# Late Mozart vs. Late Schubert



## Littlephrase

These are two of my very favorite composers who were at the respective polar sides of the Pre/Post Beethoven spectrum of the classical period. There are many parallels (and differences, especially in terms of lifetime recognition.) However, I think we can all agree that Mozart and Schubert are two of the supreme "natural" talents in music who were robbed from the world too soon. 

In this thread, I'd like to delve into the artistic stages of maturity the two genius composers were at when they died. This is not speculation of what could've been, but more about what was. As a reference, here is their output in the (roughly speaking) last year of their lives. 

The Mozart of 1790-91 produced: 
The Requiem K 626 (of course) 
The Magic Flute K 620
La Clemenza do Tito K 621 
Clarinet Concerto K 622
Ave Verum Corpus K 618 
The two "viola" quintets K 593 and 614 
The B Flat Piano Concerto K 595 
Other works the Prussian Quartets, Cosi Fan Tutte, and the Clarinet Quintet and *maybe* the final three symphonies (depends on one's definition of "late" Mozart) 

And for the Schubert of 1827-28:
The Last Three Piano Sonatas D. 958-960 
Schwanengesang D 957
The "Cello" Quintet D 956 
Mass in E Flat D 950 
Drei Klavierstucke D 946
"The Great" Symphony No.9 D 944
Fantasy in F minor D 940 
Impromptus D 935 
Fantasy in C D 934 
Piano Trio no.2 D 929 
And perhaps Die Winterreise for good measure. 

So. 

Obviously there are many wild differences here between the individual works (thanks Beethoven) but, generally speaking, where were they in terms of maturity? Did Mozart truly herald the arrival of "Romanticism" like some say or was he just ensconced in mere Classicism? Did Schubert find his own truly individual voice separate from Beethoven?


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## Phil loves classical

I feel in late Mozart, he didn't write much turbulent music, and the music seemed more content ( as was his life, contrary to what the movie Amadeus suggested), but his music was even more expressive later. I never felt Schubert really found much of his own voice (I think his most personal voice was expressed in the Unfinished Symphony). His music seemed very much an extension of Mozart and Beethoven to me.


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## Woodduck

"Maturity" might refer either to mastery of the techniques of composition or to a composer's stylistic development. We can't really assume that either Mozart or Schubert reached maturity in the latter sense, since both were giving evidence of further developments to come when they died. Technically, though, Mozart was already a mature composer before the period in question, while Schubert apparently expressed a desire to make a further study of counterpoint which could have made a substantial difference to works not yet composed. 

As for how much Mozart would have embraced a Romantic style, that's a different question much discussed on this forum. Personally, I don't find his late works exhibiting a truly Romantic sensibility, and certainly not the kinds of formal innovations that characterized Romantic music (including Schubert's).

Beethoven, as often noted, sits astride the Classical-Romantic divide, and I like to say that he constitutes his own period. He's just too big, original and potent to categorize.


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## Larkenfield

I find it hard to speak of the ‘maturity’ of either composer when both died so young. I think it’s perhaps more meaningful to consider what they were working on, the direction they seemed to be taking in their art, rather than their maturity. How mature can one be at the age of 31, no matter how gifted one is? But that didn’t keep Schubert from contemplating very deep subjects and poems. Whatever maturity they had, I still hear the hope of youth in both to the very last of their lives. Both were masters, but being a master and maturity are not necessarily the same thing, at least to me, that they might have been. I think they both started out as masters and continued to develop to the end, such as their interest in being better and developing their skills in counterpoint. Mozart beat Schubert to that, But I believe if Schubert had been gifted with more time, he would’ve picked it up in an instant. In fact, going out on a limb now, I believe Schubert might have been better or more natural at it than Beethoven’s sometimes labored and occasionally even grotesque efforts in writing fugues. Mozart, of course, by the time he got to the Jupiter symphony had achieved something in the last movement juggling the five themes that no one had ever done in counterpoint, including Bach, as great as Bach was. With Schubert, it’s hard to imagine him dealing with any deeper subject than what he did in Winterreise which he wrote toward the very end of his life. But I believe he was looking at the words from the standpoint of his youth rather than his ‘maturity’. What some scholars would call Schubert’s maturity, I would call a period of accelerated development at certain points in his life, such as his output and increase of mastery during 1820–21.


