# Why does music get so angsty and dark with/after Beethoven?



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

With people like Bach, Telemann, Handel, Mozart, CPE, Haydn et al. the prevailing attitude seems to be rejoice in the sheer joy of living. Was there a broader cultural reason everybody starts to hate life in Europe after 1815?


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

The ability to express a broader spectrum of emotions came with Ludwig. Also, that which we call classical music came under the practice of common seculars rather than the endowed kneelers that came before them...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

My take: Starting in the 1700s, Europe began to discard the myths that were necessary for its societies. Reason rose, faith fell. People learned that the truth may, to some extent, set you free; but it is less likely to make you happy.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Couchie said:


> With people like Bach, Telemann, Handel, Mozart, CPE, Haydn et al. the prevailing attitude seems to be rejoice in the sheer joy of living.


I want to question this. In Bach there's a huge amount of dark music -- as soon as he started to write music inspired by Christs passion then it's tainted with angst. Mozart too wrote his fair share of dark music, just think of Don Giovanni the PC 20 and Symphony 40 and K 310. I know nothing about the other composers on your list.

There's tons of celebratory music after 1815 -- from Chopin's third sonata and etudes to Lachenmann's Marche Fatale and Schoenberg's piano suite and Strauss's Till eulenspiegel and . . .

You may be right, but the work needs to be done.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

When you no longer have to please the Pope or the king, you can write whatever you want.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> When you no longer have to please the Pope or the king, you can write whatever you want.


Which could possibly make one more content, even if the old world joys of syphilis and high infant mortality were still there for comfort.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

starthrower said:


> Which could possibly make one more content, even if the old world joys of syphilis and high infant mortality were still there for comfort.


Old ways of dying die hard.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

KenOC said:


> My take: Starting in the 1700s, Europe began to discard the myths that were necessary for its societies. Reason rose, faith fell. People learned that the truth may, to some extent, set you free; but it is less likely to make you happy.


Well the romantic movement at large was essentially an anti-intellectual one. A rejection of enlightenment rationality and re-embracement of "the feels". Still, an open question is why the dominant feels were so glum. Also I would be surprised if people were really happier in the 1600s and earlier when they were all extremely superstitious and witches and demons lurked around every turn and behind every boulder.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Woodduck said:


> When you no longer have to please the Pope or the king, you can write whatever you want.


That doesn't answer the question as to why "whatever they want" is misery...


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> I want to question this. In Bach there's a huge amount of dark music -- as soon as he started to write music inspired by Christs passion then it's tainted with angst. Mozart too wrote his fair share of dark music, just think of Don Giovanni the PC 20 and Symphony 40 and K 310. I know nothing about the other composers on your list.
> 
> There's tons of celebratory music after 1815 -- from Chopin's third sonata and etudes to Lachenmann's Marche Fatale and Schoenberg's piano suite and Strauss's Till eulenspiegel and . . .
> 
> You may be right, but the work needs to be done.


Those are kind of the exceptions that prove the rule though, no? Mozart's output is overwhelmingly lighthearted and often even silly. And I think "dark" religious music is drawn more from solemn awe than feelings akin to romantic-era struggle, loss of love, and depression.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Couchie said:


> Those are kind of the exceptions that prove the rule though, no? Mozart's output is overwhelmingly lighthearted and often even silly. And I think "dark" religious music is drawn more from solemn awe than feelings akin to romantic-era struggle, loss of love, and depression.


It might be that the more overtones and dissonance you have to play with the more the music is going to sound ambiguous and therefore statistically less 'happy'.

In nursery rhymes the harmony of the simple integer relationships are easy for even the young inexperienced ear to happily bounce along with.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

KenOC said:


> My take: Starting in the 1700s, Europe began to discard the myths that were necessary for its societies. Reason rose, faith fell. People learned that the truth may, to some extent, set you free; but it is less likely to make you happy.


In which case music composed post 1859 must have got a whole lot sadder.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

1859 - the publication of Darwin's 'On The Origin of Species'...........


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Couchie said:


> That doesn't answer the question as to why "whatever they want" is misery...


Who's to say it is? Misery is someone's interpretation. It's not what I get out of the music.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

starthrower said:


> Who's to say it is? Misery is someone's interpretation. It's not what I get out of the music.


For instance?................................


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Couchie said:


> Well the romantic movement at large was essentially an anti-intellectual one. A rejection of enlightenment rationality and re-embracement of "the feels". Still, an open question is why the dominant feels were so glum. Also I would be surprised if people were really happier in the 1600s and earlier when they were all extremely superstitious and witches and demons lurked around every turn and behind every boulder.


Consider:

"High-intensity conflicts have declined by more than half since the end of the Cold War, while terrorism, genocide and homicide numbers are also down. …the number of war deaths has also plummeted. In the 1950s, there were almost 250 deaths caused by war per million people. Now, there are less than 10 per million." (Smithsonian magazine)

The proportion of the world's people living in extreme poverty declined from 42% in 1981 to 14% in 2008. (World Bank)

Worldwide, "…in 2007 there were 123 electoral democracies (up from 40 in 1972). …[By another measure] electoral democracies now represent 120 of the 192 existing countries and constitute 58.2 percent of the world's population." (Wikipedia)

In the US, the rate of violent crime has dropped from 758 per 100,000 population in 1991 to 386 in 2016, an almost 50% reduction. (Wikipedia)

In general, rates of violence in almost all categories - against women, against children, against animals, etc., are down, in some cases by factors of 100 or more when viewed historically (see Stephen Pinker's excellent study). This is true worldwide. And of course in the US we take it for granted that we can travel from town to town unarmed, in little danger from bandits as we pass through the forests. We have avenues to redress our grievances, from which the rich and mighty are not immune. We can even choose who we want to govern us (or misgovern us, as the case may be).

You would think we would all be overjoyed at our progress in making things better. Nevertheless, on forums like this one we constantly read that "music has to be ugly to reflect the horror of the world." We see a profound belief that things are, in fact, worse than they've ever been, that the world is, more than ever, a wretched place.

Which is to say, a society's general level of happiness depends largely on how its belief systems meet the real world. Poor harvest? Let's put away what we can and as for the rest, God will provide. Banditry? That's the way it's always been, and the king does what he can to suppress it. Is the old lady in that hut down the road a witch? Well, that's what our priest is for, so I'll leave it in his hands. Above all, I know that I am loved by my Savior and that, if I live a good life and accept the scriptures, I will go to Heaven when I die and sing joyously with the angels, forever.

