A different cut on beginners' classical music

[eyeresist]

Gee, for a smartass you sure are ____.

No need to make it personal - I was just funnin' ya.

[Grazioso]

On the other hand, starting in the later 19th century and culminating decisively with Rosen's work, the pendulum began shifting back towards a recognition that Beethoven's work remained firmly grounded in classical models. I don't want to say "rigid forms," because there was an extraordinary variety of approaches to models like sonata-allegro, variations, rondo, within Beethoven's work. But to see Beethoven as essentially classical is still a plausible argument, even if not ultimately definitive. A useful article by Maynard Solomon, "Beethoven: Beyond Classicism," which is included in the book "The Beethoven Quartet Companion" edited by Winter and Martin, shows some of the limitations of the classicist position - particularly the fact that Beethoven's work was often seen by his contemporaries as bizarre, grotesque, and extreme. Ripe for the madhouse, said Weber. And so in this respect some of the attributes often associated with classicism - balance, proportion, ironic detachment - may well be superseded in some (though hardly all) of Beethoven.

And that's where one should take extra care: characterizing LvB's music based primarily or exclusively on formal considerations omits a big part of the picture. The emotional character and impact of many of his works is what presumably has led so many to hear him (as opposed to academically categorizing him) as a Romantic. The latter characteristics may not be as easily defined as his use of forms, but that in no way negates their importance for listeners.

[(poco) Sforzando]

And that's where one should take extra care: characterizing LvB's music based primarily or exclusively on formal considerations omits a big part of the picture. The emotional character and impact of many of his works is what presumably has led so many to hear him (as opposed to academically categorizing him) as a Romantic. The latter characteristics may not be as easily defined as his use of forms, but that in no way negates their importance for listeners.

As a former academic myself, I wince at your use of the term "academic," which I infer you are using pejoratively. Academics are humans beings like everyone else, and they have their share of insights and misunderstandings just like the rest of us. But to say that "emotional character" and "impact" make Beethoven a Romantic seems to imply that composers prior to Beethoven lacked these qualities. I'm not sure that's always the case (think of the Mozart G minor string quintet, especially the fourth movement, or the penultimate scene in Don Giovanni where the statue drags our hero down to hell). Nor am I even sure that Beethoven's forms can always be easily characterized. I had a debate not so long ago with a friend where we couldn't decide where the second subject of the Eroica (1st mvt.) begins, and I was taken aback to read in a recent study that the author felt the slow movement of the 9th is in sonata form, where I was (and still am) certain it is a set of variations.

Problem is, none of these things is simple, and even if we come up with a working definition of what the terms Classic and Romantic mean, we're still going to get bitten on the ass by exceptions and counterarguments. And yet, these terms are almost unavoidable ...

(At this point maybe some of these last posts ought to be moved into a Was Beethoven a Romantic? thread. I think there's one out there somewhere.)

[Robert Dahm]

Well no, I don't regard Robert's post as being definitive in the slightest, regarding Beethoven or anybody else. What Robert has said appeals strongly to our post-Romantic notions of individuality. And of course there are individual variations in the musical personalities of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and any number of other lesser composers one could mention. But to associate these composers with a style called "classicism" is not necessarily to pigeonhole them, so long as both the common features of the language as well as their individual features of style are recognized.

Sorry, I think you hae misapprehended the point I was trying to make. I was certainly not trying to imply that Beethoven was some kind of loner out on a musical limb.

'Classical style' as a descriptor is something that has largely been retroactively applied to a certain period of more-or-less common practice. I don't think Beethoven consciously adopted a classical (or romantic) style. I don't think many composers 'consciously' adopt style at all. Like a mother-tongue, the 'classical style' was the manner in which Beethoven felt most natural expressing his ideas. It simply would not have occurred to him to express them any other way. Same with Mozart. Same with Haydn. This aggregation of shared musical language* is what has made it possible, even natural, for subsequent academics (not in a pejorative sense) to point to these composers and say "this is the classical style". While I don't think there was any doubt in their minds at the time that the music they were writing was very different from the music Handel (for instance), they were close enough to the coalface (I think) to be viewing it as a natural progression out of that music, rather than a new 'school'.