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## EdwardBast

Larkenfield said:


> I find it hard to speak of the 'maturity' of either composer when both died so young.


Age is perhaps less important than experience? Mozart was a working professional composer, performer, and improvisor for 25 years! That's plenty of time to mature stylistically.

I always wonder, given Mozart's obvious genius and skill in vocal genres, if he might not have become a great composer of lieder at the same time Schubert was? Does anyone know offhand about Mozart's literary interests? Drama? Poetry?


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## hammeredklavier

Speaking of "parallels", I would like to mention Mozart's 'Fantasies in F minor', organ works K594 (Andante-Allegro-Andante) written in 1790, the French overture-styled K608 (Allegro-Andante-Allegro) written in 1791. 
Phil says Mozart didn't write much turbulent music in his late period, I beg to differ. 
K608, in particular, is noted for Mozart's sheer mastery in turning the fugue of the exposition to a double fugue in the recapitulation. The tension of the motivic build (contrasted with the lyricism of the Andante) and operatic drama driven by the intricate contrapuntal texture more than makes up for the 'alleged' lack of turbulent music in late Mozart.




https://muswrite.blogspot.com/2013/09/mozart-fantasia-for-mechanical-clock.html _"Beethoven had a copy of the piece and made his own version of the fugue section of the work, so while it was written for a mechanical clock, the quality of the piece caused it to have a life separate from its original form. It was a well-known piece in the 19th century and influenced many composers and performers."_


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## SONNET CLV

I come to this thread while listening on headphones to a performance of Hans Rott's Symphony in E, written by a 20 year old conservatory student who would be dead, after a period of mental derangement, in five years. It's a symphony that precedes Mahler's own symphonies yet remarkably anticipates that composer's "sound" and style. (Rott and Mahler were room mates for a time during their Conservatory studies.) It's a symphony that, if heard "cold", would confound as to whom the composer is: Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler? But the one thing that the listener would likely never anticipate is that the composer was a mere 20 years of age.

So, what is maturity when it comes to art and artistic genius? The Rott symphony possesses a maturity of style in that it is like nothing of its time (1878); thus it is _mature_ in style.

Many of Mozart's early works (say, from his teen years) prove quite mature. And Schubert always confounds me. I remain astounded that this composer died so young yet wrote music which befuddles my understandings in the late decades I now enjoy.

I recall, as a much younger man, discussing Schubert with students; informing them that I did not listen to Schubert very often because I found his music too difficult to comprehend because it seemed to be a music informed with a kind of wisdom one did not achieve until one lived a long life of experiences, challenges, sufferings, and trials. I recall I would say "I'm saving Schubert for when I'm older, for a time when I will have a better understanding or sense of life in order to more clearly comprehend the composer's 'message' or 'meaning'." And I would think, at the same time, of the strange irony of that statement, considering that Schubert was so young when he wrote this music that was so experience-informed.

Today, at my older age, I take on Schubert much more often than I did in my youth, and I confess I still find much of the music startlingly incomprehensible. But I do now see glimpses of light between the notes for having lived long and experienced much beyond what I had in my youth. And I would not want to be without Schubert, who, to my way of thinking, remains one of the most profoundly mature of all composers with which I am familiar.

Mozart in some sense wrote mature music all his life. But that music was marked by a youthful glee, even such late works as _The Magic Flute_. I don't hear much youthful glee (if any) in Schubert. But I seldom ponder Mozart philosophically, something I cannot help but do with Schubert.

Or, this evening, with Hans Rott.


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## tdc

Larkenfield said:


> Mozart, of course, by the time he got to the Jupiter symphony had achieved something in the last movement juggling the five themes that no one had ever done in counterpoint, including Bach, as great as Bach was.


I don't think this is accurate, off the top of my head the C# minor fugue from Book I of the Well Tempered Clavier has 5 voices and The Musical Offering has a 6 part fugue.


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## hammeredklavier

tdc said:


> I don't think this is accurate, off the top of my head the C# minor fugue from Book I of the Well Tempered Clavier has 5 voices and The Musical Offering has a 6 part fugue.


The C sharp minor fugue from WTC is a triple fugue in five voices. The final movement of String Quintet K593 would have more similarities with the C sharp minor fugue in that respect than K551. The finale of Symphony K551 is a 5-subject 'modified' fugal movement, obviously Bach-influenced, but something 'original' from the works of Bach. The same way Beethoven's hammerklavier is from Bach - I think this is what Larkenfield meant.


