# In your opinion, which of these composers has lighter/less heavy music overall?



## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I let the definition of what is "weight" in music open to each participant's interpretation.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

My personal feeling on 3 dichotomies:
*Heavy vs Light* - This is craft/aesthetic
*Dark/Intense vs Vibrant* - This is tone
*Profound vs Deep* - This is intellect vs passion

*Mozart* - _Heavy, Vibrant, Profound_
*Beethoven* - _Lighter, Intense/Dark, Both_
*Bach* - _Light, Both, Deep. The deepest_
*Wagner* - _Heavier, Not Sure, Deep_
*Brahms* - _Heavy, Intense/Dark, Profound_

I guess Mozart is the heaviest. I voted for Bach for the poll question.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Beethoven's tendency to use dynamics for expressive purposes more so than dissonance, makes his music seem generally less 'deep' to me than the other composers in this poll, so in that sense, 'lighter'.

I can also see why on the surface Mozart's music seems lighter than Beethoven's, and in a sense it is. I think Mozart was the one with the better ideas, who had the tools to be more expressive. Perhaps Beethoven sensed this lack in his music and its why he cushioned it in a lot of loudness and banging. He seemed to have a need to remind listeners in this way that he was a serious and profound composer.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

In order:
Mozart 
Bach
Beethoven 
Wagner


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## Axter (Jan 15, 2020)

For me a toss between Bach and Mozart. I gave the edge to Bach though for the poll's purposes.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

*Poll: In your opinion, which of these composers has lighter/less heavy music overall?*
Johann Sebastian Bach
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Ludwig van Beethoven
Richard Wagner

I wrote each name on a slip of paper, rolled each up, and dropped them into a glass of white wine (just to keep things "classy"). Mozart, Ludwig, and Bach were the first to sink, all arriving on the bottom of the glass at approximately the same time. Wagner was the last to hit bottom.

So, either Wagner is the lightweight here, or because his name has fewer letters (and thus less written weight) it was slowest to sink. Whether or not this experiment defies gravity's laws I haven't yet determined. But if I get back to Italy, I'll attempt this experiment dropping the rolled slips of paper off the Leaning Tower. So, till then, let's not make any hard-fast conclusions.

Don't ask what happened to the wine afterwards.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Most people would say heavy metal is heavier music than classical, generally speaking. In some ways it is true, but it doesn't say much about the quality of the music, or its capacity to move a person, to stir the emotions. 'Heavy' can have different connotations.

Obviously Metallica is heavier than Beethoven, right? But in another sense, are they?

The externalities of a style can be something that people get stuck on, the surface level. There is heavy surface and there is heavy inner logic. 

This poll I think mostly reflects people's perceptions of the surface qualities of a handful of composers.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

But why make a poll about it? Doesn't everyone already think Mozart is nothing but fluff and silliness. You want to "add insult to injury"? 

I'll say it with my own lips, to RogerWaters, (who has been criticizing the "depth" of Mozart in threads "Mozart is boring (or is he?)", "Least Favorite of the "Big Three": Bach, Beethoven & Mozart."):
*"MOZART WROTE NOTHING BUT SILLY ROCOCO TRIVIALITIES !"*

Are you satisfied now, now that we have admitted it, Mr. RogerWaters?


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> But why make a poll about it? Doesn't everyone already think Mozart is nothing but fluff and silliness. You want to "add insult to injury"?
> 
> I'll say it with my own lips, to RogerWaters, (who has been criticizing the "depth" of Mozart in threads "Mozart is boring (or is he?)", "Least Favorite of the "Big Three": Bach, Beethoven & Mozart."):
> *"MOZART WROTE NOTHING BUT SILLY ROCOCO TRIVIALITIES !"*
> ...


Uh ... sorry, but ... uh ... which _Mozart_ are you talking about?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> But why make a poll about it? Doesn't everyone already think Mozart is nothing but fluff and silliness. You want to "add insult to injury"?
> 
> I'll say it with my own lips, to RogerWaters, (who has been criticizing the "depth" of Mozart in threads "Mozart is boring (or is he?)", "Least Favorite of the "Big Three": Bach, Beethoven & Mozart."):
> *"MOZART WROTE NOTHING BUT SILLY ROCOCO TRIVIALITIES !"*
> ...


'Light' needn't be pejorative.


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

Mozart obviously.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

I'm not sure what is meant by "light" and "heavy" classical music.

I voted for Mozart, but maybe that was only because of the four choices, Mozart is the most well-balanced, beautiful, and seamless; but is that really the definition of "light" classics? When I think of "light" classics I think more of the "Pops" concert fare, to which Bach's _Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring_, Beethoven's _Turkish March_, Brahms' _Hungarian Dance #5_, and Wagner's _Ride of the Valkyries_, would all fit nicely.

In a weird way, Mozart may be "heavier" than meets the eye. I started with classical music as a teenager back in the 1980s when I was a young buck and full of testosterone. While other boys my age were blasting heavy metal and rap, my parents were telling me to turn down my Beethoven's symphonies, and the big brassy orchestral works such as Richard Strauss's _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ and Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring_; and I avoided Mozart for a very long time because I saw Mozart as just too pretty and too mellow to be of much interest. It wasn't until I got into my 40s and middle-age that I began to enjoy classical music not only for the drama, but also for the craftsmanship. It was around the same time I became interested in art and architecture and became especially interested in churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples...if only for the architecture; and I began to understand these structures for the religious and practical significance, as well as, for the craftsmanship. Along this same line, as as different as they are from one another, I began to see Mozart, Brahms, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg, as master craftsmen of a certain type and suddenly they all became favorites of mine (Stravinsky, not just for _Rite_, but also for the Neo-Classical and serial works that mystified and bored me to that point). And of those master craftsmen, Mozart is probably the finest of all of them because he's the most seamless, almost as if the music creates itself; and that's very "heavy".

Can I take back my vote?