Most of us probably share few of this peasant's beliefs, but it wouldn't surprise me if people living in such a society were more optimistic than those in our own.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

janxharris said:


> For instance?................................


I can tell you one thing, I don't feel loads of joy wafting from the notes of Bach's cantatas. My wife has a box set which I patiently sit and listen to but this stuff brings me down. I'd rather listen to Mendelssohn's Italian symphony. But he was a happy guy, so they say. He had a nice life and got the girl. Beethoven, on the other hand...

And Darwin? It's just what many of us in the world needed. A dose of reality. But it hasn't stopped composers from writing sacred music, or closed down the churches. Believe what you want to believe about music or life, but as Bernstein said on TV a long time ago, it's just music. It's not about the birds or the trees or the wind, it's just organized sound.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Couchie said:


> Those are kind of the exceptions that prove the rule though, no? Mozart's output is overwhelmingly lighthearted and often even silly. And I think "dark" religious music is drawn more from solemn awe than feelings akin to romantic-era struggle, loss of love, and depression.


Take a look at what I wrote: What is it about Haydn?_
"Many people have this misconception Romantic period music is universally more emotionally appealing than classicism for everyone. It is not.
I find it too full of empty melodrama, self-indulgence, minor-key corn, perversity..."_
and Classical Music Isn't Hard To Get
_"I think there's far more direct emotional appeal in Mozart's Maurerische Trauermusik 



 or Adagio and Fugue K546 



 or Kyrie K341 



 than Tchaikovksy's 6th and Dvorak's 8th - at least for me. "_


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

KenOC said:


> My take: Starting in the 1700s, Europe began to discard the myths that were necessary for its societies. Reason rose, faith fell. People learned that the truth may, to some extent, set you free; but it is less likely to make you happy.


And what is truth?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

starthrower said:


> I can tell you one thing, I don't feel loads of joy wafting from the notes of Bach's cantatas. My wife has a box set which I patiently sit and listen to but this stuff brings me down. I'd rather listen to Mendelssohn's Italian symphony. But he was a happy guy, so they say. He had a nice life and got the girl. Beethoven, on the other hand...


I'm not sure enough is known about the life of Bach to determine whether he was over all a 'happy guy' or not. He certainly did have some good fortune, on the other hand, both of his parents were dead by the time he was 10, many of his children died in infancy or adolescence, and during one of his better periods (Cothen) he went on a two month vacation only to return to find his first wife dead.

As far as angst/darkness in music, I just am not sure I agree with the OP. Maybe in some ways this is true but if we listen to say Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, nothing in the entire Classical or Romantic era sounds as powerful in a dark sort of cathartic way to me. Not until we reach composers like Bartók in the 20th century do I find music that for me seems comparably powerful in that sort of way.

Of course J.S. Bach wrote some amazing joyful music too. He was a very versatile and well rounded composer. I don't agree with the notion that any composer explored a broader spectrum of emotions.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

starthrower said:


> I can tell you one thing, I don't feel loads of joy wafting from the notes of Bach's cantatas. My wife has a box set which I patiently sit and listen to but this stuff brings me down. I'd rather listen to Mendelssohn's Italian symphony. But he was a happy guy, so they say. He had a nice life and got the girl. Beethoven, on the other hand...
> 
> And Darwin? It's just what many of us in the world needed. A dose of reality. But it hasn't stopped composers from writing sacred music, or closed down the churches. Believe what you want to believe about music or life, but as Bernstein said on TV a long time ago, it's just music. It's not about the birds or the tress or the wind, it's just organized sound.


Darwinism is a mere theory. People have embraced it because it is more convenient than contending with the Christian God. Time will provide a definitive answer.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> There's tons of celebratory music after 1815 -- from Chopin's third sonata and etudes


I would like to note that I find "The Great Piano God of the Romantic Era", Chopin's Op.44, Op.53, Op.48 No.1 (his 'major works (aside from the 4th Ballade, 4th Scherzo)' written in his years of maturity 1840~42) weaker than Mozart and Haydn 



 in terms of structure and texture. 
Op.53 : 



 : 4-note lefthand octave bass figure repeated for 2 pages straight)
Op.44 : 



 : another good "Etude" in playing both hands in unison.. after that, follows another Mazurka.. as if all the "Mazurkas" and "Waltzes" (the ternary form ta-da-das that number in dozens and make up like 1/3 of his whole output) he wrote throughout his life weren't enough.. )
Op.48 No.1: 




Is it a sacrilege to say "I don't feel deep emotion in these masterpieces of the great Romantic genius"?


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## Guest (Jan 16, 2019)

Red Terror said:


> Darwinism is a mere theory. People have embraced it because it is more convenient than contending with the Christian God. Time will provide a definitive answer.


And I suppose you believe that the planets follow their orbits because there are angels behind them beating their wings, rather than Newton's laws of motion.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Baron Scarpia said:


> And I suppose you believe that the planets follow their orbits because there are angels behind them beating their wings, rather than Newton's laws of motion.


We seem to have a collision of worldviews! Why not make fun of them both???

https://vocaroo.com/i/s0kIZ6hZIS9g


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Baron Scarpia said:


> And I suppose you believe that the planets follow their orbits because there are angels behind them beating their wings, rather than Newton's laws of motion.


Not quite, Scarpia.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Re: Chopin (again and again and again)... He was never intended to be understood by those who lack imagination, the ability to perceive a narrative-such as his military Op. 53 and its perfectly descriptive battle figure in the left hand... how obvious can it be that he's effectively telling a story here?-or a sense of poetry. It's an embarrassment to read and it does not elevate Haydn or Mozart in stature. For all anyone knows, they might have loved what Chopin wrote, and he was quite possibly a far greater master performer of the keyboard than they were because his writings were far more technically complex and revolutionary. Instead of describing him elsewhere as "minor clever," some of the aspiring composers around here who have tried to write four unsuccessful piano sonatas should be _learning_ from him how to write _an inspired melody, his rhythmic vitality, his subtleties of color and nuance, his emotional freedom of expression_ that didn't have to fit into a nice tidy box of classical techniques. He learned from Bach and Mozart and it's not his fault that some can't hear those influences in his outstanding refinement of taste and in his harmonic invention. It takes more than a dry intellect to grasp how revolutionary he was. And it's no longer 1792.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

starthrower said:


> I can tell you one thing, I don't feel loads of joy wafting from the notes of Bach's cantatas. My wife has a box set which I patiently sit and listen to but this stuff brings me down. I'd rather listen to Mendelssohn's Italian symphony.