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## KenOC

tdc said:


> I don't think this is accurate, off the top of my head the C# minor fugue from Book I of the Well Tempered Clavier has 5 voices and The Musical Offering has a 6 part fugue.


Some people here (and Wiki for that matter) claim that the last movement of Mendelssohn's Octet, written at 16, has an eight-voice fugato. That's goin' some!


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## Woodduck

My horse writes faster fugues than your horse.

ut:


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## SONNET CLV

Woodduck said:


> My horse writes faster fugues than your horse.
> 
> ut:


The most I expect out of Virgil is that he gets me home in a snowstorm, which, on occasion, he has done quite effectively. I never asked him to write a fugue, but I wouldn't put it past the ol' boy to pony one up if needed.


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## DavidA

Phil loves classical said:


> I feel in late Mozart, he didn't write much turbulent music, and the music seemed more content ( as was his life, contrary to what the movie Amadeus suggested), but his music was even more expressive later. I *never felt Schubert really found much of his own voice *(I think his most personal voice was expressed in the Unfinished Symphony). His music seemed very much an extension of Mozart and Beethoven to me.


Pardon? Wintereisse?


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## PlaySalieri

EdwardBast said:


> Age is perhaps less important than experience? Mozart was a working professional composer, performer, and improvisor for 25 years! That's plenty of time to mature stylistically.
> 
> I always wonder, given Mozart's obvious genius and skill in vocal genres, if he might not have become a great composer of lieder at the same time Schubert was? *Does anyone know offhand about Mozart's literary interests? Drama? Poetry?*


Mozart did compose some fine songs - early lieder.

From his letters it is obvious that Mozart was reasonably well read - he knew Hamlet - even criticised shakespeare saying in the ghost scene the ghost is less terrifying because he talks too much - thinking about the supernatural scenes of don giovanni. Whether he knew or was interested in poetry I dont know. I think he was too much interested in opera and other forms to spend much time developing what he had already started out with in the songs he composed.


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## Euler

DavidA said:


> Pardon? Wintereisse?


Winter Ulcers. Typo of the week


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> I always wonder, given Mozart's obvious genius and skill in vocal genres, if he might not have become a great composer of lieder at the same time Schubert was? Does anyone know offhand about Mozart's literary interests? Drama? Poetry?


I believe he wasn't as interested in poetry and literature as Schubert. But he had other interests, like for example


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## EdwardBast

Larkenfield said:


> Mozart, of course, by the time he got to the Jupiter symphony had achieved something in the last movement juggling the five themes that no one had ever done in counterpoint, including Bach, as great as Bach was.


Have you actually seen and analyzed the passage? Doesn't sound like it. Not five themes, five short, relatively simple motives. One of them is a measure long, four notes, and arpeggiates a simple triad, another is six notes of a scale (two measures long). It is an impressive passage, but comparing it to Bach's contrapuntal feats is an apple to oranges thing.


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## EdwardBast

stomanek said:


> Mozart did compose some fine songs - early lieder.
> 
> From his letters it is obvious that Mozart was reasonably well read - he knew Hamlet - even criticised shakespeare saying in the ghost scene the ghost is less terrifying because he talks too much - thinking about the supernatural scenes of don giovanni. Whether he knew or was interested in poetry I dont know. I think he was too much interested in opera and other forms to spend much time developing what he had already started out with in the songs he composed.


Thanks for that.

My speculation was that when the lied (not to mention piano miniatures) became a central focus and serious enterprise in the Romantic Era, it would have been surprising if Mozart, who made a point of mastering every important form of his day, wouldn't have put renewed effort into that genre as well. I'm just saying I don't think one can assume he would have stuck exclusively to the central forms of his day when there were new challenges to take up.


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## EdwardBast

-----------------------------


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> Have you actually seen and analyzed the passage? Doesn't sound like it. *Not five themes, five short, relatively simple motives.* One of them is a measure long, four notes, and arpeggiates a simple triad, another is six notes of a scale (two measures long). It is an impressive passage, but comparing it to Bach's contrapuntal feats is an apple to oranges thing.