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> *"MOZART WROTE NOTHING BUT SILLY ROCOCO TRIVIALITIES !"*


Okay, your punishment:


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Coach G said:


> I'm not sure what is meant by "light" and "heavy" classical music.
> 
> I voted for Mozart, but maybe that was only because of the four choices, Mozart is the most well-balanced, beautiful, and seamless; but is that really the definition of "light" classics? When I think of "light" classics I think more of the "Pops" concert fare, to which Bach's _Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring_, Beethoven's _Turkish March_, Brahms' _Hungarian Dance #5_, and Wagner's _Ride of the Valkyries_, would all fit nicely...


This is getting into subjective territory since we're talking about things that can't be "proven", but "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" in its intended setting (BWV 147) is hardly a "pop classic" on the order of a Strauss waltz. It's been taken out of context and overplayed. Ditto the "Ride of the Valkyries". We could include any number of Mozart overtures as well, or symphony or sonata movements, or even sections of the C minor Mass. (I don't know how many times I've heard K. 545 or K. 331 in a cartoon, or heard Eine Kleine Nachtmusik here there and everywhere.) Of those 4, to me Wagner is the "heaviest" in the sense of "ponderous". I think the question ultimately is silly though and unanswerable. All three of the others are balanced etc, but to me Bach is the most balanced and the most consistent at conveying meaning, the one who displays the most consistent excellence (you don't feel "cheated" by Bach's solo keyboard music), and the one who displays the most amazing and thorough craftsmanship to be found in music. But I love them all.
As for "seamless", sonata form by definition is full of visible seams, so I don't know what "seamless" would mean. I think the Goldberg Variations would probably be the most "seamless" work I know of, and paradoxically it has seams all over the place.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Never mind this post.


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> But why make a poll about it? Doesn't everyone already think Mozart is nothing but fluff and silliness. You want to "add insult to injury"?
> 
> I'll say it with my own lips, to RogerWaters, (who has been criticizing the "depth" of Mozart in threads "Mozart is boring (or is he?)", "Least Favorite of the "Big Three": Bach, Beethoven & Mozart."):
> *"MOZART WROTE NOTHING BUT SILLY ROCOCO TRIVIALITIES !"*
> ...


You seem to continually take the adjective 'lighter' to mean, when applied to Mozart, things like 'superficial or somehow less worthwhile. I never intimated that.

I am heartened however by the fact that what I took to be bloody obvious is indeed the view of most who can stand back and see the forest from the trees.

You can twist yourself into as many academic knots as you like in trying to 'prove' that this or that formal device employed by mozart is evidence of his 'heaviness'. It won't do much good, however, as we have ears and can hear his actual music which is intricate, subtle, moving and sometimes profound in its 'effortless' luminosity. However, the sentiments he is EXPRESSING are obviously generally lighter in emotional tone.

I.e. this is not about whether his compositional techniques are deep or profound. Of course they are. It is about the CONTENT of his music, or what it expresses. 'Semantics' more than syntax.

I can give voice to an emotionally lighter thought using an extremely intricate grammatical/poetic construction than displays my absolute ingenuity with the English language (See the wit of Evelyn Waugh). Despite the formal depth/profundity, the sentiment is lighthearted.

It is in this sense that Mozart's music is undoubtably 'lighter' than Beethoven's. It's as clear as daylight.


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

tdc said:


> Beethoven's tendency to use dynamics for expressive purposes more so than dissonance, makes his music seem generally less 'deep' to me than the other composers in this poll, so in that sense, 'lighter'.
> 
> I can also see why on the surface Mozart's music seems lighter than Beethoven's, and in a sense it is. I think Mozart was the one with the better ideas, who had the tools to be more expressive. Perhaps Beethoven sensed this lack in his music and its why he cushioned it in a lot of loudness and banging. He seemed to have a need to remind listeners in this way that he was a serious and profound composer.


The idea that Beethoven wrote how he did, because he felt insignificant next to Mozart, as opposed to giving voice to his inner turmoil and visions, is absolutely laughable.

You Mozart nuts really are loose when it comes to defending your musical crush. It doesn't bring out your best.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

RogerWaters said:


> You seem to continually take the adjective 'lighter' to mean, when applied to Mozart, things like 'superficial or somehow less worthwhile. I never intimated that.


I think you did:



RogerWaters said:


> I yhink you'd have to be a buffoon not to sense this.
> I'm listening to the g minor quintet right now, and it's amazing how pleasant it is!


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

Beethoven wrote heavyweight pieces like Fur Elise.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Why don't you love Mozart? With regard to him we clearly disagree with one another, my dear friend. I not only love Mozart - I worship him. For me, the best opera ever written is Don Giovanni. With your fine musical sensitivity, you surely ought to love this ideally pure artist. True, Mozart did expend his energies far too liberally and very often wrote not following his inspiration but out of necessity. However, do read his biography which has been excellently written by Otto Jahn, and you will see that he had no choice but to do so. Besides, Beethoven and Bach, too, wrote lots of weak works which are unworthy of standing alongside their masterpieces. Such was the force of circumstances that they sometimes had to turn their art into a trade. But take Mozart's operas, two or three of his symphonies, his Requiem, his six string quartets dedicated to Haydn, and the C minor quartet. Do you really not find anything beautiful in all this? True, Mozart does not grip one as profoundly as Beethoven; his sweep is not as broad. Just as in life he was a carefree child to the end of his days, so in his music there is no subjective tragedy of the kind which reveals itself so strongly and powerfully in Beethoven. However, this did not prevent him from creating an objectively tragic figure, indeed the most striking and powerful human figure ever portrayed through music. I mean Donna Anna in Don Giovanni [...]

For God's sake, do read the bulky but very interesting book on Mozart by Otto Jahn. You will see from it what a wonderful, irreproachable, infinitely kind, and angelically pure nature he had. He was the incarnation of the ideal of a great artist who creates because of an unconscious stirring of his genius. He wrote music as the nightingales sing, i.e. without pausing to think, without doing violence to himself. [...] Everyone loved him; he had the most marvellous, cheerful, and equable temperament. There was not a whit of pride in him. Whenever he met Haydn, he would express his love and veneration for him in the most sincere and fervent terms. The purity of his soul was absolute. He knew neither envy nor vengefulness nor spite, and I think that all this can be heard in his music, which has reconciling, clarifying, and caressing properties [...]

