano concertos, namely K 457 c minor as well as the two pianos K 448 and the 4 hands K 497

They are good, some even great because Mozart is generally very good, regardless of genre, but I don't think he did anything as special here as with many the piano concertos or a lot of the mature chamber. music, the last 4 symphonies etc.

Thanks for reminding me I haven't gotten around to listening to these yet.

[Mandryka]

No, I haven't done any reading on the piano sonatas besides what might have been in general books/essays on Mozart (lke Einstein's, Knepler's...) or on Classical music in general. Maybe that's why I supposedly "underestimate" them.

I do admit that IMO some of them come close to "Mozart on autopilot" (although still in a non-offensive way, not like flute quartets...) and I have the distinct impression that he was not that interested in the genre in his most creative periods.
Or to put it in a different perspective, although the differences are small, I also have the impression that he was more interested in the piano-violin-sonata but this might be because there are no Haydn violin sonatas and I probably haven't heard any other 1770s-80 piano + violin sonatas whereas I have heard piano sonatas by Bach sons, Haydn, maybe even other contemporaries. Or because the interaction makes piano+violin more attractive (but I don't feel like that in the case of e.g. Beethoven or Schubert).

As I wrote above, it seems that many of the exceptions, namely the c minor, the two piano K 448 and the grandest of the 4-hand sonatas 497 were written at the same time as his great piano concertos 450-503.

Both John Irving's books -- Mozart's Piano Sonatas and Understanding Mozart's Piano Sonatas -- look very valuable. If I were in a bookshop browsing them I would buy. The former seems encyclopaedic -- facts about the music and it's context.  The latter seems hermeneutic, ideas about the possibilities of interpretation. Neither seem "dry", neither seem to require more understanding of how to analyse a score than I have.

[Florestan]

Let's be clear:  there was nothing about Bach that was "old-fashioned."
He is one of the four or five greatest composers in history.

For us. For (most) people in the 1770s his msuic was decidedly old-fashioned and by that time his influence had all but vanished, supplanted by that of his cutting-edge modernist sons, Carl Philip Emmanuel and Johann Christian. Mozart's oft-quoted remark "Bach is the father, we are the children" refers not to JS but to CPE.

[Florestan]

For weightiness, The Art of Fugue. For profundity, The Goldberg Variations.

The AoF was written for no specific instrument(ation). Considering it a keyboard work is too much of a stretch.

As for GV, if its profundity lies in numerological symbolism and combinations then I'm afraid such profundity is lost on the vast majority of music-loving people, who prefer to listen to their music, not to analytically dissect it or to have it analytically disected for them. I very much doubt that anyone (you included) could guess, let alone understand, the numerology behind GV simply by listening to them.

Besides, this very numerological thing betrays Bach's old-fashionedness in the 1770s, because such arcane symbolism is an inheritance of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and has got very little, if anything at all, to do with the sentimental and galant styles which were the rage at that time.

[Florestan]

I seriously doubt this.

Okay, then let's agree to disagree and move on to listening some Mozart. 

[Mandryka]

Besides, this very numerological thing betrays Bach's old-fashionedness in the 1770s, because such arcane symbolism is an inheritance of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and has got very little, if anything at all, to do with the sentimental and galant styles which were the rage at that time.

I once read a programme note to the effect that Magic Flute is stuffed with musical symbolism. 3s and 2s. All very meaningful from a Masonic point of view.

[prémont]

The AoF was written for no specific instrument(ation). Considering it a keyboard work is too much of a stretch.

Bach didn't live long enough to write the preface himself. The actual publishers of the printed edition considered it (for practical purpose) a keyboard work.

As for GV, if its profundity lies in numerological symbolism and combinations then I'm afraid such profundity is lost on the vast majority of music-loving people, who prefer to listen to their music, not to analytically dissect it or to have it analytically disected for them. I very much doubt that anyone (you included) could guess, let alone understand, the numerology behind GV simply by listening to them.

Forget about numerology. Its presence neither increases nor detracts from the listening experience.

[Madiel]

I once read a programme note to the effect that Magic Flute is stuffed with musical symbolism. 3s and 2s. All very meaningful from a Masonic point of view.

Given that almost all music is built on 3s and 2s, this seems a bit of a stretch.

[Florestan]

Bach didn't live long enough to write the preface himself. The actual publishers of the printed edition considered it (for practical purpose) a keyboard work.

Okay but if we accept this reasoning, then we have no ground for complaining about fancy titles that subsequent publishers attached (for practical purpose) to ever so many compositions. 

(In all cases, AoF included, the practical purpose being, of course, as many sales as possible.)