The fact that the subjects are "relatively simple motives" doesn't make it any less impressive. One of Bach's most complex fugues, the D major fugue from WTC II is made up of building blocks of 4-note, 5-note "simple motives" 



 It's almost cliche to say "Bach's contrapuntal prowess is unparalleled", but he didn't write every single contrapuntal work in existence. Even after Bach, there were contrapuntal works composed by later composers that exhibit superb craftsmanship and uniqueness at the same time. That's what Larkenfield is saying. 
"Eroica is something unique from Mozart and Haydn's symphonic literature".


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## EdwardBast

hammeredklavier said:


> The fact that the subjects are "relatively simple motives" doesn't make it any less impressive. One of Bach's most complex fugues, the D major fugue from WTC II is made up of building blocks of 4-note, 5-note "simple motives"
> 
> 
> 
> It's almost cliche to say "Bach's contrapuntal prowess is unparalleled", but he didn't write every single contrapuntal work in existence. Even after Bach, there were contrapuntal works composed by later composers that exhibit superb craftsmanship and uniqueness at the same time. That's what Larkenfield is saying.
> "Eroica is something unique from Mozart and Haydn's symphonic literature".


Yes, of course it makes it less impressive. Why do you think Mozart enthusiasts always say themes rather than short motives? 

And no, that's not what Larkenfield is saying. He is saying it was an incomparable feat.


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> Yes, of course it makes it less impressive. Why do you think Mozart enthusiasts always say themes rather than short motives?
> 
> And no, that's not what Larkenfield is saying. He is saying it was an incomparable feat.


I don't think that really matters. Many people casually call Beethoven's 5th, G-G-G-Eb - F-F-F-D a "theme", not a "motif" or a "subject".

_"Noun	1.	musical theme - (music) melodic subject of a musical compositionmusical theme - (music) melodic subject of a musical composition;"_

Larkenfield didn't say "something no one has ever been able to do". He said "something no one has ever done."


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## janxharris

EdwardBast said:


> Yes, of course it makes it less impressive. That's why Mozart enthusiasts always say themes rather than short motives?
> 
> And no, that's not what Larkenfield is saying. He is saying it was an incomparable feat.


Irrespective of whether it's a theme or short motif, even the most complex fugues can sound very mechanical. Used with economy, sure it can work.


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## Phil loves classical

EdwardBast said:


> Yes, of course it makes it less impressive. Why do you think Mozart enthusiasts always say themes rather than short motives?
> 
> And no, that's not what Larkenfield is saying. He is saying it was an incomparable feat.


I have to agree those themes/motives are not that challeging to integrate together considering they are more basic building blocks. I'm way more impressed by Stravinsky polytonality.


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## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> I have to agree those themes/motives are not that challeging to integrate together considering they are more basic building blocks. I'm way more impressed by Stravinsky polytonality.


But if the contrapuntal work of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven is 'not challenging' as you claim, why couldn't composers like Chopin and Schubert just 'copy' their skills?


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## EdwardBast

hammeredklavier said:


> I don't think that really matters. Many people casually call Beethoven's 5th, G-G-G-Eb - F-F-F-D a "theme", not a "motif" or a "subject".
> 
> _"Noun	1.	musical theme - (music) melodic subject of a musical compositionmusical theme - (music) melodic subject of a musical composition;"_
> 
> Larkenfield didn't say "something no one has ever been able to do". He said "something no one has ever done."


Yes, calling the opening motive of Beethoven's Fifth the theme is equally annoying, the point being what?; Two annoyances make a pleasure? 

Every piece ever written is "something no one has ever done." If that was all he meant then it wouldn't have meant much, would it?


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> Yes, calling the opening motive of Beethoven's Fifth the theme is equally annoying, the point being what?; Two annoyances make a pleasure?
> 
> Every piece ever written is "something no one has ever done." If that was all he meant then it wouldn't have meant much, would it?


I'm sure Larkenfield didn't mean to say Mozart was better than Bach, and he sure doesn't think that way. "including Bach, as great as Bach was." Because we all know when it comes to fugues, Bach is like the 'definition' of it, he was just saying 'Bach' to emphasize the fact Mozart's K551 is a watershed in history of contrapuntal music. I'm sure if Bach himself heard the work, he would have thought it was creative.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> But if the contrapuntal work of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven is 'not challenging' as you claim, why couldn't composers like Chopin and Schubert just 'copy' their skills?