Just the opposite for me. I find Bach's cantatas quite uplifting; can't imagine what your problem with them might be.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Bulldog said:


> Just the opposite for me. I find Bach's cantatas quite uplifting; can't imagine what your problem with them might be.


I don't like boring church music. Of course there are great sections scattered among the various cantatas, but mostly I find them dull. If I have to I'll go with the masses because I prefer the choral singing.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

starthrower said:


> I don't like boring church music. Of course there are great sections scattered among the various cantatas, but mostly I find them dull. If I have to I'll go with the masses because I prefer the choral singing.


Are you aware that there is much choral singing in Bach's cantatas?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Bulldog said:


> Are you aware that there is much choral singing in Bach's cantatas?


Yeah, those are the parts I enjoy! The other stuff with the solo tenor vocalists I find pretty dull. But I'm more into the organ and keyboard music. My wife has the Complete Liturgical Year box, so eventually we should get to some good stuff!


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

starthrower said:


> Yeah, those are the parts I enjoy! The other stuff with the solo tenor vocalists I find pretty dull.


I doubt that Bach went about the business of reserving his most boring music for the lowly tenors.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Bulldog said:


> I doubt that Bach went about the business of reserving his most boring music for the lowly tenors.


It's just not my thing.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Well, was Medieval music as happy as Baroque often was?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> For all anyone knows, they might have loved what Chopin wrote, and he was quite possibly a far greater master performer of the keyboard than they were because his writings were far more technically complex and revolutionary.


So you're comparing Mozart, Haydn to Chopin without considering the difference of the pianos they had access to. As I said many times earlier. Some people fail to see beyond his minor-key candy to realize Chopin lacks variety, and relies on 19th century piano technology to bang out the notes in creating tension with his usual formulas (as I explained in Great melodists?) . May I ask is there any part in Chopin's allegedly-superior keyboard music that contains textural complexity like Mozart's Overture in C K399 or Prelude and Fugue in C K394? Or Fantasy for organ in F minor K608 where Mozart turns the fugue of the exposition to a double fugue in the recapitulation? So by your logic, Alkan would be far more technically complex and revolutionary than Chopin (like how Mahler's symphonies are to Beethoven's, right?)
In threads like these, you often write paragraphs to claim Mozart, Haydn, Chopin are just "apples and oranges" (which I agree) when Chopin is ridiculed. But you don't advocate in the same way for Mozart, Haydn when they are ridiculed. Isn't this favoritism. The guy who failed at the fugue and the concerto forms (so that Liszt's pupil Tauzig had to revise them) and still gets worshipped, praised, defended as if he's some "misunderstood, tragic artist" who needs to be protected, just because he's labeled a Romantic. (I know..I know) This time and time again reminds me how Romantically overrated a composer he really is.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

starthrower said:


> The two may not be mutually exclusive, but the bible account of creation and Adam and Eve is not really believable to any thinking person. And if there is a god, great spirit or whatever, he or it is probably not a Christian.


Time will provide a definitive answer.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

A reminder: purely religious posts (posts discussing religion that have nothing to do with the thread OP) are prohibited on the main forum.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I don't find any mystery here. I was making a point aphoristically when I said that people could write what they wanted to write when they no longer had to please God or the king. Couchie then asked why "what they wanted" was "misery."

Well, first of all, "misery" - or "angst," or "darkness" - is a far-from-comprehensive description of what the Romantics wanted to write about. But isn't it obvious that when human beings are free to express their personal feelings, to draw their artistic inspiration at least in part from their individual perceptions rather than from a code of belief or conduct, they're likely to tap into a wider range of emotions, including the "forbidden" emotions which were formerly kept private or even repressed in order to conform to a religious or social law or ideal? The climax and finale of the "Enlightenment" was the "Age of Revolution," and the revolution was personal as well as political: people wanted to look past God's or society's definitions of who they should be, and explore who they were, unencumbered by conventions and external expectations. In that process of discovery, demons became as acceptable to portray as angels, and - not surprisingly - more fascinating.

In Mozart's opera, the conventional moral order has to be maintained and honored, and after Don Giovanni is properly consigned to eternal hellfire everyone gathers onstage and celebrates normalcy, singing together, "This is the end which befalls evildoers, and in this life scoundrels always receive their just deserts!" But, since the opera was written in the age of Revolution on the cusp of the Romantic era, it soon became customary to leave this final scene and its tidy moral out of performances, ending the opera instead with the shivery horrors of the Don's damnation and sending the audience home with dark chills stirring in their bosoms. It wasn't that people wanted "misery" or "angst"; it was that they knew that their souls and their lives were not as neat and tidy as the priests and magistrates had long told them they should be, and they wanted to experience the exhilarating terror of flying without a parachute.

What music embraced with Romanticism was the objective reality - and importance - of the subjective self. How could angst and darkness not come with that? But many other emotions came with it too, emotions which no longer had to be viewed in the context of received world views and no longer had to be suppressed, or expressed with an effort to maintain civility, balance and decorum. The _Ring of the Nibelung_, like _Don Giovanni,_ consigns evil to the flames, but the evil that's destroyed is the existing regime, the oppressive reign of the gods themselves. And when the people gather to watch Valhalla burn, the orchestra celebrates not the triumph of a simplistic order but the obliteration of one, and intimates with its last breath the hope for something truer and more authentic.


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## ojoncas (Jan 3, 2019)

After Beethoven’s 3rd symphony, music changed.

Music wasn’t to be mainly composed for background entertainment of social events, music became a language for composers to express what they love, what they stand for, what they have on their hearts, their beliefs and feelings.

This is why Beethoven has been such an important figure to many of his predecessors.


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## THGra (Jan 15, 2019)

Is it something with me then, I just prefer the romantic (especially) and modernist periods...