I could go on talking to you forever about this radiant genius for whom I cherish a kind of cult [...] Apart from you, I have met a few people before who had a fine understanding of music and loved it passionately, but who at the same time would not acknowledge Mozart. In vain I tried to open their eyes to the beauty of his music, but never before have I so wanted to win over someone to the ranks of Mozart's admirers as I would like to win you over now. Of course, in our musical sympathies it is very often accidental circumstances which play an important part. The music of Don Giovanni was the first music which produced a tremendous impression on me. It awoke a holy enthusiasm in me, which would later bear fruit. Through this music I entered that world of artistic beauty inhabited only by the greatest geniuses. Before that I had only known Italian opera. It is to Mozart that I am obliged for the fact that I have dedicated my life to music. He gave the first impulse to my musical powers and made me love music more than anything else in the world."

"I bow before the greatness of some of his works, but I do not love Beethoven. My attitude towards him reminds me of how I felt as a child with regard to God, Lord of Sabaoth. I felt (and even now my feelings have not changed) a sense of amazement before Him, but at the same time also fear. He created heaven and earth, just as He created me, but still, even though I cringe before Him, there is no love. Christ, on the contrary, awakens precisely and exclusively feelings of love. Yes, He was God, but at the same time a man. He suffered like us. We are sorry for Him, we love in Him His ideal human side. And if Beethoven occupies in my heart a place analogous to God, Lord of Sabaoth, then Mozart I love as a musical Christ. Besides, he lived almost like Christ did. I think there is nothing sacrilegious in such a comparison. Mozart was a being so angelical and child-like in his purity, his music is so full of unattainably divine beauty, that if there is someone whom one can mention with the same breath as Christ, then it is he. [...] It is my profound conviction that Mozart is the highest, the culminating point which beauty has reached in the sphere of music. Nobody has made me cry and thrill with joy, sensing my proximity to something that we call the ideal, in the way that he has [...] In Mozart I love everything because we love everything in a person whom we truly love. Above all I love Don Giovanni, as it was thanks to this work that I found out what music is. Until then (till the age of 17) I had known nothing apart from pleasant Italian semi-music. Of course, whilst I do love everything in Mozart, I won't claim that every minor work of his is a masterpiece. No! I know that any one of his sonatas, for example, is not a great work, and yet I love every sonata of his precisely because it is his - because this musical Christ touched it with his radiant hand."


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

I don’t know why people must go on like this debating semantics because if you put these composers in the historical conrexts of the styles in which they were writing you will find that they wrote in styles appropriate to the age they lived in. The fact that Mozart Beethoven and Bach were possibly the three greatest geniuses that music has ever known and transcended anything else written in their time - Mozart would have done far more had he lived longer - is the point. We have also to remember that much of the music published by Mozart was actually published by a zealous father when WAM was a young lad so shouldn’t count too much in our assessment of him apart from as an astounding prodigy. Mozart real contribution begins when he was in his late teens. Still some remarkable music there. If only he’d have lived another five years then who knows what we would’ve had?


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Why don't you love Mozart? With regard to him we clearly disagree with one another, my dear friend. I not only love Mozart - I worship him.


A lot of that is embarrassingly over the top, hammeredklavier. I recognize that last gush as coming from Tchaikovsky, if I'm not mistaken. Oh, and the greatest opera ever written is Marriage of Figaro, not Don Giovanni.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

ORigel said:


> In order:
> Mozart
> Bach
> Beethoven
> Wagner


this. Mozart is by far the lightest. Bach has also some light music because much of his music is based on dances. Beethoven und Wagner sind schwermütig


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> I think you did:


You interpret words much differently than me. Something pleasant is not necessarily superficial or not worthwhile.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Why don't you love Mozart? With regard to him we clearly disagree with one another, my dear friend. I not only love Mozart - I worship him. For me, the best opera ever written is Don Giovanni. With your fine musical sensitivity, you surely ought to love this ideally pure artist. True, Mozart did expend his energies far too liberally and very often wrote not following his inspiration but out of necessity. However, do read his biography which has been excellently written by Otto Jahn, and you will see that he had no choice but to do so. Besides, Beethoven and Bach, too, wrote lots of weak works which are unworthy of standing alongside their masterpieces. Such was the force of circumstances that they sometimes had to turn their art into a trade. But take Mozart's operas, two or three of his symphonies, his Requiem, his six string quartets dedicated to Haydn, and the C minor quartet. Do you really not find anything beautiful in all this? True, Mozart does not grip one as profoundly as Beethoven; his sweep is not as broad. Just as in life he was a carefree child to the end of his days, so in his music there is no subjective tragedy of the kind which reveals itself so strongly and powerfully in Beethoven. However, this did not prevent him from creating an objectively tragic figure, indeed the most striking and powerful human figure ever portrayed through music. I mean Donna Anna in Don Giovanni....


Can you give an example in Don Giovanni where you consider Mozart achieved such as you describe. I've tried two or three times now but didn't get beyond the first hour.


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

Jacck said:


> this. Mozart is by far the lightest. Bach has also some light music because much of his music is based on dances. Beethoven und Wagner sind schwermütig


Totally superficial view I'm afraid. Oh dear!

Beethoven's7th symphony is the apotheosis of the dance


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

> "Of course, whilst I do love everything in Mozart, I won't claim that every minor work of his is a masterpiece. No! I know that any one of his sonatas, for example, is not a great work, and yet I love every sonata of his precisely because it is his - because this musical Christ touched it with his radiant hand."


Come to think of it, that sounds sort of like your response to my criticisms of Mozart's piano sonatas, hammered. :lol:


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

For goodness sake, let's not have these ridiculous analogies towards Mozart as a 'musical Christ' or such nonsense talk. He was a man - a very fallible man - who composed wonderful music. I love his music along with Beethoven's and Bach's but have no illusions as to what they were like as human beings - totally fallible like the rest of us. Just happened to have an extraordinary talent they blessed the world with.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Handelian said:


> For goodness sake, let's not have these ridiculous analogies towards Mozart as a 'musical Christ' or such nonsense talk. He was a man - a very fallible man - who composed wonderful music. I love his music along with Beethoven's and Bach's but have no illusions as to what they were like as human beings - *totally fallible like the rest of us*. Just happened to have an extraordinary talent they blessed the world with.


speak for yourself


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

janxharris said:


> Can you give an example in Don Giovanni where you consider Mozart achieved such as you describe. I've tried two or three times now but didn't get beyond the first hour.


