GMG Classical Music Forum

Okay I've been restricting my music to classical era music and I've started reading Rosen's book on the Classical Style.

I thought it would be neat to discuss things with my fellow gmgers that I'm interested in or want a second opinion on, or don't understand.  It would be neat to talk about Classicism.

I thought this would be a good thread for any sort of discussion about the classical era not already covered by recordings and composer threads.  The only thing that I would like to avoid is the discussion of recordings and also would like to not engage in list making.  I'm not trying to be offensive, it's just that we already have threads to suit that purpose.

I want to emphasize that this is not a reading group thread, it just gives *me* a focus.  I'm hoping that topics branch topics naturally, we'll see. :)

I put this in the beginner's room because (a) I am in the beginner mode of requesting opinions, advice and knowledge and (b) because this thread won't be so easily pushed off the front page like it would in other rooms. :)

Okay my first batch of questions--

1. This actually came from an off topic remark on a Mahler/Bruckner thread.  Do you think that Mozart's motivic development is more difficult to follow than Haydn and Beethoven?  I don't have any problem with most of his orchestral music, but Mozart's chamber music can be tricky to follow at times.  Haydn, in contrast, doesn't seem quite as difficult to follow.  Or is this the case of me focusing on a few works that give the wrong picture?  For Mozart, it's later chamber works like his quintet for piano and winds that have been on my mind, and for Haydn his Op 33 String Quartets.  I could be misled.

Now this is from Rosen.

2. E.T.A. Hoffman thought of Mozart and Haydn as the first Romantic composers.  Do you agree with this view or disagree?  Why?  In their purity of style they certainly stood out but I'm at a complete loss as to what he was thinking or meant by that.  This also brings me to the point of view that some take-- you can only appreciate these great composers (Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven) by comparison to the mediocre majority of their contemporaries.  I already know Rosen's opinion, but I'm interested in hearing yours-- would you agree, disagree, or think that is misleading and settle on a more complex answer?

I have more questions, but I want to see if we can have some fun with these, or others proposed by other posters. :)

Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:50:26 PM
Okay my first batch of questions--

1. Do you think that Mozart's motivic development is more difficult to follow than Haydn and Beethoven? 

2. Or is this the case of me focusing on a few works that give the wrong picture? 

1. No I don't find Mozart's motivic development harder to follow. Because of Mozart's strict use of form, I find his works to be very logical and easy to follow. I haven't noticed more of a problem with the later works, but I do notice that they are more developed and dense.

2. I think so.

Have you tried starting with the piano sonatas (then the violin sonatas, then the trios, etc)? Or with the string quartets? Perhaps listening to a given chamber genre from the early works forward would help fine-tune your listening? 

Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:55:51 PM
Now this is from Rosen.

2. E.T.A. Hoffman thought of Mozart and Haydn as the first Romantic composers. 

Gurn would have a cow over the thought of Mozart / Haydn being "romantic."

LvB was the first "romantic" (with his Eroica Symphony).

Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:55:51 PM
Now this is from Rosen.

2. E.T.A. Hoffman thought of Mozart and Haydn as the first Romantic composers.  Do you agree with this view or disagree? 

How does E.T.A. Hoffman define "Romantic" composer?

Quote
In their purity of style they certainly stood out but I'm at a complete loss as to what he was thinking or meant by that.  This also brings me to the point of view that some take-- you can only appreciate these great composers (Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven) by comparison to the mediocre majority of their contemporaries.  I already know Rosen's opinion, but I'm interested in hearing yours-- would you agree, disagree, or think that is misleading and settle on a more complex answer?

On the one hand, I can see that perhaps he meant that with Haydn and Mozart, we see a stronger emphasis placed on the expression of emotion. I can agree with that, but I think romantic composers offer more than that. They offer looser use of form, wider range of dynamics and larger scaled performances. On the other hand, if Mozart and Haydn were the first Romantic composers, then where does that leave the classical period? Does Hoffmann propose that there was no Classical period in music history?

Quote from: George on May 24, 2007, 05:11:17 PM
On the other hand, if Mozart and Haydn were the first Romantic composers, then where does that leave the classical period? Does Hoffmann propose that there was no Classical period in music history?

Salieri ........

Quote from: D Minor on May 24, 2007, 05:07:34 PM
Gurn would have a cow over the thought of Mozart / Haydn being "romantic."

LvB was the first "romantic" (with his Eroica Symphony).

The more I listen to LvB, the more I see him as an extension of the composers who came before him rather than connections to those who came after him. When I listen to Haydn, I often wish the music would push a bit harder, like Beethoven does. Haydn's music reminds me of Beethoven more than any post-Beethoven composer does.

Also, I would say that to me the relationship between a composer and his predecessors and/or his successors seems more practical than discussing arbitrary distinctions as Romantic or Classical. As one looks a bit closer at many of the composers in these periods, exceptions seem to surface to such an extent that the labels lose much of their usefulness.

   

Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:55:51 PM
Now this is from Rosen.

2. E.T.A. Hoffman thought of Mozart and Haydn as the first Romantic composers. 

You have to understand that E.T.A. Hoffman died in 1822, so he had no knowledge of the music we most commonly think of as "romantic". Even Schumann and Chopin were but lads then. But Romanticism, as a movement in literature, was already in full swing and the composers that most fully fell in line with the movement's themes such the idealization of nature and emphasis on emotion as opposed to reason were Beethoven and Weber, and no doubt there are others whose names are but footnotes today. About Beethoven, Hoffman said "Beethoven's music sets in motion the lever of fear, of awe, of horror, of suffering, and awakens just that infinite longing which is essence of romanticism." Mozart and Haydn were the two composers who had a big influence on Beethoven and so Hoffman would have seen the seeds of Beethoven's romanticism in their work.

Quote from: Mark G. Simon on May 24, 2007, 05:37:45 PM
You have to understand that E.T.A. Hoffman died in 1822, so he had no knowledge of the music we most commonly think of as "romantic". Even Schumann and Chopin were but lads then. But Romanticism, as a movement in literature, was already in full swing and the composers that most fully fell in line with the movement's themes such the idealization of nature and emphasis on emotion as opposed to reason were Beethoven and Weber, and no doubt there are others whose names are but footnotes today. About Beethoven, Hoffman said "Beethoven's music sets in motion the lever of fear, of awe, of horror, of suffering, and awakens just that infinite longing which is essence of romanticism." Mozart and Haydn were the two composers who had a big influence on Beethoven and so Hoffman would have seen the seeds of Beethoven's romanticism in their work.

Good point.  :)

The Classico-Romantic period really began life as a fusion between the lighter, reactionary (to Baroque, that is) galant music that could be exemplified by J.C. Bach & early Mozart, and the heavily sentimental and emotional Empfindsang music that could be represented by C.P.E. Bach. Haydn first, and later Mozart, took these two quite different styles and synthesized them into what we now call "Viennese High Classical" or the "First Viennese School". It serves the purpose well to use these 4 as models because they are all so representative of the time, among the very best composers then, and their music is easily obtainable today to listen to. One should do so, it is a very enjoyable educational experience.

I am not a music theorist, so whatever I have got wrong can be easily corrected by those who are. But one of the early hallmarks of galant music is that, because it was dance music, it had an even number of beats in a measure, and an even number of measures in a phrase, etc. This is what gives it the characteristic, rounded off rhythm that lets you pick it out pretty fast, and follow the various developments as you mention, David. But Haydn took and started going to irregular rhythms, and phrases or irregular length, i.e. instead of 8 + 8 + 8, he would use 9 + 7 + 8, so this broke up what came to be viewed as rhythmic monotony. And the reason that a lot of people find "classical" era music boring is exactly that, there is a regularity to it that we tend to not get involved in. Many of the main composers of the time, the ones who were really popular then, like Vanhal and Ditters to name a couple that we really like here at GMG ( ;) ),  did exactly that. And one of the complaints that the contemporaries of Haydn and Mozart had about them, when they say their music was a bizarre joke (which they did, early and often) stemmed from just that point. The false recapitulations and other scherzi of Haydn came later :)

Anyway, there are two things that really make the best classical era music stand out: great use of orchestral dynamics (Introduced by Jomelli in Munich or Mannheim around 1750) which simply wasn't done in instrumental music before then, and this irregular phrase length which was probably not invented by Haydn, but was certainly exploited by him on a large scale, and taken up by Mozart after he moved to Vienna in 1781. Of course, that just scratches the surface of this subject, but it's a start.

I like Mark's answer about what Hoffman thought Romanticism was. Clearly it was NOT what WE think of as Romanticism. And in his terms, he may very well have been right. After all, the "Young Werther" book by Goethe that is reputedly the early beginning of the literary Romantic movement was written <> 1771, and the Stürm und Drang movement in music was roughly around that time, before and after, in fact, and the popular notion that the two were connected may not be factual, but they DID both stem from a cultural phenomenon that was apparently widespread enough in Greater Germany at the time to affect both music AND literature. A common ancestor, as it were.  :)

8)

Only in some of late Haydn (The Creation) and late Mozart (Requiem) can one discern hints of the Romantic.

Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:50:26 PM
Okay my first batch of questions--

1. This actually came from an off topic remark on a Mahler/Bruckner thread.  Do you think that Mozart's motivic development is more difficult to follow than Haydn and Beethoven?  I don't have any problem with most of his orchestral music, but Mozart's chamber music can be tricky to follow at times.  Haydn, in contrast, doesn't seem quite as difficult to follow.  Or is this the case of me focusing on a few works that give the wrong picture?  For Mozart, it's later chamber works like his quintet for piano and winds that have been on my mind, and for Haydn his Op 33 String Quartets.  I could be misled.

Haydn wrote his themes to develop them into something good, while Mozart started out with perfection and just tweaks it a bit. I find Haydn harder to follow but then again I limit myself to like Mozart 80 percent of the time.

Quote from: D Minor on May 24, 2007, 05:16:20 PM
Salieri ........

Salieri is a hater.

If it helps Ive heard Mozart was quite the kisser.

As a supplement to the technical and historical issues Gurn raises:

By and large, I think Classical-era music might be said to be social, public, external, extroverted. It's listener-centered music, music for shared, public occasions. Oppose that to the presumed Romantic focus on personal expression, on powerful individual statements of the composer's inner life. In a sense, that's music about the artist that happens to be overheard by audiences. The individual voice is foregrounded. An oversimplification, to be sure, but I think it's a valid and helpful distinction. You can listen to more than a few Mozart adagios, for example, and hear something very much akin to the latter. It begins to sound more like one man putting his (strong) emotions on display than "just" an entertainment for public consumption.

Quote from: D Minor on May 24, 2007, 05:07:34 PM
LvB was the first "romantic" (with his Eroica Symphony).

So Sturm und Drang was not at all "romantic"?

Quote from: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 03:57:01 AM
So Sturm und Drang was not at all "romantic"?

No, it was very much so... :)

8)

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 24, 2007, 06:25:15 PM
. . . one of the early hallmarks of galant music is that, because it was dance music, it had an even number of beats in a measure, and an even number of measures in a phrase, etc. This is what gives it the characteristic, rounded off rhythm that lets you pick it out pretty fast, and follow the various developments as you mention, David. But Haydn took and started going to irregular rhythms . . . .

Ah-ha! He was Hungarian!  8)

Most enjoyable post, Gurn!  Bring it on!

Quote from: George on May 24, 2007, 05:03:04 PM
Have you tried starting with the piano sonatas (then the violin sonatas, then the trios, etc)? Or with the string quartets? Perhaps listening to a given chamber genre from the early works forward would help fine-tune your listening? 

Start with early works, I like that idea, I think maybe the early string quintet... :)

Quote from: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 05:24:42 AM
Ah-ha! He was Hungarian!  8)

Most enjoyable post, Gurn!  Bring it on!

Haydn was born in what was then, and still is today, Austria - in Rohrau (Niederösterreich).
I know M forever was of the opinion that Haydn was Hungarian, but then he thought of Austrians as Germans...so he lost me on that.

Q

Quote from: Mark G. Simon on May 24, 2007, 05:37:45 PM
You have to understand that E.T.A. Hoffman died in 1822, so he had no knowledge of the music we most commonly think of as "romantic". Even Schumann and Chopin were but lads then. But Romanticism, as a movement in literature, was already in full swing and the composers that most fully fell in line with the movement's themes such the idealization of nature and emphasis on emotion as opposed to reason were Beethoven and Weber, and no doubt there are others whose names are but footnotes today. About Beethoven, Hoffman said "Beethoven's music sets in motion the lever of fear, of awe, of horror, of suffering, and awakens just that infinite longing which is essence of romanticism." Mozart and Haydn were the two composers who had a big influence on Beethoven and so Hoffman would have seen the seeds of Beethoven's romanticism in their work.

I follow you Mark, it's difficult to identify eras when you're in the middle of it, it's much easier to do it in hindsight.  But Hoffman did see the importance of the composers and that musical tradition was definitively changing.  Okay, cool.

Quote from: Que on May 25, 2007, 05:43:47 AM
Haydn was born in what was then, and still is today, Austria - in Rohrau (Niederösterreich).
I know M forever was of the opinion that Haydn was Hungarian, but then he thought of Austrians as Germans...so he lost me on that.

Mind you, Q, I don't have an opinion on the matter.

But it is at the least possible for a Hungarian to be born in Austria, of course.

Quote from: DavidW on May 25, 2007, 05:44:59 AM
I follow you Mark, it's difficult to identify eras when you're in the middle of it, it's much easier to do it in hindsight.

Sometimes, it isn't any easier later, but okay!  :)

Quote from: Que on May 25, 2007, 05:43:47 AM
I know M forever was of the opinion that Haydn was Hungarian,

...... at which point it becomes factual ........

Quote from: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 05:55:14 AM
Mind you, Q, I don't have an opinion on the matter.

Duly noted, Karl! :)

Quote from: karlhenning on May 25, 2007, 05:55:14 AM
But it is at the least possible for a Hungarian to be born in Austria, of course.

True, if he would have been of Hungarian ethnicity. Because he was certainly an Austrian citizen, since Hungary did not exist as an independent state at the time. But I've never read anything to suggest that Haydn was an ethnic Hungarian, though there are theories that he was of Croatian ethnicity.

Now I come to think of it again, I believe M forever actually dubbed Haydn as a Croatian and not a Hungarian.
Funny stuff this is... ;D

Q

Quote from: DavidW on May 25, 2007, 05:42:04 AM
Start with early works, I like that idea, I think maybe the early string quintet... :)

Yeah, the string quartets actually begin really early and really simple. There's also more of them so you get a slower progression. I picked them all up on Naxos (Eder) for super-cheap and haven't found it necessary to search elsewhere.  :)

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 24, 2007, 06:25:15 PM
But Haydn took and started going to irregular rhythms, and phrases or irregular length, i.e. instead of 8 + 8 + 8, he would use 9 + 7 + 8, so this broke up what came to be viewed as rhythmic monotony. And the reason that a lot of people find "classical" era music boring is exactly that, there is a regularity to it that we tend to not get involved in.

Okay so I guess polyrhythms is not just an affectation of 20th century music then.  Is the difference simply a matter of degree that would make say Bartok sound so dramatically different from composers of the past?

So anyway when did Haydn start messing around with meter like this?  Say, out of his string quartets, are there any you can point to where you're like aha listen closely to this!

QuoteI like Mark's answer about what Hoffman thought Romanticism was. Clearly it was NOT what WE think of as Romanticism. And in his terms, he may very well have been right. After all, the "Young Werther" book by Goethe that is reputedly the early beginning of the literary Romantic movement was written <> 1771, and the Stürm und Drang movement in music was roughly around that time, before and after, in fact, and the popular notion that the two were connected may not be factual, but they DID both stem from a cultural phenomenon that was apparently widespread enough in Greater Germany at the time to affect both music AND literature. A common ancestor, as it were.  :)

8)

Goethe and Storm and Stress both mark a proto-romantic movement, okay gotcha. :)

Quote from: Que on May 25, 2007, 06:15:40 AM
Now I come to think of it again, I believe M forever actually dubbed Haydn as a Croatian and not a Hungarian.
Funny stuff this is... ;D

Q

I read that outside this forum, I think it's correct, Haydn is Croatian.  If you read the wiki you would believe that Haydn never even visited Croatia, but I think that the wiki is wrong.

How could it be wrong? Like everybody can edit it!  >:D

Quote from: DavidW on May 25, 2007, 06:44:35 AM
I read that outside this forum, I think it's correct, Haydn is Croatian.  If you read the wiki you would believe that Haydn never even visited Croatia, but I think that the wiki is wrong.

Well, I think I'll stick with nationality (Austrian). :)
Ethnicity is always kinda sticky. What if his father was of Austrian-German ethnicity and his mother Austrian-Croatian? Or if his grand parents were of mixed ethnicity (maybe throw in some Austrian-Hungarians)? And so forth and so on...

Q

Quote from: Que on May 25, 2007, 06:53:30 AM
Well, I think I'll stick with nationality (Austrian). :)
Ethnicity is always kinda sticky. What if his father was of Austrian-German ethnicity and his mother Austrian-Croatian? Or if his grand parents were of mixed ethnicity (maybe throw in some Austrian-Hungarians)? And so forth and so on...

None of that would be sticky (necessarily) for the man himself and his family.  But it may certainly be more than we can effectively sort out from this remove.