Digging up obscure, unpublished exercises by composers who not only didn't publish them but asked that they be burned after their deaths is a funny way to demonstrate the greatness of totally different composers whose greatness doesn't need demonstrating.

It's doubtful that Chopin ever thought of this exercise in archaism as a thing to publish. But if, against his wishes, we must listen to it, we should at least listen to a sympathetic performance by a human being and not some robotic digital monstrosity. Try this:






Not so bad, eh? It has shape and point after all. A great fugue? No. But Chopin is a quintessentially Romantic composer, and fuguing is a quintessentially un-Romantic exercise. 19th-century music is full of square, academic-sounding counterpoint, which usually functions well enough in the context of longer works where it isn't expected to carry the major structural or expressive burden. If you want Romantic counterpoint, you're better off with more free-form stuff - the _Meistersinger_ prelude, say, where Wagner takes all the main melodies of the piece - completely dissimilar and individually interesting melodies (as opposed to short motifs) - and then piles them together in a virtuosic finale that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven would not have imagined. But why should they? Let every composer do his own thing.


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## radiodurans

Well, the terror for Hamlet himself was more in the murder of his father than in seeing the ghost of his father. For Don Giovanni the horror is the everlasting perdition symbolized by the ghost.


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## millionrainbows

This fugue sounds good to me; I like the tritone towards the end, held out and finally resolved outwards. Who's to say it's not great? It reminds me of Gould's slowed-down version of Bach's Sinfonia Nr. 9 in F minor. I think there is a place for fugue in Romanticism.
I read in some notes recently that Mozart was "inventing form as he went, moment by moment." I like that, and I'm not sure if it applies to anything here, but I definitely am getting more out of the Late Mozart symphonies lately than I ever did before. It seems to me that "gesture" is what ushers-in Romanticism; and I hear a lot of "gesture" in late Mozart. This is done in classical context, but it seems to foreshadow Romanticism. The harmonic progressions seem to be serving an expressive or emotive purpose, rather than just a harmonic function.


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## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> But if the contrapuntal work of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven is 'not challenging' as you claim, why couldn't composers like Chopin and Schubert just 'copy' their skills?


I was only referring to the Jupiter last movement. It is a great piece of music, just the integration of those themes is not really that challenging as it may seem, when some of the individual themes are basic diatonic building blocks.


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## Larkenfield

Chopin has been mentioned again. There's no question that he was very fond of Bach: He urged his piano students (that he was charging an arm and a leg for lessons) to practice Bach every day to strengthen their fingers and exercise their minds. He knew Bach's WTC... and I believe he did because Chopin wanted his own music to be played with a flexibility of rubato but also with technical precision and harmonic freedom.

Slow down certain passages in Chopin, virtually anything, and one will hear the same kind of harmonic precision and voice leading as Bach, just not in the same _style_ as Bach. Chopin's Etude No. 1 has often been cited as an example when it's slowed down so one can hear its Bachian clarity. _Listen also to Chopin's logical, rock-solid, Bachian bassline_. (How anyone can deny that Chopin had fierce and serious technical 'chops' as a composer is beyond me, and I'm not referring to his _student_ exercises.) No. 1 is brilliant, epic, and magnificent in the piano literature. Chopin was a revolutionary whose roots in tradition went deep.






Surely, there's more to counterpoint than the writing of fugues. Chopin's gorgeous _Largo_ from his Cello Sonata is_ built_ on counterpoint (though I feel its melody may also indicate his physical and emotional weariness toward the end of his life). Nevertheless, the counterpoint exchanges between the cello and piano are unmistakable and establish unity between the performers.


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## Woodduck

Larkenfield said:


> Chopin was very fond of Bach. Even more than fond: He urged his piano students (that he was charging an arm and a leg for lessions) to practice Bach every day to strengthen their fingers and exercise their minds. He knew Bach's WTC... and I believe he did because Chopin wanted his own music to be played with a flexibility of rubato but also with technical precision and harmonic freedom.
> 
> Slow down certain passages in Chopin, virtually anything, and one will hear the same kind of harmonic precision and voice leading as Bach, just not in the same _style_ as Bach. Chopin's Etude No. 1 has often been cited as an example of this when it's slowed down in tempo so one can hear its Bachian clarity. How anyone could deny that Chopin had technical 'chops' as a composer is beyond me.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And there's more to counterpoint than the writing of fugues. Frederic Chopin's Largo from his Cello Sonata is full of counterpoint, though I feel that its melody may also show something in the manner of his tiredness and emotional exhaustion toward the end of his life. Nevertheless, the counterpoint exchanges with the cello are obvious.