Those aren't hammeredklavier's words. He's quoting Tchaikovsky, whose rhetoric was apparently as gushy as his music. :lol:


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

consuono said:


> Those aren't hammeredklavier's words. He's quoting Tchaikovsky, whose rhetoric was apparently as gushy as his music. :lol:


Well I knew some of it was, but all of it?


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

janxharris said:


> Well I knew some of it was, but all of it?


I know at least two chunks of it is. The first and the last paragraphs for sure. So I'd say it all is since it's in the same idolatrous vein. :lol:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> Come to think of it, that sounds sort of like your response to my criticisms of Mozart's piano sonatas, hammered. :lol:


I simply posted all that for fun. (It's still "cute", isn't it?) Maybe you're overreacting a little. :lol: The term "sonata" in that context sounds vague in meaning to me. Tchaikovsky might have meant "not everything Mozart wrote in the sonata form is a great work". Even if Tchaikovsky only meant "works that are named sonatas", they would still include K.497 (which is by no means a 'lesser work' in scale, compared to later composers') and even violin sonatas such as K.304, K.379 (it would be crazy to call all these "not great").


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> I simply posted all that for fun. (It's still "cute", isn't it?) Maybe you're overreacting a little. :lol: The term "sonata" in that context sounds vague in meaning to me. Tchaikovsky might have meant "not everything Mozart wrote in the sonata form is a great work". ...


My comments were only in fun too, HK. And of *course* Piotr was referring to the piano sonatas there. Had to be. :lol: K. 379 is a masterpiece.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> And of *course* Piotr was referring to the piano sonatas there. Had to be.


Don't be silly, Mr. consuono, lol. The idea that later composers found Mozart's 'sonatas' "disappointing" seems just silly, lol. Haven't I told you enough times already, how K.533, for instance, inspired Wagner? Grieg transcribed K.545 (and K.475) for 4 hands?
"There is only one person left today who knows how to play Mozart, and that's Pleyel, and when he is good enough to play a piano - duet sonata with me I learn from the experience" -Chopin


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

Jacck said:


> speak for yourself


Sorry I forgot about you!


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> how K.533, for instance, inspired Wagner? Grieg transcribed K.545 and K.475 for 4 hands?


Now I'm not a big fan of K.475 (anymore...) and I think maybe I got sick of K. 545 playing it when I was a kid, along with Für Elise and other staples. I do love K. 533 though, Alberti bass and all. There's some nice counterpoint in that one, and also in K. 576. K. 570 is charming and child-like. I also love K. 333. I don't dislike the whole lot.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> Now I'm not a big fan of K.475 (anymore...)


Awww... How sad... (But I always respect your preference, lol.) 
This is one of Mozart works I'm picky about interpretation. I don't think there are many performers who truly know how to play K.475. I abhor most modern piano performances of Mozart for reasons I've described to you, (one rare exception would be Uchida's performance of K.466), but K.475 is one of works I would never ever want to hear played on the modern piano.
I like the subtleties at which Florian Birsak handles the andantino and piu allegro, but the tempo of the adagio is a bit too slow. I also like this live performance by Viviana Sofronitsky, but there are unwanted background noises (I'm not sure if she did a studio recording). There's also one by Penelope Crawford, which I like.






"When Vladimir Nápravník was the composer's guest at Maydanovo in February 1892 Tchaikovsky would often ask him in the evenings to sit at the piano and play on his own (instead of playing piano duets): "Pyotr Ilyich 'worshipped' Mozart and once, while listening to the Andante from his piano fantasia No. 4, he said that out of this work one could make a splendid vocal quartet". Tchaikovsky eventually realised this idea the following year, adapting that section of the Fantasie et sonate in C minor, KV 475, into a quartet for singers which he entitled Night, and for which he wrote the verses himself. Tchaikovsky attended the first performance of his quartet at the Moscow Conservatory on 9/21 October 1893. Also present on this occasion was his friend Nikolay Kashkin, who would write in his obituary of Tchaikovsky barely a month later: "There at the Conservatory he also said to me that the beauty of that melody by Mozart was a mystery for him, and that he himself could not explain the irresistible charm of the simple melody of that quartet."



hammeredklavier said:


> how K.533, for instance, inspired Wagner? Grieg transcribed K.545 (and K.475) for 4 hands?


"He often reminisced about his childhood impressions when Mozart was played at Wahnfried. He had discovered the C minor Fantasy at his Uncle Adolf's house and had dreamt about it for ages afterwards." < Wagner: A Biography, By Curt von Westernhagen, P. 82 >


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

All of the mentioned composers could be very dark and "heavy" in many of their works. Wagner almost all the time.

Mozart's piano writing was very light until you look at his Fantasies and later piano works. His chamber works are all fairly light, as well as his concerti—except for a select few spots. Of course his operas contain many heavy areas, and his Requiem is a prime example of heavy writing in the Classical era.

Bach had very few "heavy" keyboard works because the harpsichord does not have the sonority of the piano. He made up for this it by writing the some of the heaviest solo violin, organ, and cello music ever conceived by mankind. His chorale writing can also sound extremely heavy. 

Beethoven's piano writing is a mixture of light and heavy, signalling the transition of Romantic piano writing. His symphonies, chamber music, and concerti are also a combination of light and heavy writing. Beethoven was all about contrast. 