Quote from: D Minor on May 24, 2007, 05:07:34 PM
Gurn would have a cow over the thought of Mozart / Haydn being "romantic."

LvB was the first "romantic" (with his Eroica Symphony).

I agree with this...the "Eroica" and op.59, definitely.

But one could assert there are plenty of "seminal" Romanticisms pre-"Eroica". Many works/movements of Haydn and Mozart...

Regarding E. T. A. Hoffmann's quote, I personally find much more Sturm und Drang in Schumann, Weber or Mendelssohn than in some Haydn's works which are said to belong to that spirit.

Quote from: D Minor on May 25, 2007, 05:58:40 AM
...... at which point it becomes factual ........

;D >:D

Based on the biographical/family tree information I have on Joseph Haydn, the Haydn family name was all over central Germany for centuries before Haydn's birth.

Quote from: DavidW on May 25, 2007, 06:39:36 AM


So anyway when did Haydn start messing around with meter like this?  Say, out of his string quartets, are there any you can point to where you're like aha listen closely to this!

As in "wow check out those crazy polyrythms?" 

op.76, #5 second movement. Actually, the whole Quartet. Actually, the entirety of opp. 76, 74. 54, 50, 33, 20....

Quote from: DavidW on May 25, 2007, 06:44:35 AM
I read that outside this forum, I think it's correct, Haydn is Croatian.  If you read the wiki you would believe that Haydn never even visited Croatia, but I think that the wiki is wrong.

No, I have 3 different biographies (and even many letter of) Joseph Haydn, and his family was definitely from Central Germany originally. The writer Greisenger estimates the Haydn name as being over 9 centuries old, mainstays in the Central, Roman Catholic region of Germany.

Gurn:

Among all your vast collection of early 19th century music recordings, do you have any of E.T.A. Hoffmann's musical works? How do they stand up in terms of Romantic content?

Quote from: Mark G. Simon on May 25, 2007, 01:27:25 PM
Gurn:

Among all your vast collection of early 19th century music recordings, do you have any of E.T.A. Hoffmann's musical works? How do they stand up in terms of Romantic content?

Mark, it is with great sadness that I admit that I don't have a single one of his works :(  They aren't the sort of thing you run across every day, I guess. I have read a few of his essays though. If his music was as florid as his prose, I'd say he was fairly Romantic indeed. :D  (a little exaggerated, they wrote differently back then ;)  )

8)

I have a cpo disc of ETA Hoffmann...let me do a little re-listening to confirm my hazy perception as a "Beethoven-lite" figure.

Quote from: Haffner on May 25, 2007, 12:42:37 PM

;D >:D

Based on the biographical/family tree information I have on Joseph Haydn, the Haydn family name was all over central Germany for centuries before Haydn's birth.

Thanks for the clarification, my bad. :)

Quote from: Haffner on May 25, 2007, 12:48:40 PM
op.76, #5 second movement.

Thanks for the specific example Haffner.  I will listen very closely to that movement tonight.

I have a question that I want to ask, but it will wait because I want to give it some more thought first.

In the meantime--

1. Gurn said that Dittersdorf (among others) used regular rhythm, so it sounded flat in comparison to Haydn etc  So Rosen said that Dittersdorf was harmonically very simple, especially in relation to the three greats, and so I was wondering if you consider those two factors together-- is Dittersdorf simply too musically simple for most music connoisseurs to be engaged by?  Is that why most people find his music boring?

And if you consider that true, what other composers from the Classical Era do you think sound too simple, thus boring, and what qualities of their music make you say that?

2.   On another thread, John Shade I think, said that late Beethoven was harmonically very different from the rest of classicism.  What would you describe this as?  Is this chromaticism?  Is this a more extended use of polyphony?  It's not as simple as that is it?  I might simply wait to read it, but I would enjoy hearing what my fellow posters have to say about harmony and late Beethoven. :)

Quote from: DavidW on May 26, 2007, 04:56:43 PM
1. Gurn said that Dittersdorf (among others) used regular rhythm, so it sounded flat in comparison to Haydn etc  So Rosen said that Dittersdorf was harmonically very simple, especially in relation to the three greats, and so I was wondering if you consider those two factors together-- is Dittersdorf simply too musically simple for most music connoisseurs to be engaged by?  Is that why most people find his music boring?

Dittersdorf is interesting music. I don't find his music harmonically very simple or rhythmically flat. People just need to believe he was a very good composer. Boccherini is a classical composer I find simple.

Quote from: 71 dB on May 26, 2007, 05:11:53 PM
Dittersdorf is interesting music. I don't find his music harmonically very simple or rhythmically flat. People just need to believe he was a very good composer. Boccherini is a classical composer I find simple.

Don't misunderstand what I said: I said that rhythmically he was very regular. That isn't a synonym of "flat". :)  And I don't find him uninteresting in the least. But given that the majority of people, excluding you, me, Harry and probably Sonic and a couple of others, DO find his music uninteresting, I am proposing that the regularity of it is one of the factors.

Personally I find it interesting that you find Boccherini simple. He is, in fact unique in some ways: he uses themes like they were tissues, introducing them, playing a little, and moving on to another. He even makes Mozart look rather monothematic! :o  All of his contemporaries and many of his successors remarked on it. In all likelihood, his location away from the mainstream of composition (which was Austria at the time, while he was in Spain), led him to develop a different style of sonata form. In any case, he isn't "simple", maybe easy to listen to if you aren't trying to analyze what he's doing... ;)

8)

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 26, 2007, 05:46:38 PM
Personally I find it interesting that you find Boccherini simple. He is, in fact unique in some ways: he uses themes like they were tissues, introducing them, playing a little, and moving on to another. 8)

I fully enjoyed this metaphor. Thanks!  :)

I would have said bubble gum, flavors gone...flavors gone...flavors gone ;D

Quote from: Mozart on May 26, 2007, 07:41:44 PM
I would have said bubble gum, flavors gone...flavors gone...flavors gone ;D

Maybe the real Boccherini constituency is somewhere between tissue and bubble gum.   ;D
i.e. Not as flavourful as bubble gum but certainly stickier than tissue.

Quote from: DavidW on May 26, 2007, 04:48:14 PM
Thanks for the clarification, my bad. :)

I was confused for a long while, David! Nothing "bad"! "All good"!

Quote from: DavidW on May 26, 2007, 04:56:43 PM
Thanks for the specific example Haffner.  I will listen very closely to that movement tonight.

I have a question that I want to ask, but it will wait because I want to give it some more thought first.

In the meantime--

1. Gurn said that Dittersdorf (among others) used regular rhythm, so it sounded flat in comparison to Haydn etc  So Rosen said that Dittersdorf was harmonically very simple, especially in relation to the three greats, and so I was wondering if you consider those two factors together-- is Dittersdorf simply too musically simple for most music connoisseurs to be engaged by?  Is that why most people find his music boring?

And if you consider that true, what other composers from the Classical Era do you think sound too simple, thus boring, and what qualities of their music make you say that?

First off, please forgive me,I gave the example of op.76, no.5 only because I goofed and didn't properly read the context of your question. For me, op. 76, no.5 is jaw-dropping due to it's seminally romantic (in the pre-Schumann "lyrical way") expression of sad, yet fulfilled resignation.  Not necessarily for its complexity (although one wonders how "simple" something can be when it can portray a complex emotion like that).

I actually get bored by some movements in both Haydn and Mozart's Symphonies. When I write that, I mean mostly Mozart's early-to-mid period Symphs. And several of the movements in even the latter-era Haydn Symphonies are often pretty much interchangeable with the other, partiuclarly i menuetti. And this is coming from a man whom adores Haydn's music.


It's just not my place to attempt assert what was "simple, lesser"...etc. in the Classical Style., I just know that I don't listen to much of it beyond Mozart, Haydn...and a little Salieri and Mike Haydn on the side.

Quote from: DavidW on May 26, 2007, 04:56:43 PM

2.   On another thread, John Shade I think, said that late Beethoven was harmonically very different from the rest of classicism.  What would you describe this as?  Is this chromaticism?  Is this a more extended use of polyphony?  It's not as simple as that is it?  I might simply wait to read it, but I would enjoy hearing what my fellow posters have to say about harmony and late Beethoven. :)

The Grosse Fuge always seemed like the work of a man whom had such a thorough, aged/"mature" comprehension of traditional harmonic structures that he rejected them in favor of beginning his own language. I honestly can't see where Stravinsky would have gone without it. That's just my opinion of course.

In a beautifully ironic way, Beethoven seemed to alternate between conceding the influence of Haydn (Symphony no.8, op. 135) and going completely against the general pronciples that composers like Haydn pretty much adhered to. It would be a further sign of his genius if that was his intention; to alternatingly prove the massive influence Haydn (and to a roughly equal degree Mozart) had on him, and then emphasize/diminish it by putting out works which were mostly refutative of their style.

