Bach's polyphony

[Cato]

Polyphony is parallel with the rediscovery of painting in a perspective of 3 dimensions.  

Polyphony cannot be seen as a mistake or a detour.  Even the few I-IV-V chords accompanying a simple melody or hymn can be viewed as a "second theme": they sure beat a drone note!

Any musical debate between the polyphonists and the harmonicists was also parallel with the painting debates in the French Academy on line (intellectuality) versus color (sensuousness).

Percussion texturing is the stepsister of true polyphony.

Check the opening to the last movement of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony!

And for nonuple counterpoint, see Prokofiev's Second Symphony!

[Sean]

James

...name me a composer who wrote contrapuntally has profoundly as Bach did?

Many many renaissance masters, for instance Palestrina and Lassus: they're extremely skilled in their democratically conceived homogeneous polyphony as much as their note for note homophony, but neither communicates as does simple but quality counterpoint with one line supported by subordinate lines.

[Sean]

Cato

Any musical debate between the polyphonists and the harmonicists was also parallel with the painting debates in the French Academy on line (intellectuality) versus color (sensuousness).

Well I can admire its purity.

[bwv 1080]

irregardless of the mere formal expansions of mozart, his music is a simplification after bach. name me a composer who wrote contrapuntally has profoundly as Bach did? where the horizontal/vertical conception is so perfect, its widely considered that he is the highest achiever in this area, the hardest and most rigourous in composing. Beethoven's counterpoint, in fact, all counterpoint after Bach's time was conceived and heard quite differently as ive already stated. the proof is in the music.

Yes the counterpoint was different, just as Bach's polyphony was different from Josquin's.  Composers after Bach had different aesthetic goals.

[Don]

This whole "Bach's music is intellectual" argumentation is a LOT more boring (amongst other things) than Bach's music supposedly is.

Q

Can't argue with the above logic.  I've been listening to Fellner's WTC Bk. 1, and it's much more rewarding that these posts arguing the worth of polyphony.

[bwv 1080]

irregardless of the mere formal expansions of mozart, his music is a simplification after bach, and vertically conceived

Not texturally or rhythmically.  Bach is very simple in this regard compared to Mozart

[bwv 1080]

name me for instance a mozart keyboard work that is as polyphonic in texture as a bach one? how about a large scale religious work? etc etc etc

Why limit to keyboard works?  Ever heard the finale of the Jupiter Symphony? There is no finer example of counterpoint in the repertoire.  Can you name a piece of Bach that has quintuple invertible counterpoint?


The point about texture is that Bach's music tends to have the same texture throughout the piece whereas changes in texture are characteristic of Mozart and the classical style in general. 

And if Bach's technique was not well understood you could never have musical works like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgDcC2LOJhQ

[DavidW]

wha? i have to hear the mozart you are listening to.

name me for instance a mozart keyboard work that is as polyphonic in texture as a bach one? how about a large scale religious work? etc etc etc

bach wouldn't have raised an eyebrow at mozart's music, with its lean, clean and simple textures.....it and the music of that period is a vast simplification compared to the high baroque, believe it...

By focusing on harmony, which is just one aspect of music, you've missed out on other aspects.  Whether Mozart's music is more rhythmically complex than Bach, I don't know.  But I do feel that the tonal shading in Mozart's orchestral works can be more interesting than Bach.  He more clearly writes specifically for the instruments that he intends, and also makes much better use of the wind instruments.  I also think that Mozart is more melodic.

I don't think that Bach triumphs over Mozart.  He is clearly better than Mozart in some ways, while Mozart is better than Bach in others.  They approached music from different aesthetics.

[karlhenning]

The Gurnatron will be pleased, David! 

[Don]

er, this is a discussion forum....and id rather participate in thought provoking debates on music here than mindlessly list what you've purchased today, or are considering purchasing or are listening to etc (who cares?)...

Keep your shirt on my friend.  There's plenty of room for purchasing, listening and talking.  For me, the purchasing and listening to music leads to discussion.  BUT, if push comes to shove, I'll take listening over all else.  Another thing to keep in mind is that this discussion about polyphony is going nowhere.  Sean isn't going to change his mind no matter what arguments are made in its defense. 

Just for the record, I love polyphony.  It enriches the emotional content and architecture.  Now I'm off to follow up Fellner's WTC with the French Suites from harpsichordist David Cates. 

[bwv 1080]

i had my reasons for asking but ....you can't deliver ..

sounds like you don't Bach too well AT ALL, there are loads of Bach with 3 to 6 part counterpoint,

No, you do not understand the term INVERTIBLE counterpoint.  there is a difference.  The finale of the Jupiter Symphony is the only example in all of classical music which I am aware of.  It is a masterpiece of contrapuntal writing not inferior to anything Bach wrote

[Don]

Not an easy one - Bach's counterpoint vs. Mozart's.  Just for the sake of experimentation, I gave my dog General Jackson a choice between a Bach cd of the Art of Fugue and a Mozart having the Jupiter Symphony.  