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> So you're comparing Mozart, Haydn to Chopin without considering the difference of the pianos they had access to. As I said many times earlier. Some people fail to see beyond his minor-key candy to realize Chopin lacks variety, and relies on 19th century piano technology to bang out the notes in creating tension with his usual formulas (as I explained in Great melodists?) . May I ask is there any part in Chopin's allegedly-superior keyboard music that contains textural complexity like Mozart's Overture in C K399 or Prelude and Fugue in C K394? Or Fantasy for organ in F minor K608 where Mozart turns the fugue of the exposition to a double fugue in the recapitulation? So by your logic, Alkan would be far more technically complex and revolutionary than Chopin (like how Mahler's symphonies are to Beethoven's, right?)
> In threads like these, you often write paragraphs to claim Mozart, Haydn, Chopin are just "apples and oranges" (which I agree) when Chopin is ridiculed. But you don't advocate in the same way for Mozart, Haydn when they are ridiculed. Isn't this favoritism. The guy who failed at the fugue and the concerto forms (so that Liszt's pupil Tauzig had to revise them) and still gets worshipped, praised, defended as if he's some "misunderstood, tragic artist" who needs to be protected, just because he's labeled a Romantic. (I know..I know) This time and time again reminds me how Romantically overrated a composer he really is.


Is this related to the OP?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Couchie said:


> And I think "dark" religious music is drawn more from solemn awe than feelings akin to romantic-era struggle, loss of love, and depression.





ojoncas said:


> music became a language for composers to express what they love, what they stand for, what they have on their hearts, their beliefs and feelings.


Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart personally said that they loved God. They put their heart into the religious music they wrote. How is this different from the kind of music you described? 
"God is ever before my eyes. I realize his omnipotence and I fear His anger; but I also recognize his compassion, and His tenderness towards His creatures."








janxharris said:


> Is this related to the OP?


<Why does music get so angsty and dark with/after Beethoven?> Isn't Chopin one of the first major post-Beethoven composers?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> Isn't Chopin one of the first major post-Beethoven composers?


Indeed he is, but whether one rates him above or below Mozart derails the thread.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I too think it is to do with the Romantic Movement, with its emphasis on individual consciousness and personal feeling. That can mean aloneness - passion - despair - an awareness of one's own death. 

The Augustan frame of mind, in the eighteenth century, was all about civility, decorum, community, managed landscapes, political satire - the 1790s saw Wordsworth's poetical manifesto. fashion extolled gothic horror and the sublime landscape, and quite probably the Heights began gently wuthering at that very point. 

Not to say that there weren't dark moments in pre-romantic art - the Danse Macabre in the late Middle Ages - Hamlet, Prince of Angst - Biber's Battalia etc...


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

janxharris said:


> Indeed he is, but whether one rates him above or below Mozart derails the thread.


Not just Chopin. Schumann, Mendelssohn, Schubert also fail to move me like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven do. How can anyone say these guys wrote objectively superior music than Bach, Mozart, Beethoven is just beyond me.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> Not just Chopin. Schumann, Mendelssohn, Schubert also fail to move me like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven do. How can anyone say these guys wrote objectively superior music than Bach, Mozart, Beethoven is just beyond me.


Ok, but it's not for this thread.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Couchie said:


> Mozart's output is overwhelmingly lighthearted and often even silly. And I think "dark" religious music is drawn more from solemn awe than feelings akin to romantic-era struggle, loss of love, and depression.


This is an extraordinary claim and can only have been made by someone who, for example, doesn't know the later symphonies and piano concertos .... or, indeed, much Mozart at all. But let's not open that one (the "Mozart is superficial argument") up again.

Of course, the music of the Romantic era is different to the music of earlier (or later) eras. But equally you will find romantic tendencies in some music of all eras (just as you can find classical tendencies in lots of Romantic music). The general idea in OP's title stands as true, I think, but it isn't served by being blind to any earlier angsty tendencies in music or by typifying all pre-Beethovenian music as unremittingly joyful.


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## bravenewworld (Jan 24, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> What music embraced with Romanticism was the objective reality - and importance - of the subjective self. How could angst and darkness not come with that? But many other emotions came with it too, emotions which no longer had to be viewed in the context of received world views and no longer had to be suppressed, or expressed with an effort to maintain civility, balance and decorum. The _Ring of the Nibelung_, like _Don Giovanni,_ consigns evil to the flames, but the evil that's destroyed is the existing regime, the oppressive reign of the gods themselves. And when the people gather to watch Valhalla burn, the orchestra celebrates not the triumph of a simplistic order but the obliteration of one, and intimates with its last breath the hope for something truer and more authentic.


As usual Woodduck is spot on as far as I'm concerned. Romanticism was new insofar as it emphasised the primacy of the subjective. I don't believe Romanticism is inherently less joyous than other eras by any means, but the plumbing of the depths of the soul certainly goes some way to explaining the angst of which the OP speaks. That angst is more apparent, I think, in pieces with greater negative emotions (for want of a better term) such as sadness or anger, because they are inherently more complicated than happiness, psychologically speaking. Could a work with the angst of _Tristan und Isolde_ have been written on the topic of joy? I'm not convinced it would have the same artistic power. That, in my opinion, is why Romanticism marries angst and negative emotions so powerfully - because as an exploration of the soul such an endeavour is intrinsically more rewarding than a narrow focus upon the good and simple in mankind.


tdc said:


> Look at the Cambrian explosion, seems like sometimes evolution happens in quick bursts, this doesn't seem adequately explained by Darwinism. Why within such a short time of their supposed transition from the hunter, gatherer stage were the Egyptians able to create the pyramids, and then became slowly less advanced. Doesn't that seem kind of odd. I think history and science as it is taught in school is full of questionable data and not as rock solid as some might believe.


The theory of punctuated evolution, as proposed by, I believe, Stephen Jay Gould, perfectly explains the phenomenon you described within a Darwinian framework. Changes in environmental conditions do not happen at constant rates; hence, it follows that natural selection pressures can intensify in very short geological time frames, causing a rapid evolutionary response from the organisms involved. Such events can include volcanic eruptions, island formation and extinction events opening up ecological niches. I'm not sure I entirely follow what you mean about Egyptian history disproving evolution.


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## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

It was part of a general shift in the purpose of art from "delight and instruct" to expressing the inner soul of the artist.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Please concentrate on the original topic and avoid posts about science and/or religion.

A number of off-topic posts have been removed for moderator discussion.