If the latter was his intention, it is a perfect reperesentation of the time, given that Georg Hegel's "aufgeheben" philosophical theory was in great favor. Beethoven both cancelled out and maintained the tradition/influence of Haydn and Mozart through his later compositions in particular.

This is all just semi-educated conjecture on my part, and I probably made a mess of the whole thing so forgive me in advance for any blundering on my part.

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 26, 2007, 05:46:38 PM
Don't misunderstand what I said: I said that rhythmically he was very regular. That isn't a synonym of "flat". :)  And I don't find him uninteresting in the least. But given that the majority of people, excluding you, me, Harry and probably Sonic and a couple of others, DO find his music uninteresting, I am proposing that the regularity of it is one of the factors.

Personally I find it interesting that you find Boccherini simple. He is, in fact unique in some ways: he uses themes like they were tissues, introducing them, playing a little, and moving on to another. He even makes Mozart look rather monothematic! :o  All of his contemporaries and many of his successors remarked on it. In all likelihood, his location away from the mainstream of composition (which was Austria at the time, while he was in Spain), led him to develop a different style of sonata form. In any case, he isn't "simple", maybe easy to listen to if you aren't trying to analyze what he's doing... ;)

8)

The majority is narrow-minded. I find Boccherini simple but I nevertheless like his music.

"Regular" rhythm means predictable patterns with little syncpation and four-squared phrasing. Combine that with little chromaticism and you have the reason why Dittersdorf isn't played much in the concert halls.

An engaged listener demands more than exterior pleasantries.

Quote from: johnQpublic on May 27, 2007, 06:17:51 AM
"Regular" rhythm means predictable patterns with little syncpation and four-squared phrasing. Combine that with little chromaticism and you have the reason why Dittersdorf isn't played much in the concert halls.

An engaged listener demands more than exterior pleasantries.

Dittersdorf has different strenghts than Haydn and that's why open-minded people can enjoy it too. Engaged listeners should understand that.

Most played music is not always the best music (popular music is a good example of that). Think again why some works are played in concert halls more often. 

Quote from: 71 dB on May 27, 2007, 11:07:28 AM
Most played music is not always the best music (popular music is a good example of that). Think again why some works are played in concert halls more often. 

I think that is a fallacy, because that train of thought leads to the conclusion that greatness is inversely proportional to popularity.  That is certainly not true.  People tend to point towards our favorite whipping boy girl, Britney at this point in relation to Beethoven, but this is not a dichotomy.  It's just as wrong to say that popularity ~ greatness as it is to say that popularity ~ 1/greatness.

It is a popular misconception to use the unwashed masses metaphor (many times silently) to describe general characteristics to specialized groups that are way off the mark.  The truth is that usually the smaller group are compromised of well informed tastes.  That is why classical music aficionados listen to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc etc more than say Fuchs, to pick on another composer.  It's tempting to say that the group as a whole do not think about these things, and thus their opinions are invalid.  But that would not be correct at all. 

That still doesn't justify equating merit with popularity, but I think that it should be considered and questioned.  I think that when composers are not listened to either their style is too simplistic or too complex to be emotionally engaging to the majority of classical listeners.  This is merely speculation on my part.  Discussing Dittersdorf is a good way to probe it, see what others think.  Including you Elgar. :)

Quote from: George on May 24, 2007, 05:26:47 PM
The more I listen to LvB, the more I see him as an extension of the composers who came before him rather than connections to those who came after him. When I listen to Haydn, I often wish the music would push a bit harder, like Beethoven does. Haydn's music reminds me of Beethoven more than any post-Beethoven composer does. 

Exactly. Rosen's book is about the Classical style and his book concentrates on the three greatest proponents of the Classical style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. By the end of his life Beethoven was already old-fashioned...respected but not copied by the young dudes, the real Romantics (Berlioz, Weber, Schumann, Chopin, etc). Rosen says:

"At the end of his life, Beethoven was most decidedly out of fashion...Not only musical fashion but musical history had turned away from Beethoven. In the music of his younger contemporaries (with the exception of Schubert) [who really was a pivotal musician between the Classical and Romantic eras--Sarge] and of the generation that followed his death, his work, while admired and loved, is hardly a vital force; not until Brahms and the later operas of Wagner will it play a significant role."

Pace Andy, the Eroica was not the first Romantic symphony but a culmination, a high point, of the Classical style.

Sarge

Actually, I don't believe that's exactly accurate either.  Beethoven's place in music is very similar to Michelangelo's in art.  Both were the bridges that linked two disparate styles.  While a great deal of Michelangelo's production was in the High Renaissance style as exemplified by the Pietá, elements of what would become the Mannerist and Baroque styles started to creep into his art after 1500 until by the end of his life his works were the basis for the new Mannerist style.  More and more you see the visual equivalent to chromaticism and dissonance in the twisted figures and diagonal arrangements in space.  One can only understand how revolutionary his ceiling was by comparing it to Raphael's comtemporaneous Vatican project, the School of Athens.  Similarly, one can only understand how thoroughly Beethoven broke with his classical past when he wrote the Eroica by looking at the works of his contemporaries, most of whom are forgotten.  Beethoven, like Michelangelo represents a bridge, a transition to a new style and idiom.  Without him, romanticism would have developed in very different ways.  And if anyone thinks Beethoven is rhythmically straight, just listen to the syncopations in the Hammerklavier.  He invented a new alphabet that would be used to create a new language by those coming after him.  As connected as he was to the past, so he also was connected to the future.

Quote from: 71 dB on May 27, 2007, 11:07:28 AM
Dittersdorf has different strenghts than Haydn

Like what?

Quote from: johnQpublic on May 27, 2007, 03:07:57 PM
Like what?

I like Dittersdorf's use of strings much more. He uses orchestra in his symphonies more naturally. he uses also string instruments to play long notes. Haydn usually uses windwoods for long notes. Dittersdorf's symphonies sound softer and more relaxed, even calming. Haydn's symphonies are uncomfortable restless. I really like Dittersdorf's melodies and harmony. They are in perfect balance with the whole consept of classism.

Do get me wrong, Haydn is greater composer to me. I adore his Piano Trios, Piano Sonatas, Church Music (Die Schöpfung!) and concertos. His String Quartets are good. With Symphonies Haydn is in trouble as he wasn't into use of orchestra. As an orchestrator, Dittersdorf was superior.

Quote from: 71 dB on May 27, 2007, 03:31:09 PM
With Symphonies Haydn is in trouble as he wasn't into use of orchestra.  

:o  :o  :o Post of the century!!!!!  :o  :o  :o

Didn't Rimsky Korsakov think Haydn was the finest orchestrator of all? (Once again, and to prove the all-encompassing nature of the book, I draw this knowledge from The Classical Style, where Rosen makes the point in a discussion of the Minuet of Haydn's Symph 97)

Quote from: DavidW on May 26, 2007, 04:56:43 PM
2.   On another thread, John Shade I think, said that late Beethoven was harmonically very different from the rest of classicism.  What would you describe this as?  Is this chromaticism?  Is this a more extended use of polyphony?  It's not as simple as that is it?  I might simply wait to read it, but I would enjoy hearing what my fellow posters have to say about harmony and late Beethoven. :)

Certainly Beethoven allows more complex harmonies into his later (and some of his earlier) music than Haydn or Mozart do, but it is of a different sort to the more complex harmonies of romanticism, and is still closer in its technical derivation and context to Mozart and Haydn. On the one hand we have things like the the advanced harmonies of the Grosse Fuge, which clearly spring from its strict polyphony, just as we ocassionally find complex cluster-like chords in Bach for the same reason. In the Grosse Fuge they rush past like the wind; we hardly register them as individual harmonies but just as four immensely strong lines clashing incidentally as they progress. The same is true for the Hammerklavier etc. The passing chords these pieces throw up are resolutely unRomantic in effect - they are as steely-strong as the structure on which they are founded. On the other hand, we find that in general, Beethoven steers clear extended spells of chromatic harmony. His chromaticism is always applied to a strong diatonic, functional base, and, on a larger scale, his more outlandish modulations (think - op 130, for example) are felt as such precisely because they take place in the context of a classical tonal dialectic. That's what makes them so different from the same modulations, with their more sensuous effect, as they take place in Romantic music.

Of course there are also those famous 'individual' chords which are sometimes used as example to prove that Beethoven was a Romantic. Indulge my going on about these for a minute.... ;)

For the high romantic composer, chromatically inflected harmony became the norm, the lingua franca; the common triad became less and less common, until to some extent its isolated usage became something of a special effect. This is, in some respects, the exact inverse of of Beethoven, I think. When I have to think of an outstanding chord in Beethoven, I instantly think of something like 'that' dissonant  chord in the Ninth. But that chord is effective because it is used on its own, in the middle of basically diatonic harmony, as a shock device. In Wagner etc. that chord could have turned up unheralded in the middle of a phrase, and we'd hardly notice. Someone like Wagner, OTOH, for all his Tristan chords (which itself turns up unheralded in Mozart, of course!) will use isolated simple triads in the middle of chromatic harmony for the same effect (think of Brunhilde's awakening, for instance).