So it's really very difficult to decide who is the lightest, but the result ought to be Mozart—not because he chose to write light music, but because his early career took place at a time where Gallant was the vogue. He grew up with exclusively light music and was influenced by the likes of CPE Bach and Haydn. There is no question that if he had been born in a later time, with modern pianos and massive orchestras, his music would've been much heavier.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

chu42 said:


> Of course his operas contain many heavy areas, and his Requiem is a prime example of heavy writing in the Classical era.
> Beethoven was all about contrast.


also take a look at stuff like these:

*K.257*
3:50 ~ 4:20
9:00~10:05
11:30 ~ 12:30
21:00 ~ 23:00

*K.258*
2:40 ~ 3:30
6:25 ~ 7:05
7:40 ~ 8:00

*K.262*
11:40 ~ 12:30
25:00 ~ 26:20

*K.220*
2:40 ~ 4:00
5:50 ~ 6:55

*K.317*
4:35 ~ 5:55
9:25 ~ 11:10
























hammeredklavier said:


> I find this to be the most interesting work Mozart wrote at 20.
> It consists of 9 movements, but there are elements of contrast and connections between them:
> _"hostia sancta"_ (9:24), which comes after the dark, solemn _"verbum caro factum"_ (8:03) feels brighter by contrast, but it also has its dark elements of contrast constantly injecting a sense of tension, within itself:
> [10:55]: _"stupendum supra omina miracula"_,
> ...


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

chu42 said:


> All of the mentioned composers could be very dark and "heavy" in many of their works. Wagner almost all the time.
> 
> Mozart's piano writing was very light until you look at his Fantasies and later piano works. His chamber works are all fairly light, as well as his concerti-except for a select few spots. Of course his operas contain many heavy areas, and his Requiem is a prime example of heavy writing in the Classical era.
> 
> ...


Sorry but you must be listening to different composers to me. Bach heavy? If you listen to Klemperer's lugubrious and anachronistic trudge I suppose but as Landowska said, the arch sin when playing Bach is to make it heavy. Bach has to be danced. It is rhythmic. There is a mistake here that some appear to be confusion 'heaviness' with profundity. Why some people think Wagner is profound.profundity has nothing to do with heaviness. Bach wrote one of the profoundest pieces ever in his chaconne for solo violin remember!


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Handelian said:


> Sorry but you must be listening to different composers to me. Bach heavy? If you listen to Klemperer's lugubrious and anachronistic trudge I suppose but as Landowska said, the arch sin when playing Bach is to make it heavy. Bach has to be danced. It is rhythmic. There is a mistake here that some appear to be confusion 'heaviness' with profundity. Why some people think Wagner is profound.profundity has nothing to do with heaviness. Bach wrote one of the profoundest pieces ever in his chaconne for solo violin remember!


You don't think his organ music sounds at all heavy? Bach used more polyphony and double notes than any other organ composers at the time.

You mention Chaconne and you don't realize that it is some of the heaviest writing for solo violin until well into the Romantic era? Have you even listened to Corelli and Vivaldi and Handel's violin works in comparison? Bach was one of the only composer who wrote _fugues_ for the violin.

In fact, the Gallant/Classical era was a direct reaction to heavy music like what Bach was writing.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

chu42 said:


> You don't think his organ music sounds at all heavy?


speaking of organ music, I also like these, by Mozart:

*K.608*
the dazzling display of chromaticism in the ending reminds me of "a cenar teco". (It is a double fugue on the fugue of the introduction): 



I sort of view symphony in D K.504 as having a similar structure. (the "fanfare" gesture of the French-overture style introduction of the first movement is sort of "mirrored" in the development of the final movement).
some fun facts: 
Beethoven made his own copy
https://library.sjsu.edu/beethoven-auction-database/transcription-beethoven-mozart’s-k-608 ,
and it is speculated that Schubert's F minor D.940 is modeled on the Mozart. 
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1004029

*K.594*
the ending of this vaguely reminds me of the beginning of Schumann's 4th symphony in feel 
(I don't think it actually influenced the Schumann though.)




"Beethoven made his own copy of K608 and procured a copy of K.594."
https://www.jstor.org/stable/855028?seq=1

*K.401* 




It was once commonly believed this was written in 1782, (hence the high Kochel number) but a recent analysis of the manuscript revealed that it was actually written in 1773. https://books.google.ca/books?id=nA2QZPsT1RwC&pg=PA68
It's a rectus-inversus fugue. In the piece, there is a fugue with the original subject inverted, and another fugue where the original subject combines with the inverted subject.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Yes, Mozart's organ writing is some of the most harmonically advanced for the time.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

It isn't that Mozart can't be "heavy" -- try the Requiem, Don Giovanni, C Minor Mass or even the piano concerto 24 -- but he has a greater range from childlike innocence to heavyweight morality than other composers. He is often described as the composer of light and shade.


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## Ad Astra (Aug 10, 2020)

I voted Mozart which seems to be the consensus. Bach and Wagner are certainly the heaviest of the bunch in my opinion. Perhaps if you were to swap them out for say Debussy and Sibelius, it would have been much interesting to see those results.


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

chu42 said:


> You don't think his organ music sounds at all heavy? Bach used more polyphony and double notes than any other organ composers at the time.
> 
> You mention Chaconne and you don't realize that it is some of the heaviest writing for solo violin until well into the Romantic era? Have you even listened to Corelli and Vivaldi and Handel's violin works in comparison? Bach was one of the only composer who wrote _fugues_ for the violin.
> 
> In fact, the Gallant/Classical era was a direct reaction to heavy music like what Bach was writing.


So you don't think that knows that C minor Mass or the crashing chords at the end of Don G amount to 'heavy'? The Galkant/ classical era was actually a reaction not to heavy music but to polyphony of the baroque period. You must be listening to different composers to me. JSB needs to be danced all the while and it was because people played him with a heavy effect that he was not popular. To say Bach is heavy is laughable unless you are a Klemperer fan. Because Bach wrote polyphony it doesn't make his music heavy.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Handelian said:


> The Galkant/ classical era was actually a reaction not to heavy music but to polyphony of the baroque period.


I see it more as a reaction to the Baroque Doctrine of the Affections. I think the Classical period composers believed individual movements had to contain more contrast not just in terms of light/dark feelings, but also, homophony/polyhony (texture), rhythm, tempo, dynamics, orchestral color, dramatic gestures. (There are also dialects of the Rococo, such as the "Empfindsamer stil" (sensitive style), where Carl Philipp Emanuel was the most notable representative)










*[ 8:03 ~ 14:35 ]*









*string quintet in C, K. 515 - allegro [4:14] *

2:40 





M. Haydn - P 24, MH 425 - *Symphony No. 33 in B flat major*: [ 1:50 ]
M. Haydn - P 32, MH 507 - *Symphony No. 40 in F major*: [ 7:20 ]


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Handelian said:


> Because Bach wrote polyphony it doesn't make his music heavy.