So, yes, labels like Classical and Romantic are useful, but I think we need to remain aware of what the label actually means:
Beethoven was not a 'classical composer', he was a composer whose music exhibits a set of qualities later writers have referred to as 'classical'. Same with Haydn. Same with Mozart.

For my money, Beethoven is more of a classical composer than a romantic composer. Romanticism was, to a great extent, enabled by LvB's work, but I'm not sure that he was a Romantic himself (see Sforzando's post, which was definitive).

*Incidentally, I spent last week listening to the complete symphonies of Haydn (the Brilliant Classics release). It's interesting to hear Haydn trying to come to terms with what a symphony actually is. We are so familiar with Beethoven's 9 symphonies, and their innovations with relation to symphonic form, and it's sobering to reflect that only a few decades earlier the 'symphonic form' (in the specific way we think of the classical symphony) hadn't yet percolated into anything resembling common practice. I love, for instance, that No. 4 ends with a Minuet, and that No. 5 begins with an Adagio. When, in symphony 60, you first hear what we now think of as the 'Haydn slow introduction', it's generally shocking and exciting.

[Teresa]

... perhaps a person used to rock bands can find more to enjoy in a quartet, where they can follow every line like they can with rock music.

Not likely IMHO as rock bands have at least a drum set and many have additional percussionists as well.  It is rare that a classical string quartet ever has any percussion.

[Teresa]

Here is the link to my newest greatly expanded and rename article Classical Music for music lovers who don't think they like Classical Music http://sacdlives.blogspot.com/2009/02/classical-music-for-music-lovers-who.html

And the link to my published version of The Basic Power Orchestral Repertoire or Classical music for folks who don't like Classical music http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue35/classical_music.htm

Also I updated the links in the older posts to my new articles and blogs.

[Fëanor]

Here is the link to my newest greatly expanded and rename article Classical Music for music lovers who don't think they like Classical Music http://sacdlives.blogspot.com/2009/02/classical-music-for-music-lovers-who.html

And the link to my published version of The Basic Power Orchestral Repertoire or Classical music for folks who don't like Classical music http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue35/classical_music.htm

Also I updated the links in the older posts to my new articles and blogs.

Thanks for the update, Teresa.  Your articles were and are very interesting.

[The new erato]

Not likely IMHO as rock bands have at least a drum set and many have additional percussionists as well.  It is rare that a classical string quartet ever has any percussion.

Pavel Haas has one, the 2nd:

"Haas wrote the second string quartet, titled "From the Monkey Mountains", at the age of 26 as a reminiscence of his summer holiday in the Czech-Moravian Highlands, which went by this nickname in Brno at the time. The individual movements are more or less genre images. The quartet joins forces here with the 30 year old internationally renowned percussionist from Edinburgh, Colin Currie, to present the version with percussion instruments"

From the notes on the Supraphon recording by the Pavel Haas Quartet.

[Teresa]

Pavel Haas has one, the 2nd:

"Haas wrote the second string quartet, titled "From the Monkey Mountains", at the age of 26 as a reminiscence of his summer holiday in the Czech-Moravian Highlands, which went by this nickname in Brno at the time. The individual movements are more or less genre images. The quartet joins forces here with the 30 year old internationally renowned percussionist from Edinburgh, Colin Currie, to present the version with percussion instruments"

From the notes on the Supraphon recording by the Pavel Haas Quartet.

Thanks, I listened to sound samples and the percussion is only in the fourth movement, overall I am sad to say I was not impressed with the composition.  However it is good to see composers starting to spice up their works for small ensembles the way they do with larger forces. 

[Bulldog]

Thanks, I listened to sound samples and the percussion is only in the fourth movement, overall I am sad to say I was not impressed with the composition.  However it is good to see composers starting to spice up their works for small ensembles the way they do with larger forces.

It would be difficult for Haas to start spicing up his works; he died in 1944.