What does this boil down to - 'it ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it'. It's not how complex an individual chord is, it is the context it is found in. We don't call Mozart a romantic because we can find the Tristan chord in his music, we know that the chord is merely an unaccented, passing event in the middle of pure diatonic harmony. We don't call Wagner a classicist because we can find triads in his music, we know that they are the foundation of chromatic harmony and will certainly occur frequently. In the same way, we don't call Wagner a classicist because we sometimes find spotlighted pure triadic harmony in his music (as in the example from Siegfried I just made); we know that this is harmony used 'topically' (referentially) rather than as part of the general flow. For the same reason, turned on its head, I refuse to see that Beethoven's fairly rare isolated shock chords make him, harmonically, a Romantic, any more than do Haydn's (or Rebel's!) in their respective representations of chaos.

Quote from: lukeottevanger on May 28, 2007, 01:31:46 AM
Didn't Rimsky Korsakov think Haydn was the finest orchestrator of all? (Once again, and to prove the all-encompassing nature of the book, I draw this knowledge from The Classical Style, where Rosen makes the point in a discussion of the Minuet of Haydn's Symph 97)

Haydn's non-symphonic orchestral works are different story and he show good craftmanship. It's just that with symphonies Haydn had weird ideas about the format. His mind doesn't seem to have realised what symphony as an artform was going to be. In other words, Haydn does not anticipate Berlioz.

Quote from: lukeottevanger on May 28, 2007, 01:31:46 AM
Didn't Rimsky Korsakov think Haydn was the finest orchestrator of all? (Once again, and to prove the all-encompassing nature of the book, I draw this knowledge from The Classical Style, where Rosen makes the point in a discussion of the Minuet of Haydn's Symph 97)

Cool post, Luke! I believe Rimsky Korsakov wrote an excellent book on orchestration with Berlioz...?

Quote from: Haffner on May 28, 2007, 02:28:54 AM




Cool post, Luke! I believe Rimsky Korsakov wrote an excellent book on orchestration with Berlioz...?

Cool hand, Luke, indeed! But Rimsky wrote his own orchestration handbook, with examples drawn largely from his own works. Berlioz wrote a treatise of his own that was later amplified by Richard Strauss to take account of later orchestral developments. It is always amusing to hear Strauss's rumbling bass voice counterpointing Berlioz's high-strung tenor.

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 28, 2007, 02:52:40 AM
Cool hand, Luke, indeed! But Rimsky wrote his own orchestration handbook, with examples drawn largely from his own works. Berlioz wrote a treatise of his own that was later amplified by Richard Strauss to take account of later orchestral developments. It is always amusing to hear Strauss's rumbling bass voice counterpointing Berlioz's high-strung tenor.

(laughing) Thanks for the correction, Larry. It's about time I checked out the Strauss/Berlioz book, as I'd only read Rimsky's tome a long time ago. My favorite (in the "most educating" classification) remains up to this point Samuel Adler's excellent book on orchestration.

Quote from: Bunny on May 27, 2007, 02:20:26 PM
Actually, I don't believe that's exactly accurate either.  Beethoven's place in music is very similar to Michelangelo's in art.  Both were the bridges that linked two disparate styles.  While a great deal of Michelangelo's production was in the High Renaissance style as exemplified by the Pietá, elements of what would become the Mannerist and Baroque styles started to creep into his art after 1500 until by the end of his life his works were the basis for the new Mannerist style.  More and more you see the visual equivalent to chromaticism and dissonance in the twisted figures and diagonal arrangements in space.  One can only understand how revolutionary his ceiling was by comparing it to Raphael's comtemporaneous Vatican project, the School of Athens.  Similarly, one can only understand how thoroughly Beethoven broke with his classical past when he wrote the Eroica by looking at the works of his contemporaries, most of whom are forgotten.  Beethoven, like Michelangelo represents a bridge, a transition to a new style and idiom.  Without him, romanticism would have developed in very different ways.  And if anyone thinks Beethoven is rhythmically straight, just listen to the syncopations in the Hammerklavier.  He invented a new alphabet that would be used to create a new language by those coming after him.  As connected as he was to the past, so he also was connected to the future.

I second this point of view; for what concerns Beethoven's rhythms, as Alfred Einstein wrote in his brief history of music, Beethoven has to be considered the master among the masters in rhythm treatment.

Quote from: DavidW on May 25, 2007, 06:44:35 AM
I read that outside this forum, I think it's correct, Haydn is Croatian.  If you read the wiki you would believe that Haydn never even visited Croatia, but I think that the wiki is wrong.

There is another article in Wiki, Joseph Haydn's ethnicity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Haydn's_ethnicity), which describes Kuhač's Croatian hypothesis. 

Quote from: Bunny on May 28, 2007, 06:26:51 AM
There is another article in Wiki, Joseph Haydn's ethnicity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Haydn's_ethnicity), which describes Kuhač's Croatian hypothesis. 

Karl Geiringer was one of my sources. And his book on Haydn is excellent!

Quote from: Haffner on May 28, 2007, 06:29:21 AM



Karl Geiringer was one of my sources. And his book on Haydn is excellent!

I haven't read that book, and am not particularly concerned with Haydn's ethnicity.  I just came across that article a while ago and thought that anyone who was interested in whether Haydn was Croat, Hungarian, German, or Martian for that matter might find the article interesting.  However, I am concerned with Haydn's music and musical development, so now that the book is in paperback, I'll put it in the Barnes and Noble cart. ;)

Quote from: Bunny on May 28, 2007, 06:46:50 AM
I haven't read that book, and am not particularly concerned with Haydn's ethnicity.  I just came across that article a while ago and thought that anyone who was interested in whether Haydn was Croat, Hungarian, German, or Martian for that matter might find the article interesting.  However, I am concerned with Haydn's music and musical development, so now that the book is in paperback, I'll put it in the Barnes and Noble cart. ;)

Out of the half-dozen books I've read on Haydn, that one is the best. Pretty much equal attention to life and music (the String Quartets especially get a pleasing amount of attention!).

Quote from: 71 dB on May 26, 2007, 05:11:53 PM
People just need to believe [Dittersdorf] was a very good composer.

Essentially a religion, then?

Quote from: karlhenning on May 28, 2007, 06:51:23 AM
Essentially a religion, then?

No more than people's admiration of Beethoven, Shostakovich, Haydn, Mozart and Mahler.

Quote from: 71 dB on May 28, 2007, 07:02:20 AM
No more than people's admiration of Beethoven, Shostakovich, Haydn, Mozart and Mahler.

Yay! (Unabashed religious zeal for the Idols).

Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:55:51 PM
Now this is from Rosen.

2. E.T.A. Hoffman thought of Mozart and Haydn as the first Romantic composers.  Do you agree with this view or disagree?

Surely, they didn't write in romantic forms. But we could consider romanticism was in gestation in their works.
As a fan of Haydn, I'd give the examples of the very expressive piano sonata HOB.XVI:49, the orchestration of Sy 103 and the power of Sy 104. But these works are definitely classical, not to be mistaken.

Quote from: 71 dB on May 28, 2007, 02:21:28 AM
Haydn's non-symphonic orchestral works are different story and he show good craftmanship. It's just that with symphonies Haydn had weird ideas about the format. His mind doesn't seem to have realised what symphony as an artform was going to be. In other words, Haydn does not anticipate Berlioz.

Haydn, in my opinion, is the one who developed orchestration the most during the classical era. I think Sy 103 is very interesting because his use of the orchestra makes think of XIXth century composers, the very beginning sounds quite lisztian to me and the way he changes instruments in one only theme in this precise adagio makes me think about Bruckner.
It's enough listening some symphonies from the beginning to the end of his career to realise how he improved the use of the orchestra. Of course, it's still not as rich as Berlioz.
I even hear a quite big difference between the first six "Londons" and the last "six".
I'm hearing Sy 104, the sounds are evolving all the time.
I don't know enough about Dittersdorf, but the orchestration of Ovid's metamorphoses is not as various, in my opinion. It's only my opinion.
BUT Dittersdorf is far from being a bad orchestrator. Some of his ideas has been quoted by Haydn for his parisians, I think.
We ignore what he would have done if he had written more symphonies in the 1790's, the period when Haydn wrote his "Londons".

Quote from: 71 dB on May 28, 2007, 07:02:20 AM
No more than people's admiration of Beethoven, Shostakovich, Haydn, Mozart and Mahler.

Thanks for yet another of your patent non-answers!