Any further off-topic posts may result in a temporary closure of the thread.

If you wish to discuss religion or Darwinism please use the groups.


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## Kollwitz (Jun 10, 2018)

The Romantic focus on the subjective and move away from the logic and reason of the Enlightenment can be seen, not just as an intrinsically artistic phenomenon, but also as a reaction to the practical manifestations of modernity and reflection of wider intellectual trends.

Much intellectual enterprise in the 19th century can be seen as having been influenced by the French Revolution, particularly the need to reconcile the most obvious positive and negative aspects of it. The enshrinement of logic and reason in the casting off of the absurd hierarchy and despotism of the Ancien Regime held a powerful attraction. That arbitrary authority could be challenged by the people (both the haute-bourgeoisie and sans culottes) was an inspiration message to many disadvantaged by the status quo and some who benefitted (one should never forget how many of the revolutionaries of 1789 were nobles - Lafayette, Segur, Noailles, Mirabeau etc.) However, the consequence of attempting to remake society - the Terror - cast a long shadow over the nineteenth century, creating a not unjustified fear of change. The emergence of Napoleon, a brilliant child of the enlightenment, as well as a monster, compounded this. Beethoven clearly experienced this anguish in relation to his Eroica. Now, I don't mean composers wrote glum music because they were unable to cope with the intellectual legacy of the French Revolution, but it did form part of the intellectual backdrop, as seen in the work of Hegel and others.

In addition to the legacy of the revolution, the industrialisation and urbanisation of the nineteenth century weakened traditional societal bonds and brought fear and uncertainty to different sections of society. Were the clearly oppressed masses going to revolt? Was the new industrial elite usurping the aristocracy? Was there any prospect of improvement for the poor? Would the educated middle class be able to gain political power and influence or would the landed elite continue to hold sway? Again, there was much reason for people to feel uncertain. On a more basic level, industrial cities brought disease, squalor and death to even greater prominence. Furthermore, faceless urban societies appeared to bring greater degeneracy. Some clearly felt alarmed by a moral crisis. Again, at the same time, growing secularisation and rationalisation undermined old certainties.

As the century progressed, the sense of alienation with the dehumanising elements of modernity grew and can clearly be seen in the emergence of the modernist movement. The dissatisfaction with logic and reason evident in the Romantic movement can be seen as developing into a full blown 'crisis of reason' with intellectuals and artists increasingly seeking meaning in abstraction and the irrational.

Unfortunately, I've got to do some work now so haven't been able to flesh out all of the points above fully. But, in summary, there was a lot for an intelligent person to have ambiguous feelings about across the nineteenth century.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

A phenomenon I find curious is how, especially in the London symphonies, Haydn often begins the first movements with dark, portentous, "Beethoven-like" introductions, full of dark, swirling musical storm clouds. When I first heard such a Haydn symphony, I thought, "Wow! _Sturm und Drang_; we're in for quite an emotional ride!", and then suddenly, for no reason I could fathom, all became sunshine and gaiety. Perhaps our Haydn enthusiasts could weave an explanation of this into the general discussion of the development of Beethovenian angst. My sense is that Haydn may have been picking up a vibe from CPE Bach, or perhaps Mozart? but his personality did not have much room for angst.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I actually agree with the OP, there's something special in romantic music, it's not just angst, it's angst and a _rejoice_ in it, as if it were the most natural state in which a human being can be, its ultimate destiny (an uncomfortable one, of course, but, in a tragical paradox, the only one that seems to give some meaning to its existence). In previous dramatic music, like, say, that famous introduction in Bach's St John Passion, the drama seems more like an objective scenic portray in a play rather than the subjective emotional stream of consciousness of a person (which is typically associated to Beethoven and Chopin); in this sense, that previous music is more similar to the modernism of works like, say, Ravel's Miroirs.

As has been stated in the thread a couple of times, romanticism was a movement which was in reaction to the rationalism of the enlightenment. It was present in many artistic disciplines and its main principle was the exaltation of the irrational, subjective and very first person emotionality (in Blake's Newton one can have a good synthesis of the principles). Thus, going back to the OP's point, since angst is one of the main human emotions, it's not surprising to see it represented. But, one could ask, why the rejoice in it? I would say it always was a major topic for art (one can mention the famous Greek tragedies). And I also would say it's not just another emotion, but one that makes a very strong impression in our psyche. And with this we go to the philosopher Schopenhauer (who wrote in the peak of the romantic era*), for whom distress was the actual, _positive_ feeling, while happiness the mere transitory absense of it (the optimist, of course, sees it the other way around!) Furthermore, the source of distress is, according to him, the inability to fulfill our irrational wills (like unrequited or impossible love, the finitude of existence vs the infinitude of the desire for the things in life, etc.) Thus, irrationality and distress go hand to hand (and, therefore, romanticism with distress). He actually makes a rather compelling case for this in the second volume of The World as Will and Representation. We also had the new developments in the actual means for making music, like orchestral technique, harmony, etc. Combine all this and you get those epic romantic moments of angst like the introduction of the 3rd act of Tristan und Isolde.

One could ask, but why irrationalism in the first place? Some would give socio-historical reasons, but I think things always come in pairs. You get the enlightenment and then you get its opposite face. It think that's more related to human nature and to the fact that we are neither fully rational nor fully irrational. Personally, for everything else outside art I think we should stick to reason as much as we can. Irrational philosophies and ideologies are a threat to civilization. It's funny, because modern irrational philosophers, like the post-modernists, tell us that atrocities like the 2nd WW were the results of how bad reason can be, while it's actually the opposite, those were the peaks of the irrational (the atomic bombs and the systematic killings in concentrations camps were tasks, true, being carried out with all the effectiveness of reason, but what motivated their existence in the first place was a completely irrational moral agenda and that's the actual relevant point).

*because of this, one could be tempted to declare him one of the major romantic ideologues, but that would be a mistake, since his writings are highly rational and pretty much in the enlightenment, rational tradition of the british empiricists and Kant. If anything, there's an effort to identify where the irrational part of man resides so that one can actually use reason to try to ignore, avoid or even defeat it! Which is the opposite to the romantic ideal, which seeks for its exaltation, and closer to ascetism and buddhism. A true irrationalist, I think, is Nietzsche, who took Schopenhauer's ideas but argued, contrary to the latter, that one should throw oneself to the fulfillment of those irrational wills or impulses. And it's not surprising that irrationalist philosophers of the XXth century had him as their inspiration. Not to mention Hitler, too...