Where is the counterpoint? It's all melody with accompaniment except for a few bars toward the end. When the cello has the tune the piano plays arpeggio-like figuration; when the piano has the tune the cello doubles the bass line. It's lovely, but it isn't contrapuntal.


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## PlaySalieri

Phil loves classical said:


> I was only referring to the Jupiter last movement. It is a great piece of music, just the integration of those themes is not really that challenging as it may seem, when some of the individual themes are basic diatonic building blocks.


Perhaps the most important achievement of that finale is not the 5 themes as building blocks but the final result - it's all very well doing clever things with multiple motifs but that does not guarantee good music. As has been pointed out many times Mozart's had that knack for making fine music out of relatively simple material.


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## PlaySalieri

Woodduck said:


> Where is the counterpoint? It's all melody with accompaniment except for a few bars toward the end. When the cello has the tune the piano plays arpeggio-like figuration; when the piano has the tune the cello doubles the bass line. It's lovely, but it isn't contrapuntal.


Looks like there is some disagreement about what counterpoint is? Your assessment is at odds with Larkenfield.


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## Larkenfield

Phil loves classical said:


> I was only referring to the Jupiter last movement. It is a great piece of music, just the integration of those themes is not really that challenging as it may seem, when some of the individual themes are basic diatonic building blocks.


Oh my. To read these words regarding one of the greatest accomplishments in all of the music is not only sad but disheartening in its hubris and shortsightedness. I can only consider the finale of the "Jupiter" a miracle that was divinely inspired as much as it was written by a mortal. "Not really that challenging"? Oh my. It's not only that he wrote the perfect juxtaposition and complexity of five-part counterpoint but that he made it sound _effortless_, inspired, sparkling, classically balanced, and perfectly executed. I believe that even Bach himself would have jumped on his pogo stick to proclaim the genius that Mozart had just displayed, because Mozart studied and was inspired by Bach, and so was Chopin (the Mozart/Schubert thread). It was the hand of the master reaching across the decades and both Mozart and Chopin learned from him and made counterpoint their own, which is what students are supposed to do rather than being mere imitations... The "Jupiter" is a miracle seemingly guided by a Divine hand. But unless one appreciates and understands Mozart's intensity of language and vocabulary-and of course, not everyone does nor is obliged to-I think they're wasting their time trying to diminish the significance of this magnificent accomplishment. "Not really that challenging"? Oh my.


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## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> I was only referring to the Jupiter last movement. It is a great piece of music, just the integration of those themes is not really that challenging as it may seem, when some of the individual themes are basic diatonic building blocks.


are you more impressed by Mozart's K522 



 cause it uses polytonality? As I mentioned earlier the D major fugue from WTC II are made up of 4-note, 5-note 'motifs', basic diatonic building blocks, re-used over and over again, 



 but (like the finale of Mozart's K551) as the contrapuntal master he was, Bach skillfully builds tension through all kinds of harmonies, modulations. 
Also, the sense of balance of these composers is not so easy to replicate. Diatonicism in this case acts as a 'restriction' cause you're limited in the number of tones you can use. Much like how, in composing a double fugue, the composer puts himself more restrictions than a normal fugue. (create a masterwork by developing two multiple subjects and combining them) 




Something like this requires 'skills'. I'm sure if Stravinsky lived in the classical period, he wouldn't have composed the polytonality you admire so much. Stravinsky's polytonality is harder to compose than a Mozart symphony or a Bach fugue? I doubt it.



