# Handel abstains from circle of fifth usage



## Gondur (May 17, 2014)

A bit of musical pedantry here. There are certain moments in Handel's music where I expect it to burst into a glorious fifth progression and on doing so his music would closely mimic Vivaldi's. In the occasion that he does use two measures of what could be a 6 bar progression, he ends it and leaves me feeling musically unsatisfied and so, this is the prime reason why his music is subordinate to Vivaldi's music.

Listen from 7:00 to 7:20 in this piece and you expect a fifth progression to form at 7:20 but it does not.

Listen from 8:50 to 9:00 in this piece and you expect a fifth progression to form at 9:00 but it does not. He abruptly end it and on doing so depreciates the musicality of the piece.






I can substantiate this with other pieces of music.

... If only Handel were a parody of Vivaldi then his music would be better than his.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Wow! And to think I've survived this long listening to Handel's music with unadulterated pleasure without knowing that.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Gondur said:


> A bit of musical pedantry here. There are certain moments in Handel's music where I expect it to burst into a glorious fifth progression and on doing so his music would closely mimic Vivaldi's. In the occasion that he does use two measures of what could be a 6 bar progression, he ends it and leaves me feeling musically unsatisfied and so, this is the prime reason why his music is subordinate to Vivaldi's music.
> 
> Listen from 7:00 to 7:20 in this piece and you expect a fifth progression to form at 7:20 but it does not.
> 
> ...


.......................................








I'm sure I've already mentioned to you that the quality of a piece of music can not be determined by theory alone


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I neither expect nor want what you call a ''fifth progression" at those stated points in the music. There was only one Vivaldi; no need for any composer to mimic him. Actually, as far as I'm concerned, one Vivaldi might be one too many.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Sounds like something Charles de Gaulle might have been involved in.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

gondur said:


> a bit of musical pedantry here. There are certain moments in handel's music where i expect it to burst into a glorious fifth progression and on doing so his music would closely mimic vivaldi's. In the occasion that he does use two measures of what could be a 6 bar progression, he ends it and leaves me feeling musically unsatisfied and so, this is the prime reason why his music is subordinate to vivaldi's music.
> 
> Listen from 7:00 to 7:20 in this piece and you expect a fifth progression to form at 7:20 but it does not.
> 
> ...


bah humbug!

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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Wow, I'm totally rooting for Händel, his rogue musical exorcism outwits the Red Priest every time! 

/ptr


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

What you seem to be misunderstanding is that there's no "correct" way to write music (unless you're auditioning for the Meistersingers). You write what sounds good to you, and if it doesn't sound just like someone else's, sometimes that's a good thing.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

You could post your own recomposed version of it, see if it makes better generic Vivaldi than common Handel. In any case, no academic pseudoscientific explanation has or will ever be able to determine the 'musicality'/relative greatness of a piece.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Maybe that makes Handel a better composer than Vivaldi, because he is able to effectively subvert your expectations.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Yeah. If genius followed a tangible recipe, we'd all simply copy it and become geniuses too.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

That's why Handel was great...he defies expectations


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I'm afraid this thread forgot to mention two other critical points about the organ concerto. 

(1) A lot of the solo parts were actually improvised by the great master himself, a genius with melodic inventions during first performances.

(2) This is a keyboard Baroque concerto. Only one other composer, independently, pioneered the development of the keyboard concerto (J S Bach's harpsichord concertos). These were amongst the earliest concerto compositions conceived for the keyboard, paving the way eventually for the piano concerto.

Two aspects of originality that make Handel a great genius. (Notice: I am not discounting Vivaldi at all, I am merely writing why Handel was a great composer).


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

PetrB said:


> .......................................
> View attachment 43334


Those guys seem to be having a good time. Can I join them?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Stargazer said:


> That's why Handel was great...he defies expectations


Same can be said about all the great composers.


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## Novelette (Dec 12, 2012)

I don't understand this point at all.

My ability to anticipate immediately subsequent harmonies/melodies correctly never seemed to me to be the mark of a great or lesser work, let alone a great or lesser composer.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Despite Handel's abstinence here, we still have quite a few of his harmonic/melodic/sequence-using progeny in later composers. How do you account for _*that*_???


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Extra: Handel Abstains From Circle of Fifth Usage!!!!

Sounds like the front headline of the New York Post.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> maybe that makes handel a better composer than vivaldi, because he is able to effectively subvert your expectations.


bingo!
................................


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

aleazk said:


> Those guys seem to be having a good time. Can I join them?