Quote from: karlhenning on May 29, 2007, 04:20:57 AM
Thanks for yet another of your patent non-answers!

How do you expect I answer to your non-questions?  ;D

Quote from: Haffner on May 28, 2007, 03:04:53 AM



(laughing) Thanks for the correction, Larry. It's about time I checked out the Strauss/Berlioz book, as I'd only read Rimsky's tome a long time ago. My favorite (in the "most educating" classification) remains up to this point Samuel Adler's excellent book on orchestration.

There are a number of good ones, and I like having 6-7 on my shelves - as each one takes a different perspective and provides different examples. However, neither Adler, Piston, Kennan, Forsyth, Berlioz/Strauss, Rimsky, Blattner, or Rauscher gives any example that I recall from Dittersdorf as a model of orchestration.

Quote from: Larry Rinkel on May 29, 2007, 05:44:50 AM
However, neither Adler, Piston, Kennan, Forsyth, Berlioz/Strauss, Rimsky, Blattner, or Rauscher gives any example that I recall from Dittersdorf as a model of orchestration.

Maybe they sing, "Anything that Dittersdorf done good, another composer's done better . . . ."

Or maybe they just hain't got religion  0:)

Quote from: karlhenning on May 29, 2007, 05:46:09 AM
Or maybe they just hain't got religion  0:)

I am certain I don't.

We heathen must stick together.

Quote from: karlhenning on May 29, 2007, 05:52:23 AM
We heathen must stick together.

Aunt Esther would have agreed, if axed.

Quote from: Haffner on May 29, 2007, 06:52:41 AM
Aunt Esther would have agreed, if axed.

You big dummy! If axed, she'd be dead!  ;D

Quote from: George on May 29, 2007, 10:00:43 AM
You big dummy! If axed, she'd be dead!  ;D

(Histrionically grabs chest) "I'm comin' ta join yuh, honey!"

Quote from: Haffner on May 29, 2007, 10:05:18 AM
(Histrionically grabs chest) "I'm comin' ta join yuh, honey!"

(Where's Lamonte when we need him?)



;D

Quote from: 71 dB on May 28, 2007, 07:02:20 AM
No more than people's admiration of Beethoven, Shostakovich, Haydn, Mozart and Mahler.

Isn't it all a matter of subjective experience, 71db?

Quote from: Mark G. Simon on May 25, 2007, 01:27:25 PME.T.A. Hoffmann's musical works? How do they stand up in terms of Romantic content?

Actually after listening to my cpo disc (see below) a number of times this week I can say he sounds more like heavy-Mozart with a touch of early Schubert,rather than the Beethoven-lite I suggested earlier. All of his slow intros sound like the one from Don Gioanni especially the dramatic dimished 7th chords.

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41JW0N76MFL._SS500_.jpg)

My contribution here is that the baroque-classical transition was indeed a transitional period and the music of Bach's sons and the early Mannheim figures is indeed downright odd. There's no getting away from the assurances of high baroque and classical styles.

Quote from: Sean on June 09, 2007, 11:14:47 AM
My contribution here is that the baroque-classical transition was indeed a transitional period and the music of Bach's sons and the early Mannheim figures is indeed downright odd. There's no getting away from the assurances of high baroque and classical styles.

;)

Whilst it is easy to see why one would home in on Haydn and Mozart when discussing the Classical style, this is really jumping in at the deep end. One would learn much more by studying the hundreds of minor Classical composers who went before them. To be thorough, why not begin with Alberti? and to be partisan i'll plug one of my favourites: Giovanni Platti.

Well, the music of WF and CPE Bach is often very odd. Sean's right. But that's why I like it so much. It's very human stuff.

Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 12, 2007, 04:10:12 AM
Well, the music of WF and CPE Bach is often very odd. Sean's right. But that's why I like it so much. It's very human stuff.

Yes, strange especially of Sean to discount something just for deviating from the mainstrean  >:D

Quote from: karlhenning on June 12, 2007, 04:56:56 AM
Yes, strange especially of Sean to discount something just for deviating from the mainstrean  >:D

Oooh, Karl, you are naughty  0:)

Quote from: lukeottevanger on June 12, 2007, 04:10:12 AM
Well, the music of WF and CPE Bach is often very odd. Sean's right. But that's why I like it so much. It's very human stuff.

I don't know if I'd say odd, but simply unexpected. These are two composers whose orchestration is so much a mystery to me at times, that I'm unable to predict the next phrase! If only for that (there are other reasons, of course) I listen intently.  ;)

Quote from: Steve on June 13, 2007, 12:12:49 PM
I don't know if I'd say odd, but simply unexpected.

It's both! I'm particularly referring to their keyboard works, where the peculiarities of the empfindsamer stil are most marked. It is most extreme in WF Bach, and here odd is often the only word for it - phrases that dart off in the most wild, angular ways, and then stop in mid air; bizarre harmonic sequences, enormous melodic leaps, sudden stylistic shifts turning on a sixpence, wildly ornament-encrusted lines etc., etc.. However, that is why I love it so much.

Bach's sone were very interesting but most of the early Classical composers were Italian.

I'm sorry for dropping off this thread.  I wanted to wait until I had proper time to read more and pose good questions, but instead what happened was that I got interested in something off and never came back. :-[

Quote from: DavidW on July 29, 2007, 02:32:18 PM
I'm sorry for dropping off this thread.  I wanted to wait until I had proper time to read more and pose good questions, but instead what happened was that I got interested in something off and never came back. :-[

Glad you're back now though. Let's see, where were we? Hmmm....

8)

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on July 29, 2007, 02:35:23 PM
Glad you're back now though. Let's see, where were we? Hmmm....

8)

I think we were about hail Mozart as supreme composer.

Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:50:26 PM
Okay my first batch of questions--

1. This actually came from an off topic remark on a Mahler/Bruckner thread.  Do you think that Mozart's motivic development is more difficult to follow than Haydn and Beethoven?  I don't have any problem with most of his orchestral music, but Mozart's chamber music can be tricky to follow at times.  Haydn, in contrast, doesn't seem quite as difficult to follow.  Or is this the case of me focusing on a few works that give the wrong picture?  For Mozart, it's later chamber works like his quintet for piano and winds that have been on my mind, and for Haydn his Op 33 String Quartets.  I could be misled.

Dude this is the weirdest thing I've ever read? Haydn's "motivic" development is easy to you, but Mozart's is hard? Haydn starts with crap and in his good pieces develops it into something good. Mozart starts with perfection and then just plays around with more perfection. I probably already commented on this earlier but its been months ago. I love when Mozart dives into minor keys randomly and the just pops out of them like nothing happened. Its really cool.

So how do composers actually "develop" the music?

Quote from: MozartMobster on July 29, 2007, 11:10:48 PM
So how do composers actually "develop" the music?

They take blank scores to a dark room, they treat them with baths of acetic acid and then formaldehyde.  If they desire chromatic music, they have to take the additional step of using bleach.  As they dry the musical notes will appear on the score. ;D >:D :D

Quote from: Ten thumbs on June 14, 2007, 08:16:58 AM
Bach's sone were very interesting but most of the early Classical composers were Italian.

Any numbers to back up this claim?

Quote from: Don on July 30, 2007, 04:55:50 PM
Any numbers to back up this claim?

As a claim, it's too generic for evidence.

There were a lot of Italian composers in that period (I'm going to arbitrarily call it 1740-1765, can we agree on that?).

Two of the most important composers from the period were Sammartini (the kernel of the symphony but only for strings) and Jomelli (orchestral dynamics). Jomelli was from Naples (IIRC), but he worked and developed his theories in Mannheim. On the German front, there was Johann Stamitz (added the minuet to make a 4 movement work, big influence on Haydn, developer of the Mannheim Orchestra &c) and Beck. Among the requirements for later style that were developed here were use of winds to supplement the strings, perfecting modulation to a different key, and the beginnings of irregularity in phrase length that led to rhythmic speed and muscularity.

So although the early sinfonia did indeed get its beginnings in Italy and from Italians working abroad, the modern symphony as we know it was more a product of southern Germany (as we call it now), Vienna and Bohemia. At least that's what the literature says to me. And I don't for a second discount the contribution of the Italians either. They made the ball, but the Germans took it and ran off. :)

8)

Quote from: MozartMobster on July 29, 2007, 10:57:33 PM
Haydn starts with crap and in his good pieces develops it into something good.

He's a genius anyway

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on July 30, 2007, 05:43:31 PM
So although the early sinfonia did indeed get its beginnings in Italy and from Italians working abroad, the modern symphony as we know it was more a product of southern Germany (as we call it now), Vienna and Bohemia. At least that's what the literature says to me. And I don't for a second discount the contribution of the Italians either. They made the ball, but the Germans took it and ran off. :)

8)

Besides the Italians appear dominant when you look at the sinfonia and the opera, but there are other areas to consider.  For instance some of the greatest fortepiano builders where in Austria, Germany and England.  So even though an Italian invented it, I would not be surprised if the evolution of keyboard music drew alot from the places in those non-Italian countries where they were building fortepianos.  What do you think?

