# Composers and the "Great Leap Forward"



## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Not long ago, I attended a Wagner Society of New York seminar on _The Flying Dutchman_. As part of the presentation, one of the speakers played an unrecognizeable (to me) selection from _Rienzi_ and followed it up with a famous passage from _Dutchman_. Then, he opined that the leap in development from _Rienzi_ to _Dutchman_ was as significant a leap as could be found in Classical Music.

My first reaction is that one could juxtapose a prosaic passage from _Rienzi_ with a more stirring one from the same opera, and present a similar contrast. My second reaction is that there's a certain amount of 'choir-preaching' involved in the assertion. Essentially all of the assembled are Wagner fans, and doubtless we'd like to believe that "meteoric development" is one superlative that we'll happily add to all of the other superlatives surrounding Wagner.

But surely there are other examples of amazing artistic development, opus-over-opus. There are a couple that immediately sprung to my mind, but I'll keep 'em to myself, for now. (Want to leave some latitude for discussion...)

So- I invite you- contibute your own examples of the "Great Leap Forward!"


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

Stravinsky is the obvious answer for me. The Firebird and Petrushka are both excellent ballets and very forward thinking but the Rite of Spring was just a seismic leap forward, not just for Stravinsky but for all classical music. It's a pity he never produced anything that could measue up to that colossus later in his life.

Others that stand out are Beethoven's Grosse Fuge and John Cage's 4'33''. 

I stuck to classical for the purposes of this thread but if other genres are to be taken into consideration then I can think of plenty more.


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## World Violist (May 31, 2007)

Sibelius' Kullervo. First orchestral work, first work on this scale, and arguably the first of his masterpieces.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Brahms's _Deutsches Requiem_. It may not display a leaping-forward musicality, but it breaks the typical boundaries of the Latin Mass in preference for a personal text with great humanism at its centre.


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## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

Griffes - The Fountains of the Acqua Paola was a modern, and charming look back at simple Impressionistic compositions, so it was a leap forward for Impressionism, and a throwback in the modern era:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

One I can think of was the _String Quartet _(No. 2 or 3?) by Schoenberg which was the first "atonal" piece.

I tend to think similarly with regards to Shostakovich's quite gargantuan _Symphony No. 4_, a great leap forward not only in terms of scale, but for it's ambigious tonality & novel approach to thematic development which had not been seen in Russia/USSR since the days of Scriabin & Roslavets (no wonder that Shostakovich withdrew the work & it wasn't performed for about 30 years - of course political accusations of his music being "formalist" were at the heart of this also).

I read a similar thing about Schubert's _Great C major Symphony _(No. 9). In terms of scale & form, nothing had been seen like this before. The orchestra declared it unplayable, and it needed Schumann to find it decades later in some archive for it to be premiered, long after the composer's death.

Well, one can go on (eg. Berlioz' _Symphonie Fantastique _- certainly not the first "programmatic" symphony, but the first to make any real impact, and certainly it's orchestration still sounds quite modern). & what of Berg's _Piano Sonata Op. 1_, one can't compare it to any earlier works of the composer that were not published, but this is an important piece for the development of C20th piano repertoire. Not only in terms of it using the 12-tone method, but also for it's compactness & sense of instrumental colour, which were very new as well.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

'Leap forward' suggests some kind of evolution over previous archaic music, so I'm not sure it's the best term, it doesn't sound that objective (maybe biased to a particular style). All music tends to owe something to the past and it's always easy in retrospect to say something fortells something happening in the future but there is no way the composer could have thought they were doing that at the time. Sometimes maybe a composer may have tried to be revolutionary and thought up something of a dead end. This thread could easily be 'who is the most influential', an area that is hard to judge.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I believe it was Beethoven's 1st Symphony that has one of the most unconventional beginnings in classical music: the Dominant chord resolving to a tonic of a different key. Although it doesn't seem so special now, back then it was extraordinary for a composer to begin a symphony with anything other than the Tonic chord.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Daphne by Jacopo Peri

Orfeo by Monteverdi 

Heee?


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## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

Mozart Symphonies 39,40,41st
Mozart Piano Concertos 21-25
Beethoven's 5,7,9
Bruckner's 8th & 9th Symphonies.
Brahms 1st Piano Concerto.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Perhaps I was unclear concerning my point...

What I was looking for were examples of a composer establishing a 
*clear qualitative jump* from one work to the next.

In order to make the comparison, we need the _before_ and after work.