The General chose the Bach; teeth marks do not lie.  Wow!  he has a great sense of aesthetics.  That's why I often let the General choose the evening's musical program.  Last night he selected Leif Kayser symphonies with the Chopin/Rachmaninov cello sonatas as a chaser.  Unfortunately, I fell asleep during the second movement of Kayser's 2nd symphony.  General Jackson did not like this development.

[orbital]

Can anyone tell me how many voices there are in the fugue section of BWV 965 a minor sonata? I can't figure it out 

[bwv 1080]

And what does this have to do with the my original point? Absolutely nothing.

Its one example of Mozart's mastery of counterpoint.  You asked me to name a work comparable to Bach - that was your original point.

[Don]

And what does this have to do with the my original point? Absolutely nothing.


ps.  Art of Fugue. Loads of invertable counterpoint, examine the canons, try Contrapunctus IV for starts....

Yup, Contrapunctus IV is a beautiful example of invertible counterpoint.  Think I'll head for Gould's AoF and get a mix of piano and organ.  You folks are inspiring my listening regimen today.

[Sean]

James

...Beethoven didn't call Bach "The immortal God of Harmony" for nothing you know, he very well knew the immense ungraspable depths of Bach's greatest music.

Okay. I never had any doubts that Bach's keyboard output is great music, and I find AoF especially fascinating and rewarding, and interesting to understand, reaching into depths few other works do. But melody is surely central to what music is and unless you take a more purely formal view of art (as many modernist theorists do for instance) and ignore content for its own sake, Bach's music has to be seen as only one of the key stepping stones to the true music of the romantic, where formal concerns, counterpoint and emotional content can all be found in balance.

...But all these insights & fumblings would have been guided by the unseen hand of the overtone series. So to summarise here ... I think parallel evolutions will have taken place and they would have cross-fertilised each other to some extent.

Yes I've been most interested in this line of thought, and I'm certainly on the side of the argument that looks for patterns across cultures, and against cultural relativism.

... the sheer motor energy of Bach ... joy & life giving intensity.

I take these points, but I think you have adopt more of a formalist aesthetic stance (which I notice others also point out here)- which puts a lot of musical passion, as located in notes and melodies themselves and not just in their structural interrelations, out of your reach.

Mozart's melodies also guide his counterpoint in ways that Bach's Germanic architectural theorizing doesn't allow: Mozart is then intuitively and more holistically satisfying on levels Bach simply doesn't reach. From our vantage point, we know you can't really justify a lengthy piece in completely monotonous rhythm no matter how good the polyphony is: natural musical syntax is missing- and I insist that this is perfectly observable and uncontroversial.

[Don]

James

Okay. I never had any doubts that Bach's keyboard output is great music, and I find AoF especially fascinating and rewarding, and interesting to understand, reaching into depths few other works do. But melody is surely central to what music is and unless you take a more purely formal view of art (as many modernist theorists do for instance) and ignore content for its own sake, Bach's music has to be seen as only one of the key stepping stones to the true music of the romantic, where formal concerns, counterpoint and emotional content can all be found in balance.

Yes I've been most interested in this line of thought, and I'm certainly on the side of the argument that looks for patterns across cultures, and against cultural relativism.

I take these points, but I think you have adopt more of a formalist aesthetic stance (which I notice others also point out here)- which puts a lot of musical passion, as located in notes and melodies themselves and not just in their structural interrelations, out of your reach.

Mozart's melodies also guide his counterpoint in ways that Bach's Germanic architectural theorizing doesn't allow: Mozart is then intuitively and more holistically satisfying on levels Bach simply doesn't reach. From our vantage point, we know you can't really justify a lengthy piece in completely monotonous rhythm no matter how good the polyphony is: natural musical syntax is missing- and I insist that this is perfectly observable and uncontroversial.
[/quote/]

The above is a perfect example of taking one's personal preferences and trying to build an objective/logical foundation to justify said preferences.  I'm sure that every strong Bach enthusiast is well aware of the immensely effective outpouring of emotion in his music.  Anyone who can't hear it doesn't know Bach. 

[Sean]

Don, well you seem to be defining emotion differently to me- there is beauty of form, and beauty of melodic content (or vertical harmony as James says- for instance in Messiaen, or in ars nova music) per se. Bach's greatest music is the unaccompanied works for cello and violin- where his tendencies to contrapuntal deviousnessness were necessarily contained.

[Don]

Don, well you seem to be defining emotion differently to me- there is beauty of form, and beauty of melodic content (or vertical harmony as James says- for instance in Messiaen, or in ars nova music) per se. Bach's greatest music is the unaccompanied works for cello and violin- where his tendencies to contrapuntal deviousnessness were necessarily contained.

If we don't define emotion in a similar manner, there's no point to this communication.  All I can say is that Bach's music covers every emotion possessed by humans and is not dominated by some structural rigidity. 

But Sean, your head is in a different world than mine, and it's best to leave it at that.

[Sean]

Sure thing.