Woodduck said:


> Not so bad, eh? It has shape and point after all. A great fugue? No. But Chopin is a quintessentially Romantic composer, and fuguing is a quintessentially un-Romantic exercise. 19th-century music is full of square, academic-sounding counterpoint, which usually functions well enough in the context of longer works where it isn't expected to carry the major structural or expressive burden. If you want Romantic counterpoint, you're better off with more free-form stuff - the Meistersinger prelude, say, where Wagner takes all the main melodies of the piece - completely dissimilar and individually interesting melodies (as opposed to short motifs) - and then piles them together in a virtuosic finale that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven would not have imagined. But why should they? *Let every composer do his own thing.*


"Let every composer do his own thing." I was thinking the same and was merely responding to other people who praised Schubert's lieder, Stravinsky's polytonality to put down composers like Bach and Mozart. Good thing you mention Wagner, it was he who said that Chopin is "a composer for one right hand only". I'm sure he had pieces like Chopin's "Fugue in A minor" in his mind when he said it.



millionrainbows said:


> This fugue sounds good to me; I like the tritone towards the end, held out and finally resolved outwards. Who's to say it's not great? It reminds me of Gould's slowed-down version of Bach's Sinfonia Nr. 9 in F minor. I think there is a place for fugue in Romanticism.


But it's not an invention or sinfonia, it's a fugue. It's still a poorly-developed, weak fugue where the subjects are not fully explored, the level of techniques and devices used is primitive. Again, I'm not denying the fact that Chopin, Schubert wrote good music in other areas of music. The Etudes (as mentioned by Larkenfield), which are full of memorable melodies, are a great example.


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## PlaySalieri

Yes that "not very challenging" remark made me smile a bit and I did not take it seriously enough to consider replying. 

Not very challenging for whom? Only one, perhaps.


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## Larkenfield

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


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Good thing you mention Wagner, it was he who said that Chopin is "a composer for one right hand only". I'm sure he had pieces like Chopin's "Fugue in A minor" in his mind when he said it.


He couldn't have had pieces like the fugue in mind, since Chopin didn't write other pieces like it, and even if he had they would not have provoked that comment, which could apply to waltzes but hardly to fugues. If mentioning Wagner was a good thing, it's because his works help to illustrate the range of the concept "counterpoint."


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## Phil loves classical

Larkenfield said:


> Oh my. To read these words regarding one of the greatest accomplishments in all of the music is not only sad but disheartening in its hubris and shortsightedness. I can only consider the finale of the "Jupiter" a miracle that was divinely inspired as much as it was written by a mortal. "Not really that challenging"? Oh my. It's not only that he wrote the perfect juxtaposition and complexity of five-part counterpoint but that he made it sound _effortless_, inspired, sparkling, classically balanced, and perfectly executed. I believe that even Bach himself would have jumped on his pogo stick to proclaim the genius that Mozart had just displayed, because Mozart studied and was inspired by Bach, and so was Chopin (the Mozart/Schubert thread). It was the hand of the master reaching across the decades and both Mozart and Chopin learned from him and made counterpoint their own, which is what students are supposed to do rather than being mere imitations... The "Jupiter" is a miracle seemingly guided by a Divine hand. But unless one appreciates and understands Mozart's intensity of language and vocabulary-and of course, not everyone does nor is obliged to-I think they're wasting their time trying to diminish the significance of this magnificent accomplishment. "Not really that challenging"? Oh my.


I love Mozart. But when the notes of the themes are triadic notes, with some passing tones, theoretically there is a good chance the themes will still sound stable together. Almost like you can play any note combinations in the pentatonic scale and it still sounds good. I didn't say it isn't challenging, just not as much as it may seem. With Stravinsky's polytonality you are introducing chromatic notes, which inherently will be more unstable. Or how bout Gesualdo introducing chromatic notes in his 6 part writing? But with the right skill both are achievable.


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## Woodduck

RIDDLE: When is a fugue not a fugue?

SOLUTION: When it's the fourth movement of the Mozart "Jupiter" Symphony.

For some reason, no one has mentioned that Mozart's finale is in perfectly distinct sonata form, and is not really "a fugue" at all. It merely develops its motifs in quasi-fugal counterpoint through the usual exposition (with repeat), development, and recapitulation, and ends with a fugato in which its contrasting, but very compatible, motifs are combined. The contrapuntal writing, over and above its intrinsic interest, functions as a dynamic texture driving the sonata's progress.

It makes little sense to compare this movement with any of Bach's multi-subject fugues, such as the one that caps the "St. Anne" Prelude and Fugue, BWV 552: 



 (the visual here lags slightly behind the sound). Although it never occurred to me till now, Mozart's work actually has more in common with the _Meistersinger_ prelude, in which complex counterpoint is held within a structure having nothing to do with fugue, than with a true fugue in which episodes are spun out cumulatively via the interplay of equal voices and end when the material has been thoroughly exploited.