> https://www.npr.org/sections/decept.../148769794/why-i-hate-the-goldberg-variations
> "... The capstone of these is the Quodlibet, with its good humor and generosity of spirit, reenacting (so they say) Bach family parties where they would mash up various tunes, dazzle each other with contrapuntal mastery. Now, the words of the tunes are perhaps jokes, references that we can probably no longer get; everyone has their own idea what it all means. ..."







I consider the B minor mass to be a monumental work in expression/technique, but Bach can be somewhat "light-hearted" (while being "expressive") in certain parts as well, such as the use of the horn in the quoniam tu solus.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

in order of heaviness (no judgement of quality tied to it):

1. Wagner
2. Beethoven
3. Bach
4. Mozart


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I voted with the majority, Mozart - but that shouldn't imply that his music is as candy-floss as the daft wig in Amadeus. 
I don't know enough about his music - I know even less about Wagner, but would never dare to suggest that he went for composing lighter music. 

All good fun, I suppose.


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

I think there is somewhat cross purposes here. Of course if we by ‘heavy’ mean thickly scored then Wagner with his huge orchestra comes out on top. But of course that alone should not be mistaken for profundity else film music can also score pretty high!
Because Mozart is lighter scored, does not mean he is less profound. And Bach’sgreat passions - maybe the greatest music ever written - were not written with huge forces in mind


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Handelian said:


> I think there is somewhat cross purposes here. Of course if we by 'heavy' mean thickly scored then Wagner with his huge orchestra comes out on top. But of course that alone should not be mistaken for profundity else film music can also score pretty high!


is there anybody here who is taking heaviness for profundity?


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

norman bates said:


> is there anybody here who is taking heaviness for profundity?


There certainly appeared to be on a previous thread


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Nothing makes me want to reach for my dance shoes like a Bach fugue or his Chaconne, or how about The Musical Offering? These should be included on all light classics compilations! If it wasn't for Klemperer everyone would realize it! :lol:


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

tdc said:


> Nothing makes me want to reach for my dance shoes like a Bach fugue or his Chaconne, or how about The Musical Offering? These should be included on all light classics compilations! If it wasn't for Klemperer everyone would realize it! :lol:


Well the chaconne originated as a dance so it should make you want to dance. We must remember that K belonged to the anachronistic generation who thought slowness was profundity. Even his singers complained of running out of breath!


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Handelian said:


> So you don't think that knows that C minor Mass or the crashing chords at the end of Don G amount to 'heavy'? The Galkant/ classical era was actually a reaction not to heavy music but to polyphony of the baroque period. You must be listening to different composers to me. JSB needs to be danced all the while and it was because people played him with a heavy effect that he was not popular. To say Bach is heavy is laughable unless you are a Klemperer fan. Because Bach wrote polyphony it doesn't make his music heavy.


I literally cited Mozart's Don G as well as his chorale music as examples of his heavy music. Please don't make disingenuous arguments regarding what I did say or didn't say.

Furthermore, you need to stop spamming the argument that Bach was "written to be danced." This is a silly line of reasoning and patently untrue, even if many of his structures are based on what were originally dance forms. The very notion that Bach should be danced to is an idea that Bach himself would have scoffed at, if not repulsed by.

Bach wrote all his music to fulfill his personal religious beliefs-this is clear as day from his letters and biographical sources. When Bach was commissioned to write music he did so begrudgingly and out of necessity, and often came up with a composition too heavy and complex for his employer's tastes. He hardly ever wrote much music for the personal entertainment of others, and most certainly not for secular social events such as dances. In fact, many devout Lutherans at that time even considered dancing to be improper and even Satanic-or at the very least reserved for the common folk and peasants.



Handelian said:


> To say Bach is heavy is laughable unless you are a Klemperer fan. Because Bach wrote polyphony it doesn't make his music heavy.


Polyphony is a _key component _in creating heaviness. Polyphony does not necessarily create heaviness but it is conducive to it. Having multiple lines of music at once does not contribute to a "light" feeling-it is much harder to enjoy polyphonic music casually or as background music due to the complexity of what your brain is receiving.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

chu42 said:


> Polyphony is a _key component _in creating heaviness. Having multiple lines of music at once is not conducive to a "light" feeling-it is much harder to enjoy polyphonic music casually or as background music due to the complexity of what your brain is receiving.


whatabout quodlibets and joke canons?



> https://www.npr.org/sections/decept.../148769794/why-i-hate-the-goldberg-variations
> "... The capstone of these is the Quodlibet, with its good humor and generosity of spirit, reenacting (so they say) Bach family parties where they would mash up various tunes, dazzle each other with contrapuntal mastery. Now, the words of the tunes are perhaps jokes, references that we can probably no longer get; everyone has their own idea what it all means. ..."






Bona nox: 



Difficile lectu:


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

It may be light in character but that does not always correlate with lightness of texture! I would say this is a fairly complex and heavy piece:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

There is a very clever contrapuntal "joke" in the ending of Mozart K.428, btw: 



 (4:48~4:54)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> There is a very clever contrapuntal "joke" in the ending of Mozart K.428, btw:
> 
> 
> 
> (4:48~4:54)


But then, the slow movement is dark with chromatic harmony; https://www.talkclassical.com/56299-mozart-le-nozze-di-9.html#post1982298, like the 25th variation in Bach's goldbergs. I wouldn't call these pieces "light", but "multi-faceted".


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## Handelian (Nov 18, 2020)

chu42 said:


> I literally cited Mozart's Don G as well as his chorale music as examples of his heavy music. Please don't make disingenuous arguments regarding what I did say or didn't say.
> 
> Furthermore, you need to stop spamming the argument that Bach was "written to be danced." This is a silly line of reasoning and patently untrue, even if many of his structures are based on what were originally dance forms. The very notion that Bach should be danced to is an idea that Bach himself would have scoffed at, if not repulsed by.
> 
> ...