Quote from: MozartMobster on July 29, 2007, 03:06:24 PM
I think we were about hail Mozart as supreme composer.

My favorite!

I was listening to a program on Clementi on BBC Radio 3.  They were saying something about how he encorporated alot of varying styles from different countries in his harpsichord music.  I might have that completely wrong though, because I was mostly just background listening while I worked.  So can anyone say more about Clementi's impact on music and what his style was like? 

I caught something else about how the interchange of styles from different countries was extremely restricted during and after the Napoleonic War because it made travel hard.  So if you look at music from England, Germany, Italy, France etc during that time do you start to see them begin to develop in different ways that are no longer as tightly interconnected with each other, and more culturally isolated? :)

Unfortunately, I do not have Newman's book on the Classical sonata to hand now but I do recall he mentions a large number of early Italians, most of whom I have never heard of elsewhere. I have mentioned Platti to which I can add Tartini and Rutini. Also rather well known is Alberti and his bass, and of course D. Scarlatti was actually of Italian origin. If you want more, Newman's book is very interesting.

Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:55:51 PM
Now this is from Rosen.

2. E.T.A. Hoffman thought of Mozart and Haydn as the first Romantic composers.  Do you agree with this view or disagree?  Why?

If they're romantic then Bach is classical.  We know that is TEH WRNOG!

Quote from: Ten thumbs on September 10, 2007, 07:43:15 AM
and of course D. Scarlatti was actually of Italian origin.

I don't have any pieces by Scarlatti, but something from a Wikipedia article caught my eye:

QuoteOther distinctive attributes of Scarlatti's style are the following:

    * The clear influence of Iberian (Portuguese and Spanish) folk music. Scarlatti's use of the Phrygian mode and other tonal inflections more or less alien to European art music is an obvious symptom of this, as is his use of extremely dissonant cluster chords and other techniques which seem to imitate the guitar. The full-bodied, sometimes tragic use of folk idioms is highly unusual.

This sounds really interesting, but I don't know how accurate it is (Wikipedia sometimes being unreliable). Anyone with more knowledge care to comment?

Quote from: The Ninth on October 07, 2007, 07:26:17 PM
I don't have any pieces by Scarlatti, but something from a Wikipedia article caught my eye:

This sounds really interesting, but I don't know how accurate it is (Wikipedia sometimes being unreliable). Anyone with more knowledge care to comment?

Guitar idioms are prevalent in Scarlatti's music (which is my much of it transcribes so well).  Check out this video of K492 with its imitation of rasgueados:

http://www.youtube.com/v/70tP-m4Zv10

I like that. I think I'll try to pick up some Scarlatti pieces soon. Any recommendations for particular works or performers?

Quote from: The Ninth on October 07, 2007, 09:09:43 PM
I like that. I think I'll try to pick up some Scarlatti pieces soon. Any recommendations for particular works or performers?

My favorite disc, a Capriccio recording with Ton Koopman on harpsichord is out of print.  Scott Ross is highly regarded on harpsichord.  If you want piano, the Naxos discs are not a bad place to start.

Quote from: DavidW on May 24, 2007, 04:55:51 PM
Now this is from Rosen.

2. E.T.A. Hoffman thought of Mozart and Haydn as the first Romantic composers.  Do you agree with this view or disagree?  Why?  In their purity of style they certainly stood out but I'm at a complete loss as to what he was thinking or meant by that
...
I have more questions, but I want to see if we can have some fun with these, or others proposed by other posters. :)

Well, David,

For starters I'm no musicoligist, heck, I only listen to music.  E.T.A. Hoffman?  Have I heard the name?

For me, (yes, that "me"), Mozart and Haydn are by no means Romantics.  Certainly they were capable of articulating emotion, but how much further did they really go than J.S. Bach?  How about J.S.' cantatas?

Again for me, the Romantic era is really about the shameless exploitation of emotion and sentimentality, an often self-indulgent wallowing in these feelings.  I'm definitely not a Romantic era fan, although some romantics like, maybe, Berlioz, are fun, and some like say, Dvorak, just don't get too carried way.  But Schumann for example, it's puke, retch as far as I'm concerned.

Be careful of wallowing in old books. Mozart was also at one time a Rococo composer!
Mozart always seems to ne so delightfully spontaneous, whereas Schumann is much more rigorous.

Quote from: Feanor on October 14, 2007, 06:19:04 AM
Again for me, the Romantic era is really about the shameless exploitation of emotion and sentimentality, an often self-indulgent wallowing in these feelings.  I'm definitely not a Romantic era fan, although some romantics like, maybe, Berlioz, are fun, and some like say, Dvorak, just don't get too carried way.  But Schumann for example, it's puke, retch as far as I'm concerned.

Thanks for the caricature.

Quote from: Feanor on October 14, 2007, 06:19:04 AM
Again for me, the Romantic era is really about the shameless exploitation of emotion and sentimentality, an often self-indulgent wallowing in these feelings.  I'm definitely not a Romantic era fan, although some romantics like, maybe, Berlioz, are fun, and some like say, Dvorak, just don't get too carried way.  But Schumann for example, it's puke, retch as far as I'm concerned.

Thank you for this very illuminating and mind-opening post. I've always considered Romanticism in general - and Schumann's music in particular - as one of the greatest achievements of the human spirit, but now I've seen the light and I repent my sins. Once again, thank you!

I'd say that any act of creativity where an audience of some kind is exposed to the work is self-indulgent wallowing.   Quite aside from the fact you often hear a defence of composers and artists along the lines of "Do it for yourself, not an audience." 

.

Quote from: Feanor on October 14, 2007, 06:19:04 AM
Well, David,

For starters I'm no musicoligist, heck, I only listen to music.  E.T.A. Hoffman?  Have I heard the name?

For me, (yes, that "me"), Mozart and Haydn are by no means Romantics.  Certainly they were capable of articulating emotion, but how much further did they really go than J.S. Bach?  How about J.S.' cantatas?

Again for me, the Romantic era is really about the shameless exploitation of emotion and sentimentality, an often self-indulgent wallowing in these feelings.  I'm definitely not a Romantic era fan, although some romantics like, maybe, Berlioz, are fun, and some like say, Dvorak, just don't get too carried way.  But Schumann for example, it's puke, retch as far as I'm concerned.

::)

Yes, me with the rolling of the eyes as well.

Quote from: Florestan on October 16, 2007, 02:57:25 AM
Thank you for this very illuminating and mind-opening post. I've always considered Romanticism in general - and Schumann's music in particular - as one of the greatest achievements of the human spirit, but now I've seen the light and I repent my sins. Once again, thank you!

You like broccoli, I like spinach -- don't take it so personally.

"Puke, retch":  so sorry, a bit of hyperbole on my part.  Then again, "... as one of the greatest achievements of the human spirit" at applied to Schumann's music sounds a bit hyperbolic to me.  :P

Viva the 2nd Viennese School.  Viva Elliot Carter.  Viva Iannis Xenakis.  Viva Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Quote from: Feanor on October 16, 2007, 08:42:31 AM
You like broccoli, I like spinach -- don't take it so personally.

Viva the 2nd Viennese School.  Viva Elliot Carter.  Viva Iannis Xenakis.  Viva Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Yet Schumann in very parsimonious with his notes - every one is made to work. You obviously aren't a Scriabin fan, with his 'paper music' and 'mathematical formulae'.

When I think 'Classical Style', I think of Palladio.

Quote from: Corey on October 16, 2007, 04:10:28 PM
...
I would also like to note that there are other composers whose music is more apt to be misconstrued as "manipulative." Schumann is quite emotionally tame as opposed to say, R. Strauss.

Not a big favorite of mine either, R. Strauss.  Take the Four Last Songs ... please.

Quote from: Feanor on October 16, 2007, 08:42:31 AM
You like broccoli, I like spinach -- don't take it so personally.

Oh, but I didn't. I just reacted to a grossly exaggerated statement of yours.

Quote from: Feanor on October 16, 2007, 08:42:31 AM"Puke, retch":  so sorry, a bit of hyperbole on my part.  Then again, "... as one of the greatest achievements of the human spirit" at applied to Schumann's music sounds a bit hyperbolic to me.  :P

It is hyperbolic, but had I written just "Hey, I like Schumann", would you still have regretted your words? :)

Quote from: Feanor on October 16, 2007, 08:42:31 AMViva the 2nd Viennese School.  Viva Elliot Carter.  Viva Iannis Xenakis.  Viva Karlheinz Stockhausen.

I don't like this kind of music, neither shall I deride or insult it. Instead, I heartily join you: Vivat all of them!