Bubelah, no one ever needs anyone's permission to enter the realms of Mirth.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I am not sure that subversion of a listener's expectations is a necessary element of great music. It can be, but sometimes music can be great by doing what you expect in a way that you recognize as great. I'm thinking of great blues, for example. Listening to Muddy Waters, I rarely think something like, "Oh, I really didn't expect that modulation." I even doubt that anyone ever would've said that. But it's good for different reasons.

Also, it can simply be bad. If I play Beethoven, believe me, I'll be subverting your expectations. You might say, "You can't play Beethoven properly," and I can reply, "I play it the way I think it should be, it's just not what you expect."

Point is, when music is great, it's great for some reason _in addition to_ or _other than_ subverting our expectations.

But finally, does Handel really subvert any of our expectations? I don't hear it that way at all, personally. Maybe he was revolutionary in his time, but now?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

science said:


> I am not sure that subversion of a listener's expectations is a necessary element of great music. It can be, but sometimes music can be great by doing what you expect in a way that you recognize as great. I'm thinking of great blues, for example. Listening to Muddy Waters, I rarely think something like, "Oh, I really didn't expect that modulation." I even doubt that anyone ever would've said that. But it's good for different reasons.
> 
> But finally, does Handel really subvert any of our expectations? I don't hear it that way at all, personally. Maybe he was revolutionary in his time, but now?


By "subverting our expectations," what is really meant is "choosing a sequence of notes or sounds which is not obvious and commonplace." Clearly music cannot be doing this constantly or it would not make sense to the listener; but it's one mark of an exceptional composer to be able to find less obvious progressions which sound logical as well as interesting. Music does not have to "subvert our expectations" to be enjoyable, but then neither does it have to be "great" in compositional distinction. However, the composers we do generally recognize as "great" do not regularly come up with commonplace musical ideas or settle for easy or ordinary solutions to compositional problems. Stravinsky's famous joke about Vivaldi having written the same concerto 500 times is not really fair to Vivaldi, but no one would even think of saying that about Bach or Handel.

I'm often struck by Handel's non-obvious compositional choices. I'm not talking about eccentricity, just the ability to do something fresh when he could have done something common and boring. I'll admit, though, that long acquaintance with music makes this aspect of it harder to hear. Of course the "Hallelujah Chorus" goes just as we expect it to go; we've been listening to it for 275 years!


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

hpowders said:


> Same can be said about all the great composers.


Not delivering predictable music according to expectations is pretty much a founding fathers tenet and in the general constitution of classical music -- in the realms of which the word "predictable" is always a damning criticism, not praise.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Gondur said:


> A bit of musical pedantry here. There are certain moments in Handel's music where I expect it to burst into a glorious fifth progression and on doing so his music would closely mimic Vivaldi's. In the occasion that he does use two measures of what could be a 6 bar progression, he ends it and leaves me feeling musically unsatisfied and so, this is the prime reason why his music is subordinate to Vivaldi's music.
> 
> Listen from 7:00 to 7:20 in this piece and you expect a fifth progression to form at 7:20 but it does not.
> 
> ...


I don't really agree with what you're hearing, and I've got a good ear. I heard them both as cadential phrases. If they had been fifths, it would have kept on going.

You're trying to impose restrictions on art which are just fantasies of your own making.

Besides that, there are plenty of fifths-sequences in there.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Even fifths progressions are often best when they are very much unexpected. I'm not sure this would be considered a fifths sequence - the strings seem to be playing in fifths - but here is a glorious example from German Requiem, around 1:45






Where he releases the tension created with a sequence, but instead of letting up, builds up tension even further, releasing extreme dissonance through another sequence once again. Vivaldi, I don't think, ever had that ingenuity with sequences.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Basically, I think you should stop analyzing pieces through the lens of but one semester's study of beginning harmony 101.


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

Here is a nice collection of fifth progressions for your delight.

As you can see, fifth progressions are a guilty pleasure of mine too.  The composers shown in this video (Bach, Mozart, and Brahms) I consider the master of them.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

SottoVoce said:


> Here is a nice collection of fifth progressions for your delight.


Just don't get upset by the switch of meter from 3/4 to 2/4 in mms 5 and 6; it is just a hemiola


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Just don't get upset by the switch of meter from 3/4 to 2/4 in mms 5 and 6; it is just a hemiola


I got so upset, I gave *myself* a hemiola!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: Sounds like the headline from a daily tabloid....except it needs an exclamation point at the end. :lol:


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