[Florestan]

Complaining about chamber music not having percussion is like asking the apple tree to grow peaches.

[Fëanor]

Not likely IMHO as rock bands have at least a drum set and many have additional percussionists as well.  It is rare that a classical string quartet ever has any percussion.

To imply that a string quartet ought to have percussion is to miss the point of the string quartet form.

[Florestan]

To imply that a string quartet ought to have percussion is to miss the point of the string quartet form.

Precisely.

[MN Dave]

Debussy's could have used a good beat behind it.

*runs away*

[Teresa]

Well Jazz Quartets and Rock Quartets have percussion and I believe this is one reason me and other listeners from other music worlds have a very hard time trying to listen to most chamber music is the absence of percussion.

There are larger chamber works with percussion I do love though, Stravinsky's "L'histoire Du Soldat", Kurt Weil's "Kleine Dreigroschenmusik" and Leonard Bernstein's "Prelude, Fugue and Riffs" for example.  I know there are others I have yet to discover.

[Franco]

Well Jazz Quartets and Rock Quartets have percussion and I believe this is one reason me and other listeners from other music worlds have a very hard time trying to listen to most chamber music is the absence of percussion.

I came from the jazz/rock world to classical music and don't have any trouble listening to chamber music.  In fact, I prefer it (string quartets in particular), in general, to orchestral music.  And the orchestral music I especially like is the kind where the composer uses the orchestra not tutti but as a series of small ensembles.

[Florestan]

Well Jazz Quartets and Rock Quartets have percussion and I believe this is one reason me and other listeners from other music worlds have a very hard time trying to listen to most chamber music is the absence of percussion.

That's because you confuse one genre with another. Chamber music is neither jazz nor rock. It's a completely different kind of music, with a completely different outlook and completely different expressive tools.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I've been working on an arrangement of Beethoven's C# minor quartet for maracas and xylophones.

[Grazioso]

Well Jazz Quartets and Rock Quartets have percussion and I believe this is one reason me and other listeners from other music worlds have a very hard time trying to listen to most chamber music is the absence of percussion.

I think most people who love rock enjoy the beat more than the percussion in and of itself, and either way, most rock fans seem to focus more on the melodies and lyrics than any subtleties of drumming--let alone harmony or form, which tend to be extremely cliched and simple. (With jazz, harmony and rhythm tend to be much more sophisticated, while form tends again to be simple and generic.)

While chamber music in particular, and classical music in general, usually lacks (extensive) percussion, it does usually have very clear rhythms to which you can tap you toes just as easily as if a bass drum were thumping time. If someone can't hear/feel the rhythm of a Vivaldi violin concerto or a Mahler march tune, then they need to develop their ear

I came to classical from rock (to which I still listen) and love jazz. The absence of a drum kit in chamber music has been no hindrance to me at all. And I tend to agree with Lethe's original supposition that the clarity of texture in most chamber music makes it perhaps easier for a rock fan to enjoy, but then again, outside of musicians, not many rock listeners in my experience pay any attention to details, which are so important in classical music: which one of them can hum the bass line back to you after listening to a song, or tell you the time signature or how many different chords are used in the chorus?

Ultimately, anyone going into classical music hoping to find rock played with violins is missing the point entirely. It's like hoping your salad will taste like a bowl of chili. I think anyone who loves music should be able to move between radically different genres with relative ease and not automatically seek or need some stylistic common ground. They'll understand that they need to develop an understanding of each genre's unique suppositions and aims so they can approach the music on its own terms.

[Szykneij]

Well Jazz Quartets and Rock Quartets have percussion

But the drummer in a Jazz quartet is one of the four players, with a specific role in that style of music. If you add a drummer to a string quartet, you no longer have a quartet --  unless you want to replace one of the string players with the drummer. Then you'll have yourself a quartet, but not a string quartet.

and I believe this is one reason me and other listeners from other music worlds have a very hard time trying to listen to most chamber music is the absence of percussion.

"I give it a seven ... I like the beat!"