Quote from: Feanor on October 14, 2007, 06:19:04 AM

Again for me, the Romantic era is really about the shameless exploitation of emotion and sentimentality, an often self-indulgent wallowing in these feelings.  I'm definitely not a Romantic era fan, although some romantics like, maybe, Berlioz, are fun, and some like say, Dvorak, just don't get too carried way.  But Schumann for example, it's puke, retch as far as I'm concerned.

Right.

Quote from: Florestan on October 16, 2007, 02:57:25 AM
Thank you for this very illuminating and mind-opening post. I've always considered Romanticism in general - and Schumann's music in particular - as one of the greatest achievements of the human spirit, but now I've seen the light and I repent my sins. Once again, thank you!

Can I please join the ranks of the converted as well? Can I huh huh :D :D :D?

Quote from: Feanor on October 16, 2007, 06:21:49 PM
Not a big favorite of mine either, R. Strauss.  Take the Four Last Songs ... please.

Ah.

Quote from: Feanor on October 16, 2007, 06:21:49 PM
Not a big favorite of mine either, R. Strauss.  Take the Four Last Songs ... please.

Happily.  They'll go to the desert island with me--but probably nothing else by Strauss.  I don't care a lot for Schumann, either, but not for his wallowing, rather because he rarely takes flight--for me.

Quote from: Florestan on October 17, 2007, 02:41:53 AM
Oh, but I didn't. I just reacted to a grossly exaggerated statement of yours.

It is hyperbolic, but had I written just "Hey, I like Schumann", would you still have regretted your words? :)

I don't like this kind of music, neither shall I deride or insult it. Instead, I heartily join you: Vivat all of them!

Peace, Florestan,

Yes, I reget my words, though not the underlying sentiment.  Schumann's statute is secure with or without my endorsement, and I don't doubt his craftsmanship though I haven't got the technical skills to fully appreciate them.

As for the contemporary composers, I can appreciate that they aren't everyone's cup of tea.  I won't try to persuade you that you ought to like them.  0:)

Quote from: longears on October 18, 2007, 05:46:46 AM
Happily.  They'll go to the desert island with me--but probably nothing else by Strauss.  I don't care a lot for Schumann, either, but not for his wallowing, rather because he rarely takes flight--for me.

This is sort of my problem with Brahms.  His music is uniformally bland to me:  I prefer stuff with a bit more "grit".  This would be why I prefer, say, Janacek or Shostakovich.

Quote from: Feanor on October 19, 2007, 06:57:30 AM
This is sort of my problem with Brahms.  His music is uniformally bland to me:  I prefer stuff with a bit more "grit".  This would be why I prefer, say, Janacek or Shostakovich.

I can relate to that, and like the idea of "grit" to characterize it.  Sort of captures why I like Adams and Reich but most of Glass sounds like background music.  Of course, not all grit is on the surface.  Sibelius in particular seems deceptive in that way.  And I think Brahms does have grit, but often it's been polished to a near-glassy smoothness.  Also noted for grit are Stravinsky and Prokofiev.  I hear it occasionally in those mid-19th Century Germanic Romantics--Death and the Maiden hastens to mind--but not consistently enough to keep me intrigued. 

Quote from: longears on October 20, 2007, 07:34:33 AM
I can relate to that, and like the idea of "grit" to characterize it.  Sort of captures why I like Adams and Reich but most of Glass sounds like background music.  Of course, not all grit is on the surface.  Sibelius in particular seems deceptive in that way.  And I think Brahms does have grit, but often it's been polished to a near-glassy smoothness.  Also noted for grit are Stravinsky and Prokofiev.  I hear it occasionally in those mid-19th Century Germanic Romantics--Death and the Maiden hastens to mind--but not consistently enough to keep me intrigued. 

As I reply, I've just finished listening to Sibelius' Symphony No.7.  I have a way to go with Sibelius, but I must say there is a definite sense of drama and tension underlying that work, if not precisely "grit".

Gritty or not, and Romantic or not, Schubert is one of my favorite composers.  It's mind-bogglying to consider what his output would have been if he had composed for another 30 or 40 years.

It sure seems like we've drifted a long way from The Classical Style. Pity, really, since we had barely scratched the surface.   ::)

----------------
Now playing: Berlioz Harold en Italie & Les Troyens - London SO / Colin Davis - Berlioz Harold in Italy pt 3 - Serenade of an Abruzzian Mountain Dweller to his Mistress: Allegro assai - Allegretto

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on October 21, 2007, 01:49:43 PM
It sure seems like we've drifted a long way from The Classical Style. Pity, really, since we had barely scratched the surface.   ::)

I take full blame for abandoning a project nearly as soon as I started it. :-[

Quote from: Feanor on October 19, 2007, 06:57:30 AM
This is sort of my problem with Brahms.  His music is uniformally bland to me: 

Funny, Brahms is the least "bland" composer I know .........

In essence the classical style ought to contain pure beautiful lines. Perhaps after the fashion of Palladio. I think Mozart comes nearest to this ideal. Someone once complained to me that Mozart never got anywhere. That of course is because he is there already, right from the first note. Ultimately Classicism becomes far more complex but we can still see its roots. Those of you who dislike emotional manipulation obviously hate the movies where it is stock in trade. How is it done? It's done through continuous tension, and drama too. I find the definition of 'grit' airy-fairy but then I come from the North of England. We know about grit up here. Anyway there's more anger and violence in Schubert's music than you'll ever find in Stravinsky's.

Quote from: Dm on January 16, 2008, 08:52:29 PM
Funny, Brahms is the least "bland" composer I know .........

One is temped to say, Don't know many composers, eh?  But I will forbear.

Quote from: Feanor on January 22, 2008, 05:08:41 PM
One is temped to say, Don't know many composers, eh?  But I will forbear.

How wonderful to have such a gracious, discriminating person on this forum.

Quote from: Haffner on January 23, 2008, 02:07:40 PM


How wonderful to have such a gracious, discriminating person on this forum.

To whom are you referring?  Dm or myself?  If Dm insists that Brahms is the least bland composer he know, then perhaps he should have to grace to ante up a few examples of non-bland Brahms music.  I dare say Dm is more erudite than I, and I'm prepared to be educated.

... Or perhaps you, Haffner, will do so.  In this thread your contributions have been mostly one-liners.  Do you suppose that your 2000-odd posts put you above criticism and entitled to make snide remarks unquestioned?

Quote from: Feanor on January 27, 2008, 03:37:18 AM
... Or perhaps you, Haffner, will do so.  In this thread your contributions have been mostly one-liners.  Do you suppose that your 2000-odd posts put you above criticism and entitled to make snide remarks unquestioned?

No. I `hope that I don't give that impression by accident. I certainly don't intend to be snide. Some posters appear to me to write things without thinking adequately.

But that's my opinion. I'm just some bumf**k guitar teacher in Burlington, Vermont. Not exactly a prisitine sort of person.

Quote from: Haffner on January 27, 2008, 05:13:24 AM

No. I `hope that I don't give that impression by accident. I certainly don't intend to be snide. Some posters appear to me to write things without thinking adequately.

OK.  I hope you and I can called it equal then.  Peace.

Johann Georg Albrechtsberger could be a representation of the epitome of cyclonic classicism.

Quote from: Feanor on January 27, 2008, 03:37:18 AM
To whom are you referring?  Dm or myself?  If Dm insists that Brahms is the least bland composer he know, then perhaps he should have to grace to ante up a few examples of non-bland Brahms music. 

Actually, i "dare say" that the burden is on you. Perhaps you'd like to share with us how much do you know about Brahms, if anything?

Quote from: Feanor on January 22, 2008, 05:08:41 PM
One is temped to say, Don't know many composers, eh? 

Do you?

Immediately coming to mind for non-bland Brahms:

Symphonies (ALL)

Ein Deutsches Requiem

Piano Concerto #1

The last String Quintet

I'm probably skimping like hell here, but those come immediately to mind.

Quote from: Haffner on February 22, 2008, 11:41:59 AM
Immediately coming to mind for non-bland Brahms:

Symphonies (ALL)

Ein Deutsches Requiem

Piano Concerto #1

The last String Quintet

I'm probably skimping like hell here, but those come immediately to mind.

Thank you, Haffner.  This something I will work with.  I have copies of all most all and will listen a few more times.  I certainly grant that familiarity breeds appreciation for good music.

Quote from: Feanor on February 24, 2008, 05:05:13 AM
Thank you, Haffner.  This something I will work with.  I have copies of all most all and will listen a few more times.  I certainly grant that familiarity breeds appreciation for good music.

I had to get past (with Brahms) the obvious. massive influence on Beethoven.  Especially in Brahms' Symphonies. I just started all over again, getting heavily into Brahms Symphony no.4. From there he was much easier to appreciate.