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

O


Couchie said:


> With people like Bach, Telemann, Handel, Mozart, CPE, Haydn et al. the prevailing attitude seems to be rejoice in the sheer joy of living. Was there a broader cultural reason everybody starts to hate life in Europe after 1815?


Sorry, but I question the premise. What example is there of people hating life in Europe after 1815, unless one is referring to the turbulence of the Napoleonic wars? And the music was an expression of that? It certainly wasn't true of Beethoven who lived until 1827 and wrote his idealistic, joyous 9th Symphony. In the new era of music on the horizon, the emotional range was greatly expanded-it was needed after the formality of the Classical era-and there was the rise of the middle class.

1815: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1815_in_the_United_Kingdom

I would also question whether the composers mentioned in the OP were only interested in rejoicing in life and, so to speak, only interested in sweetness and light, suggesting that they never looked at anything deeper. I would not agree that experienced listeners of those composers would say that's true. It would be very easy to discuss specific works that are not all about rejoicing and the sheer joy of life, through celebration and something uplifting can certainly be found in certain works. The oratorio of _ Jephtha_ by Handel is one example written when he was going blind:

"The story revolves around Jephtha's rash promise to the Almighty that if he is victorious, he will sacrifice the first creature he meets on his return. He is met by his beloved daughter Iphis. Unlike the original Biblical story, an angel intervenes to stop the sacrifice, and Iphis only needs to dedicate her life to the Lord. In contrast, the Biblical story states that her father chose to sacrifice her, but a short reprieve is arranged, after which Iphis dutifully returns and is killed." Rather heavy dark story.

But this was also true of the new Romantic generation coming up, only expressed in an imaginative, expanded emotional range using a different melodic and harmonic approach than had taken place during the Classical era that had run its course. They contributed to the further liberation of the creative imagination, personal freedom of expression, an expanded sense of form and structure, beautiful melodic lines of greater length, narrative inventions, greater sense of poetry, and so many other major contributions in the inevitable evolution of music that were not about hating life or related to darkness.

The new generation certainly wasn't living in misery, though everyone had their doubts and personal demons to face. There was a great deal of intellectual ferment going on that I would view as constructive and positive rather than a focus on the darker side of life. The real dark side of life didn't really happen until the 20th-century when the subconscious mind was discovered and all hell broke loose.

As for the obsessive anti-Romantics trying to write 18th- or 19th-century piano sonatas in the 21st-century, I wish them the best of luck. They could have learned, but didn't, that the world had changed and something new and relevant was needed in sound: Schubert, Weber, Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Debussy, and a few others.

Debussy opined that Chopin was "the greatest of them all, for through the piano he discovered everything"; he professed his "respectful gratitude" for Chopin's piano music.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

It's called the Romantic 19th century. All art forms, music, art and literature, all grew the same way: more expansive (bigger), more emotional (much wider range of emotional response), more graphic, and in the case of music speed and volume began to show a much wider range.

Beethoven's Eroica symphony, written 1803, is often called the first Romantic symphony. It 
had a slow movement that was longer (greater duration in time) than any symphony ever written before it. The slow death music was more graphic than most music written before it. The whole thing was about twice as long as any previous symphony.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Beethoven did not feel the need to be restricted by the conventions about music that came before.
He wrote for commission not for an employer or master and was not to be restricted by the accepted classical forms of Haydn or Mozart.
‘Art for arts sake’ seems to have been his motto


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> Not just Chopin. Schumann, Mendelssohn, Schubert also fail to move me like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven do. How can anyone say these guys wrote objectively superior music than Bach, Mozart, Beethoven is just beyond me.


Would you have preferred that Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Schubert composed in the old styles of many decades earlier? Why more of the same? You most highly admire Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, do you think there was a lot more to say that these great composers never got around to saying? I'm trying understand a knowledgeable person like you, and what it is that you wanted after Beethoven? More late Beethoven? More of the last explorations of Mozart? More Art of Fugue-s? I guess we would all love to have more of them… But do we really want the romantic composers to do it? and not produce what they produced?


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## Guest (Jan 16, 2019)

Red Terror said:


> Time will provide a definitive answer.


I'm mostly amazed you think time will resolve this question.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> A phenomenon I find curious is how, especially in the London symphonies, Haydn often begins the first movements with dark, portentous, "Beethoven-like" introductions, full of dark, swirling musical storm clouds. When I first heard such a Haydn symphony, I thought, "Wow! _Sturm und Drang_; we're in for quite an emotional ride!", and then suddenly, for no reason I could fathom, all became sunshine and gaiety. Perhaps our Haydn enthusiasts could weave an explanation of this into the general discussion of the development of Beethovenian angst. My sense is that Haydn may have been picking up a vibe from CPE Bach, or perhaps Mozart? but his personality did not have much room for angst.


Perhaps it was to gain the immediate attention of everyone in the audience and musically propose a seriousness that audiences don't always bring to concerts. Of course his audience probably didn't want all gloomy and dark music, at such a necessarily public event, so he had to be keenly aware of proportions. As I see it, of all composers he's the one who always was very sensitive to what his audience wanted and could appreciate, even more than Mozart or Mendelssohn or Brahms.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Baron Scarpia said:


> I'm mostly amazed you think time will resolve this question.


Maybe we don't know what he means. ..And we won't know unless he goes to another group where these ideas are allowed.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Larkenfield -

"Debussy opined that Chopin was "the greatest of them all, for through the piano he discovered everything"; he professed his "respectful gratitude" for Chopin's piano music.""