Please read what I said. I said (repeating what Landowska said via Gardiner) 'Bach has to be danced,' so please don't you make disingenuous arguments regarding what I did say or didn't say. The idea that Bach wrote his music begrudgingly and out of necessity is one I would have hoped would have been put to bed forever by now. His argument with his employers is that it wasn't appreciated. How on earth a man who wrote begrudgingly could have produced some of the greatest music ever appears to have escaped you unless you hold on to tired old ideas. And please stop being so literal - I never said Bach's music (at least his church music) was there for literally dancing to. I have made that point before as literalists have a problem with it as soon as I mention 'dance'. I don't know why literalists fashion onto this word rather than reading it in the context. It is the music that has to be danced not danced to. Please have you got that?
And of course polyphony does not necessary create heaviness - only in the wrong hands.it doesn't with Bach if it is sung / played as it should be.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I find stuff like these too "dynamic" to be considered merely "light". There are parts that may sound "light", but they don't last very long. There is a constant tendency to go into "darkness", especially in the gloria and credo, (ex. the modulation at 8:37)




look at 2:50 , 5:30 , 7:20 , 13:20


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

chu42 said:


> ...
> Furthermore, you need to stop spamming the argument that Bach was "written to be danced." This is a silly line of reasoning and patently untrue, even if many of his structures are based on what were originally dance forms. The very notion that Bach should be danced to is an idea that Bach himself would have scoffed at, if not repulsed by.
> 
> Bach wrote all his music to fulfill his personal religious beliefs-this is clear as day from his letters and biographical sources. When Bach was commissioned to write music he did so begrudgingly and out of necessity, and often came up with a composition too heavy and complex for his employer's tastes. He hardly ever wrote much music for the personal entertainment of others, and most certainly not for secular social events such as dances. In fact, many devout Lutherans at that time even considered dancing to be improper and even Satanic-or at the very least reserved for the common folk and peasants.
> ...


I think you're confusing Lutherans of Bach's time with New England Puritans. 1. Bach may not have composed a couple hundred some odd cantatas just for recreational enjoyment, but I don't get the feeling that they're perfunctory or that they were composed begrudgingly...and some of his greatest were composed in the 1730s when he probably could've stopped cantata production entirely. 2. One of the glories of Bach's music overall to me is how closely it is related to actual physical movement. I don't think the dance movements in Bach are solely abstract meditations on dance forms. 
By the way,


> He hardly ever wrote much music for the personal entertainment of others, and most certainly not for secular social events such as dances.


The orchestral suites and a good many of the concerti were written for entertainment at the court of Anhalt-Köthen. A lot of the concerti were reworked several years later into keyboard concerti for the entertainment of patrons of the Café Zimmermann. The title page of the keyboard Partitas states that they were "prepared for the enjoyment of music lovers".


Handelian said:


> The idea that Bach wrote his music begrudgingly and out of necessity is one I would have hoped would have been put to bed forever by now.


Hear, hear.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

chu42 said:


> Bach wrote all his music to fulfill his personal religious beliefs-this is clear as day from his letters and biographical sources. When Bach was commissioned to write music he did so begrudgingly and out of necessity, and often came up with a composition too heavy and complex for his employer's tastes. He hardly ever wrote much music for the personal entertainment of others, and most certainly not for secular social events such as dances. In fact, many devout Lutherans at that time even considered dancing to be improper and even Satanic-or at the very least reserved for the common folk and peasants.


I agree with some of your post, but I do disagree somewhat after the first sentence above. I think it's clear that so many of the cantatas he wrote under commission are so much more than "begrudging" in their high craftsmanship and their transformation of Lutheran dogmas into supremely moving examinations of the human condition. He did often defy his employer's orders, but this was mainly because the Leipzig bigwigs complained that his music was too "operatic," and he saw no problem with using secular idioms for sacred messages. And he _certainly_ did not see a dichotomy between writing church music and entertaining others! In his words, "All music should be for the glory of God and the _refreshment of the soul_" (emphasis added). He wanted to spread the message of what he believed was true through music that people would be attracted to through its beauty and imagination. And the Brandenburgs, orchestral suites, dance suites for keyboard, and secular cantatas are high-quality music written for the "entertainment of others!" In fact Bach considered the dance to be symbolic of an "elevation of the soul to heaven" mixing physical movement with thoughts of spiritual ecstasy, so regardless of what those in Lutheran circles thought of it (and I don't know of any evidence to support the claim you make that Lutherans considered dancing "Satanic" - if so, I don't think Bach would get away with including dance forms in practically all of his cantatas) it was significant for him and this "light," joyous, "unsophisticated" music would be used to express some of the most profound ideas. Treating Bach as a "Lutheran prude" is a major false barrier to seeing him as the radical, innovative, insightful, and eternal composer that he really was.

10:21 here:











The middle section of this - it was taken from the opening of the fourth Orchestral Suite, and the text means "Fill our mouths with laughter":


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Until the nineteenth century, music education began with what is called species counterpoint. In this exercise the student is given a simple phrase of long, even notes like part of a Gregorian chant, called a cantus firmus, and is asked to write another phrase of long, even notes that could be played or sung with it. The first species is one note of the countermelody for one note of the cantus firmus; the different species then advance in rhythmic complexity, the last being a free rhythm against the original cantus firmus. The student advances from two voices to three-, four-, and five-part counterpoint." 
< The Romantic Generation, by Charles Rosen, P. 553 >

"He [Chopin] said the problem with the way they teach nowadays is that they teach the chords before they teach the movement of voices that creates the chords. That's the problem, he said, with Berlioz. He applies the chords as a kind of veneer and fills in the gaps the best way he can. Chopin then said that you can get a sense of pure logic in music with fugue and he cited not Bach-though we know that he worshiped Bach-but Mozart. He said, in every one of Mozart's pieces, you feel the counterpoint." 
< The Art of Tonal Analysis: Twelve Lessons in Schenkerian Theory, by Carl Schachter, P. 57 >

So did this "change" make music "lighter"?