*Argus* comes close to capturing the spirit of the thing with his first example of _Firebird/Petrushka_ followed by _Rite of Spring_. (Though I'm not sure that _Sacre_ represents an obviously better work than _Firebird_ in the same manner that _Dutchman_ is obviously a better work than _Rienzi_- but there's some latitude for dissent there, for sure.)

Hopefully, the gist of my query is in better focus, now...


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Perhaps I was unclear concerning my point...
> 
> What I was looking for were examples of a composer establishing a
> *clear qualitative jump* from one work to the next.
> ...


OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Now that makes more sense!  Let me think...


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Well, sticking with the whole Brahms thing, it just so happens that the _Detusches Requiem_ still stands up to this new challenge!

It certainly seems to be a work that comes out of the blue. Opp. 41-44 comprised 24 songs, and before that were just chamber pieces, but then this massive Op. 45 - the Requiem - comes out of nowhere, being crowned (along with the Fourth Symphony) as Brahms's Magnum Opus, only to be followed by a load more songs. Of course, this kind of mastery of form and leaps forward is perhaps even better presented by Op. 68, when Brahms finally penned his first symphony.

Is that better?


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Perhaps I was unclear concerning my point...
> (...)


Sorry, I didn't read your post HO HO HO HO

So. Okay.

Richard Strauss.

Don Juan?

As we know he had very conservative education and started to compose with fellows like Mendelssohn in his head. Don Juan (symphonic poem) is one of most spectacular transpormations of composers, like he would stand in flames shouting ARGHORGAPRHATAHAO.... TRANSFORMATION <cool music> and then he would become new Strauss that would eventually make me say "it is disgrace to him that he wears same surname as those poor historical-pop composers".


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Mozart
String quartets dedicated to Haydn
Opera - Marriage of Figaro


But perhaps there can be several developmental shifts in a composer's output even in a particular genre.


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## Falstaft (Mar 27, 2010)

I'll try to offer my opinion from the works that are important both from composer and larger historical (and heavily harmonic/formal) perspective...

For 18th century, I'd wager Gluck's very important artistic reinvention in _Orpheus et Euridice_

For the 19th Century, it's hard to choose which of Beethoven's works were most revolutionary and influential, though I'd say it's a contest between Symphonies _5_, _3_ and _9_ -- I feel that it's his _3rd_ that marks the most radical moment of maturation in his style, from an exceptionally skilled expander of an essentially Haydn/Mozartean framework to master of a new kind of art.

With the possible exception of some stuff Berlioz and Liszt did, I don't think you find a comparable tremor until mature Wagner. The novelties of Tannhauser, Lohengrin notwithstanding, I don't think you can argue that anything matches the impact _Tristan_ had on the rest of music history -- it marks the crossing of a dramaturgical and stylistic rubicon in some ways more shattering than anything LvB did. However, as far as *personal* artistic development goes, I think, no question, it's _*Rheingold*_, of which there is absolutely nothing close before. In fact, even if it were just the _Vorspiel_ from that music drama, I think we would still be chattering away by how revolutionary Wagner was (and yes, I've heard Mendelssohn's _Schoene Mesuline_...it's still damn unprecedented).

For early 20th century, I'd like to cite something by Debussy as a watershed though none of his works seem to break so suddenly and so violently from tradition or personal style as Stravinsky's _Rite_ (maybe _Pelleas_, but that's such a secret twin of _Tristan_ I'm not sure how to place it).



Andre said:


> One I can think of was the _String Quartet _(No. 2 or 3?) by Schoenberg which was the first "atonal" piece.


Total agreement there -- The 2nd SQ Op. 10 (1908), especially the instrumental introduction to the last movement -- really does feature some of the first bona-fide passages of atonality in the history of W. Music. Even then though, it is of a distinctly less uncompromising sort of tonal renunciation that you find a few years later in _Erwartung_ or the _Op. 19 Piano Pieces _.


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

I thought it was quite obvious - the leap made by a composer within their oeuvre.
The obvious one that leapt to mind for me was from Beethoven's 2nd to the _Eroica_ symphony.
That matches any greap leap Wagner made, I reckon.
And possibly Schubert's jump from the 6th to the _Unfinished_
I don't think the leaps are that easy to find; composers like Brahms seemed to keep their "powder dry" until they were ready to make music. Other's just creep to greatness (think Bruckner).
cheers,
Graeme


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## nefigah (Aug 23, 2008)

GraemeG said:


> I thought it was quite obvious - the leap made by a composer within their oeuvre.
> The obvious one that leapt to mind for me was from Beethoven's 2nd to the _Eroica_ symphony.


This. 10chars


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