It seems to me that Chopin wouldn't agree with that. As I read more about his composing efforts, he was a very hard worker, extremely self-critical, with many later revisions and not sure which exact versions he wanted to put out there. He was pleased with most compositions he got published, but not all, and he was very realistic about the limitations he had run up against. He was understandably unhappy with many of his early works, but then he was also unhappy with many of his last attempts in which he was trying to capture and express what was end of his life and that metaphorical-powerfuly romantic world. He suffered for years and he probably needed to compose for more instruments in big works, but that option was lost decades earlier. The not so happy end result is that he's the greatest composer for the piano who continually had to battle consumption and his own anti-social defensiveness.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

O


Luchesi said:


> Larkenfield -
> 
> "Debussy opined that Chopin was "the greatest of them all, for through the piano he discovered everything"; he professed his "respectful gratitude" for Chopin's piano music.""
> 
> It seems to me that Chopin wouldn't agree with that. As I read more about his composing efforts, he was a very hard worker, extremely self-critical, with many later revisions and not sure which exact versions he wanted to put out there. He was pleased with most compositions he got published, but not all, and he was very realistic about the limitations he had run up against. He was understandably unhappy with many of his early works, but then he was also unhappy with many of his last attempts in which he was trying to capture and express what was end of his life and that metaphorical-powerfuly romantic world. He suffered for years and he probably needed to compose for more instruments in big works, but that option was lost decades earlier. The not so happy end result is that he's the greatest composer for the piano who continually had to battle consumption and his own anti-social defensiveness.


With all due respect, I think you may be missing the entire point of what Debussy is saying though you make some interesting observations that could be considered very true in Chopin's self-criticism.

I believe Debussy meant exactly what he said because Chopin has sometimes been shortsightedly criticized as not being a great composer and falsely accused of writing nothing but "miniatures," and Debussy is saying that sometimes big things come in small packages, that it can still be meaningful and universal like the size of a diamond compared to a full-size Mercedes that might have less than half its value.

I consider Chopin a composer of great universal appeal and I doubt that he would have rejected Debussy's praise but, rather, would have fully embraced it. Virtually the entire range of human experience was expressed in the full measure of his many works, including the heroic, love, death, joy, humor, spirit, war, tenderness, the sarcastic, the intellectual, melancholy, depression, _the darker side of life_, and yet his critics can't see that because their distorted image of a great composer is only someone like Wagner driving down the highway in his full-size diesel Mercedes.

Well, that's just too bad because Chopin's reputation is assured, established beyond doubt except to the arch-conservatives, his exquisite gems of composition being repeatedly played all over the world as the master composer he was, and the richness of the piano literature would be unthinkable without the expanded, expressive emotional range that he brought to it through his concertos, sonatas, ballades, preludes, études, scherzi, impromptus, polonaises, mazurkas, waltzes, and various other imaginative works that were also unafraid of being simple and yet have a great harmonic inventiveness and originality that were an essential part of the Romantic era.

Chopin's influence on Debussy: [video]http://www.capradio.org/classical/connections/2015/02/21/connections-022115/[/video]


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Couchie said:


> With people like Bach, Telemann, Handel, Mozart, CPE, Haydn et al. the prevailing attitude seems to be rejoice in the sheer joy of living. Was there a broader cultural reason everybody starts to hate life in Europe after 1815?


I would like to say that I disagree with your premise. For me, there's much more darkness in some works by Bach for example than in anything that Beethoven or his conteporaries produced. Listen:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Luchesi said:


> Would you have preferred that Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Schubert composed in the old styles of many decades earlier? Why more of the same?


The fact that Mozart, Haydn, Chopin, Schumann are 'apples and oranges'- some people seem to just not get it. Blame on them for starting sh*storm everytime. I think it's been like 10 times already in the past few months. Using words like 'silly' and 'stupid' without acknowledging the intellectualism, craftsmanship that went into writing these and their influence on later ages just seems shallow and irrational.


















Mozart's influence on Schoenberg: 



Haydn's influence on Shostakovich:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

In the Mozart index search on this forum, there are 266 threads where he is mentioned, mostly favorably with high regard as one of the top three composers of all time. Mozart’s influence on Schoenberg has been mentioned a number of times over the years even by those who may not particularly like Schoenberg, overwhelmingly favorable except by the expected, the usual naysayers, some of whom appear to be relatively new or inexperienced listeners. But in recent memory, this is the first time I’ve seriously seen the Classicists pitted against the Romantics as if such a fruitless battle was winnable on either side. Surely, there’s bound to be a way of appreciating and respecting both and it’s not necessarily by constantly criticizing and comparing them ad infinitum. All the great names on both side are not about to vanish because someone doesn’t happen to like them, and that happens to include the immortal Mozart in all his full glory—my personal favorite as the greatest composer of all time because of the abundance of treasures he left behind, whether one cares for him or not.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Larkenfield said:


> In the Mozart index search on this forum, there are over 266 threads where he is mentioned, mostly favorably with high regard as one of the top three composers of all time.


I can't find the quote right now, but I think it was Ries who said that whenever Beethoven had scores open on his desk for study, they were always Handel, Mozart, or Bach. While some today may place Handel lower in value, overall our own opinions (on average) haven't changed much in the last 200 years.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Is the OP's premise valid?


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## sonance (Aug 20, 2018)

Post #1: _"With people like Bach, Telemann, Handel, Mozart, CPE, Haydn et al. the prevailing attitude seems to be rejoice in the sheer joy of living. ..."_

Post #10: _"... And I think "dark" religious music is drawn more from solemn awe than feelings akin to romantic-era struggle, loss of love, and depression."_

A very selective view ...

The term "human condition" comes to mind. And I can't imagine that there have been times without need, fear, misery, without hate, despair, greed, murder, loss of love and loss of beloved ones, without hunger and without disease ...

I'd like to draw a parallel from the history of painting to the history of music.

The history of painting shows that the human need to mirror humans in all their glory and heroism and in all their misery and pain and all their beauty and nakedness and their wooing and murdering used the "vessel" [pot], the "frame" of the time being. In the time of the church's dominance you'll find paintings with biblical stories, in the time of the Enlightenment you'll find neoclassical themes (Greek and Roman myths). It's hard to find the proper name for the "frame" of today. Only time will tell.

The same is true for music (at least that's the way I see it). I think that in earlier times, too, the "human condition" has found its dark and "angsty" expression, its mirror, in settings of sacred texts. Think of the Penitential Psalms (De Profundis!), think of the Miserere, think of the Lamentations and the requiems and stabat maters. In later times: look at the operas dealing with Greek and Roman myths.

Example: Just think of the Thirty-Years-War. The massacre in the German town Magdeburg (more than 20,000 people slain.) Of course you'll find dark and angsty references in music!

Matthias Weckmann: Wie liegt die Stadt so wüste




["How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! How is she become as a widow! ..." Yes, of course there's Jerusalem as the obvious meaning of the words, but I don't think it to be far-fetched that it refers to Magdeburg as well!]