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> "Until the nineteenth century, music education began with what is called species counterpoint. In this exercise the student is given a simple phrase of long, even notes like part of a Gregorian chant, called a cantus firmus, and is asked to write another phrase of long, even notes that could be played or sung with it. The first species is one note of the countermelody for one note of the cantus firmus; the different species then advance in rhythmic complexity, the last being a free rhythm against the original cantus firmus. The student advances from two voices to three-, four-, and five-part counterpoint." <The Romantic Generation, by Charles Rosen, P. 553>
> 
> "He [Chopin] said the problem with the way they teach nowadays is that they teach the chords before they teach the movement of voices that creates the chords. That's the problem, he said, with Berlioz. He applies the chords as a kind of veneer and fills in the gaps the best way he can. Chopin then said that you can get a sense of pure logic in music with fugue and he cited not Bach-though we know that he worshiped Bach-but Mozart. He said, in every one of Mozart's pieces, you feel the counterpoint." <The Art of Tonal Analysis: Twelve Lessons in Schenkerian Theory, by Carl Schachter, P. 57>
> 
> So did this "change" make music "lighter"?


Who are you talking to? What conversation are you contributing to?


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> But then, the slow movement is dark with chromatic harmony; https://www.talkclassical.com/56299-mozart-le-nozze-di-9.html#post1982298, like the 25th variation in Bach's goldbergs. I wouldn't call these pieces "light", but "multi-faceted".


Oh, you are conversing with _yourself_.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

RogerWaters said:


> Who are you talking to? What conversation are you contributing to?


to chu42 and Handelian's conversation ( #62 , #57 )


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

chu42 said:


> Polyphony is a _key component _in creating heaviness.


This is the full paragraph, from Rosen's book:
"Throughout most of the eighteenth century, only counterpoint was taught to young composers, and any knowledge of harmony was informally picked up by experience or by reading the few theorists who tried to deal innovatively with the subject. Counterpoint was absolutely fundamental. Beginning with harmony was an early nineteenth-century novelty, introduced, I think, by the Paris Conservatoire. Chopin attributes what he thinks of as Berlioz's clumsiness to the newfangled system of music instruction. He himself, Having grown up in a backwater like Warsaw, had studied the old-fashioned way. He insists that counterpoint must precede the study or harmony, or else the harmonic movement will have no inner life-it will be laid on from the outside, as he says, like a veneer. 
As we see from Chopin's remarks, the idea of putting part writing (counterpoint before chords (harmony) is not surprisingly modern idea-it is the old traditional way, and Chopin deplored its disappearance. It was the late eighteenth-century development of large harmony areas, of modulation, in fact, that made the teaching of harmony independent of counterpoint. The same stylistic development also gave Rameau's theory of classifying chords by their roots an importance it did not have when it appeared in the early eighteenth century: his theory became of central importance to musical education in early nineteenth-century France. Berlioz seemed to think naturally in Rameau's terms. He chose the harmonies often because of the roots and then employed the inversion which sounded most expressive.
It seems to me that Chopin's claim of a failure on Berlioz's part is partly true-and nevertheless that this failure accounts for much of that is powerful and original in Berlioz's music. Until the nineteenth century, music education began with what is called species counterpoint. In this exercise the student is given a simple phrase of long, even notes like part of a Gregorian chant, called a cantus firmus, and is asked to write another phrase of long, even notes that could be played or sung with it. The first species is one note of the countermelody for one note of the cantus firmus; the different species then advance in rhythmic complexity, the last being a free rhythm against the original cantus firmus. The student advances from two voices to three-, four-, and five-part counterpoint." 
< The Romantic Generation, by Charles Rosen, P. 552~553 >

So a late 18th-century composer, Mozart, "thought harmony in terms of counterpoint" as he was taught to do so, from childhood. But was this a key component in creating "heaviness" for 19th-century composers like Chopin and Berlioz?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

hammeredklavier said:


> So a late 18th-century composer, Mozart, "thought harmony in terms of counterpoint" as he was taught to do so, from childhood. But was this a key component in creating "heaviness" for 19th-century composers like Chopin and Berlioz?


I would change the statement to polyphony _can_ be a key component in 'heaviness'. By the classical era music had become more homophonic, that is one reason why Mozart sounds less heavy. When Mozart uses older techniques for example in The Requiem, he tends to sound heavier.

Berlioz and Beethoven only sound really heavy to me when they get loud. Loudness is another aspect that can contribute to 'heaviness'. In Chopin we hear simultaneously the lightness of Mozart and the heaviness of Bach, due to his use of harmony/dissonance.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

tdc said:


> Berlioz and Beethoven only sound really heavy to me when they get loud.


Do Beethoven's Op.73/ii, Op.101/i, Op.131/i sound light to you?



tdc said:


> Loudness is another aspect that can contribute to 'heaviness'. In Chopin we hear simultaneously the lightness of Mozart and the heaviness of Bach, due to his use of harmony/dissonance.






I think Charles Rosen discussed something similar in his book, about the middle section of scherzo in B minor, the beginning of nocturne in F major, but I can't recall which page it was though.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

I just remembered this:

"As an artist, as a musician, Mozart was not a man of this world. To a certain part of the nineteenth century his work seemed to possess so pure, so formally rounded, so 'godlike' a perfection that Richard Wagner, the most violent spokesman of the Romantic Period, could call him 'music's genius of light and love'; and this without contradiction, for in such a view Wagner was in full agreement even with the opponents of his own art-with Robert Schumann, who called Mozart's G minor Symphony a work 'of Grecian lightness and grace' (Griechisch schwebender Grazie), or with Otto Jahn, Mozart's biographer, who partly unconsciously and partly intentionally overlooked all the darker dissonances in his life and work."
< Mozart, His Character, His Work / by Alfred Einstein / P. 3 >


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

hammeredklavier said:


> Do Beethoven's Op.131/i sound light to you?


No, not particularly light. The string quartets are the exception, and you are right to bring them up. Here Beethoven can sound heavier through texture rather than dynamics. Although the schizophrenic multi-mood approach of Beethoven often just comes across to me as all over the place. Not really heavy nor light, not one thing or the other, just kind of a jumble of things. I prefer music that I find more focused, dialed into a specific mood and enhancing it.

Just my tastes I guess.


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