Forget about numerology. Its presence neither increases nor detracts from the listening experience.

Sure, that was precisely my point.

[Mandryka]

Forget about numerology. Its presence neither increases nor detracts from the listening experience.

My point was that in some baroque music at least, external things like numerology are a clue about how to perform the music, in particular, what affekts to try to create through phrasing, touch, tempo, alignment of counterpoint and all the rest. This was in response to Jo's point that there's a sense in which music is deep in so far as it makes people feel (presumably subtle) things when they hear it (i.e. hear the performer's ideas about phrasing, touch, tempo etc.) So in a way, if I'm right, it really is central to the listening experience -- but the listener may be unaware of it.

[Mandryka]

Here's Egarr's essay on the Bach Partitas and numerology, symbolism etc

https://static.qobuz.com/goodies/97/000097879.pdf

and this bit of journalism on Mozart and numerology seems OK -- I've only skimmed it (just found it!)

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/apr/05/mozart-bach-music-numbers-codes

[Florestan]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/apr/05/mozart-bach-music-numbers-codes

Works from The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute to Schumann's Lyric Suite betray their creators' fascination with numbers

Schumann's Lyric Suite, hmmmm... 

What's the next number in this sequence? 5, 10, 20, 30, 36 ... ? [...] If you know your Mozart then you'll identify 43 as the number that comes after 36 [...] It's a curious selection of numbers that when added together comes to 144, or 12 squared: perhaps a coincidence or maybe a numerical representation of the impending union of Figaro and his bride Susanna.

All that remains to be explained is how and why 12 squared is a numerical representation of the impending union of Figaro and his bride Susanna. I think I'll stick with coincidence. 

EDIT: All this discussion reminded me of a chapter in Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum which deals exactly with such numerological games and destroys their pretentiousness by taking a very banal object (I can't remember otomh which) and showing that its physical dimensions add up to some very arcane and recondite numerological calculations --- or something to this effect anyway. So, I am pretty sure that I could come up with a Johann Strauss II's waltz or polka-mazur whose hidden numerological symbolism equals that of the Goldberg Variations --- just give me a week time. 

[Scion7]

For us. For (most) people in the 1770s his msuic was decidedly old-fashioned ...

I think you meant most music-listeners, which in the last half of the 18th century was a fraction of the population, most of which were too poor to listen to anything but the corner harmonica player.  In the teaching of music, Bach and Vivaldi and Handel (among others) stood tall.  All one has to do is read the comments by Mozart, Beethoven, etc. etc. etc.

[prémont]

My point was that in some baroque music at least, external things like numerology are a clue about how to perform the music, in particular, what affekts to try to create through phrasing, touch, tempo, alignment of counterpoint and all the rest. This was in response to Jo's point that there's a sense in which music is deep in so far as it makes people feel (presumably subtle) things when they hear it (i.e. hear the performer's ideas about phrasing, touch, tempo etc.) So in a way, if I'm right, it really is central to the listening experience -- but the listener may be unaware of it.

I still need to understand how this insight into the symbolism of numbers in practice affects the artist's way of performing the music. A practical and easily comprehensible example: In 'Dies sind die heilgen zehn Gebot', BWV679 (the small manualite prelude from CÛ 3) the fugal subject appears precisely ten times (it symbolizes the ten commandments, of course). How does the recognition of this influence the interpretation in practice? What does the organist do differently with this knowledge? After all, music cannot express anything but itself. And when Egarr thinks he finds symbolism that points to Jesus' suffering and crucifixion in the E-minor partita, how does this influence his interpretation?

[prémont]

Okay but if we accept this reasoning, then we have no ground for complaining about fancy titles that subsequent publishers attached (for practical purpose) to ever so many compositions. 

(In all cases, AoF included, the practical purpose being, of course, as many sales as possible.)

I don't have the energy to go into this polemic again (and besides it's the wrong thread). Read Leonhardt's essay.

[Mandryka]

I still need to understand how this insight into the symbolism of numbers in practice affects the artist's way of performing the music. A practical and easily comprehensible example: In 'Dies sind die heilgen zehn Gebot', BWV679 (the small manualite prelude from CÛ 3) the fugal subject appears precisely ten times (it symbolizes the ten commandments, of course). How does the recognition of this influence the interpretation in practice? What does the organist do differently with this knowledge? After all, music cannot express anything but itself. And when Egarr thinks he finds symbolism that points to Jesus' suffering and crucifixion in the E-minor partita, how does this influence his interpretation?

Well listen to Egarr and Leonhardt in the toccata and see whether one sounds more like a musical representation of a man staggering under a weight. I just did, and I do!