Johann Hildebrand (1614-1684): Ach Gott! Wir haben's nicht gewusst, was Krieg für eine Plage ist [Oh Lord! We did not know what scourge it is the war] [Plage = plague, pest, trial etc.]





Heinrich Schütz: Da pacem domine (a plea to end the war) 




Some other examples of dark, "angsty", sad music:

Thomas Tallis: Lamentations [playlist]





Johann Sebastian Bach: Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu Dir





Psalm 130 (settings by other composers than Bach)
Dowland: 



Sweelinck: 



Zelenka: 



Gluck: 



Mendelssohn: 




Purcell: With sick and famish'd eyes





Telemann: Psalm 6 "Ach Herr, strafe mich nicht"





Byrd: Miserere mei





I don't know a lot about the development of symphonies and other orchestral music and how and when the main body of music shifted from vocal to instrumental, from chamber to symphonic music. But I guess that with the plethora, the wealth of musical genres we can choose today, the sacred music of earlier times is not as dominant as it used to be and that therefore knowledge and memory tend to miss its earlier importance, is becoming selective.

"Vessels" and "Frames" may be different, but the dark and "angsty" music of later times and of today is nothing new.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Allerius said:


> I would like to say that I disagree with your premise. For me, there's much more darkness in some works by Bach for example than in anything that Beethoven or his conteporaries produced. Listen:


I think it's very disengenious to pretend passions commissioned for black Friday are representative of the broader cultural aesthetic. People were hardly sitting around in parlours requesting music invocative of the suffering of Christ. But that's exactly what the romantic movement was. "Play that desolate, sad tune again Chopin".

I don't think Bach at large is even representative of the late baroque. Should remember Bach was not popular during his own day. He became popular with the ROMANTICS.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> This is an extraordinary claim and can only have been made by someone who, for example, doesn't know the later symphonies and piano concertos .... or, indeed, much Mozart at all. But let's not open that one (the "Mozart is superficial argument") up again.
> 
> Of course, the music of the Romantic era is different to the music of earlier (or later) eras. But equally you will find romantic tendencies in some music of all eras (just as you can find classical tendencies in lots of Romantic music). The general idea in OP's title stands as true, I think, but it isn't served by being blind to any earlier angsty tendencies in music or by typifying all pre-Beethovenian music as unremittingly joyful.


I'm not saying Mozart is superficial, just that his overall aesthetic is mostly light and whimsical. Yes, even his later stuff (have you seen The Magic Flute?) Which is great in and of itself. People attempting to ascribe Mozart a Beethoven/Wagner/Brahms-esque ultraseriousness do him absolutely no favours because that isn't who Mozart is and why he's great.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Couchie said:


> I think it's very disengenious to pretend passions commissioned for black Friday are representative of the broader cultural aesthetic. People were hardly sitting around in parlours requesting music invocative of the suffering of Christ. But that's exactly what the romantic movement was. "Play that desolate, sad tune again Chopin".


Were Chopin's desolate sad, tunes, or anyone else's, more "representative of the broader cultural aesthetic" than his lighter works, and did "people" then really sit around in parlors requesting music that evoked suffering? What proportion of Chopin's music is sad and desolate - what proportion of anyone's is? - and do you think that after a hard day's work most people looked forward eagerly to weeping and swooning and fainting on overstuffed mohair couches in glum Victorian parlors?

If you want to talk about high art and what "cultured" people sat around watching, there isn't much in the Romantic age to compare in stark, terrifying tragedy with Oedipus Rex, Medea, or King Lear. Wagner, compared to Sophocles or Shakespeare, was a sentimental wuss.

See? I can exaggerate too. :tiphat:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

With much greater familiarity with Mozart's works-he was a prolific composer-one can hear how much of his music was not light and whimsical. I consider that a gross mischaracterization. While his music was intended to be uplifting to the spirit, his works for the Masons-a serious fraternal organization-were not necessarily in a major key but, in this instance, written in C minor and shows off something of his deeper philosophical side. It is thoughtful, earnest, and has an outstanding masterful fugue:


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## poconoron (Oct 26, 2011)

Luchesi said:


> Larkenfield -
> 
> "Debussy opined that Chopin was "the greatest of them all, for through the piano he discovered everything"; he professed his "respectful gratitude" for Chopin's piano music.""
> 
> _It seems to me that Chopin wouldn't agree with that. As I read more about his composing efforts, he was a very hard worker, extremely self-critical, with many later revisions and not sure which exact versions he wanted to put out there. _ He was pleased with most compositions he got published, but not all, and he was very realistic about the limitations he had run up against. He was understandably unhappy with many of his early works, but then he was also unhappy with many of his last attempts in which he was trying to capture and express what was end of his life and that metaphorical-powerfuly romantic world. He suffered for years and he probably needed to compose for more instruments in big works, but that option was lost decades earlier. The not so happy end result is that he's the greatest composer for the piano who continually had to battle consumption and his own anti-social defensiveness.


I think you are right about Chopin. He was quoted as saying:

_Mozart encompasses the entire domain of musical creation, but I've got only the keyboard in my poor head.
_

Chopin's last request was "Play Mozart for me!"


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Couchie said:


> I'm not saying Mozart is superficial, just that his overall aesthetic is mostly light and whimsical. Yes, even his later stuff (have you seen The Magic Flute?) Which is great in and of itself. People attempting to ascribe Mozart a Beethoven/Wagner/Brahms-esque ultraseriousness do him absolutely no favours because that isn't who Mozart is and why he's great.


So what you're trying to say in this thread is "Music completely changed because of Beethoven and Beethoven only".. But in reality, isn't it more like Beethoven and Rossini followed the footsteps of Mozart and Haydn.



hammeredklavier said:


> _"The 24th opens with a truly remarkable theme. It sounds as though it might have been composed 150 years later, with, what was for Mozart's day, an outrageously chromatic melody that uses all 12 notes of the chromatic scale. So unique is it that in 1953 the German composer Giselher Klebe (1925 - 2009) used it as a tone row in his 12-tone Symphony for Strings... Several year later, Beethoven commented to a composer friend during a performance of this Concerto that they "would never be able to write anything like that,""_
> https://www.musicprogramnotes.com/mozart-piano-concerto-no-24-in-c-minor-k491/


Music became angsty and dark with/after Beethoven?


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