Already in the Classical style fugue is something "repurposed." Mozart was not the first to develop a symphonic movement fugally, though this symphony no doubt takes the blue ribbon for that feat.


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## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> I love Mozart. But when the notes of the themes are triadic notes, with some passing tones, theoretically there is a good chance the themes will still sound stable together. Almost like you can play any note combinations in the pentatonic scale and it still sounds good. I didn't say it isn't challenging, just not as much as it may seem. With Stravinsky's polytonality you are introducing chromatic notes, which inherently will be more unstable. *But with the right skill both are achievable.*


This is like saying, if we get another guy like Van Gogh, his painting style will be replicable. Robert Levin skillfully finished the Amen Fugue of the Requiem, it still sounds awkward compared with the rest of the piece. That's the thing about 'classical music'. We can't bring back that 'golden age'. I certainly don't think we'll get another guy like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven in near future.

Counterpoint is not just fitting some notes by chance so that they'll sound good. It's a language of expression.
You see, when I made the point about the Chopin Fugue, *my point was not to ridicule his abilities*. I was asking the question, if Bachian counterpoint is so easy to learn, why were there composers in history who tried, but essentially failed? By saying how 'easy' it is, making them look all the more 'musically incapable'. They could just fit the right notes in the right places, if counterpoint is so easy as you say. Right? You're making them look like kindergarten kids who answer "3" to " 1+1 =".
Listen to K522 or K465. By the logic "triadic notes are easy to compose", one could argue all dissonance sounds good and hence good dissonance is easy to compose. There's some pieces of music composed today just by making cats hit random notes on the piano.

As easy as something like this may sound, can we replicate it? No. That's why we keep going back to 'old music' (written by historic guys wearing wigs) that have inspired thousands of later artists in history. Again, you don't have to like it, but you can't deny there's craftsmanship involved.





_"The most breathtaking chromatic trip of all occurs in the final movement, which begins innocently enough, and isn't too eventful tonally throughout the whole exposition. But then, again comes the development section, and all hell breaks loose. 
Do you realize that, that wild, atonal-sounding passage contains every one of the twelve chromatic tones except the tonic note G? What an inspired idea.. all the notes except the tonic.
It could easily pass for twentieth-century music, if we didn't already know it was Mozart. 
But even that explosion of chromaticism is explainable in terms of the circle of fifths, not that I'd dream of burdening you with it. Take my word for it, that out-burst of chromatic rage is classically contained, and so is the climax of this development section, which finds itself in the unlikely key of C-sharp minor, which is as far away as you can get from the home key of G minor. 
And, again, believe me; all these phonological arrivals and departures to and from the most distantly related areas operate in the smoothest, Mozartian way, under perfect diatonic control."_


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> Already in the Classical style fugue is something "repurposed." Mozart was not the first to develop a symphonic movement fugally, though this symphony no doubt takes the blue ribbon for that feat.


I think we all know. I think I also said something to the effect that the finale is a sonata-form, 'modified' fugal movement, elements of which Mozart learned from his mentors, the Haydn brothers and the Bach brothers.
Bach wasn't the first composer to write fugues and canons. Chopin nowadays takes all the glory for his well-known "Chopinesque style". Even though Hummel used it before Chopin. People nowadays freak out saying "Clara Schumann's piano concerto is Chopinesque in style!". Hummel utilized the form 24 Preludes (Op.67), 24 Etudes (Op.125) for the piano before Chopin did. No one ever talks about this.
But then Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Debussy 'chose' Chopin over Hummel for their study. There's merit in his music the 'experts' recognized.
In some respect, Chopin succeeded in inspiring later artists more than Hummel did. Much in the same way, Mozart is remembered today far more than Myslivecek is cause Beethoven, Rossini were inspired by Mozart but weren't so much by Myslivecek.


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## Gallus

Cosi fan tutte as one of the "other works"?

How is this even a debate?


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> I think we all know. I think I also said something to the effect that the finale is a sonata-form, 'modified' fugal movement, elements of which Mozart learned from his mentors, the Haydn brothers and the Bach brothers.
> Bach wasn't the first composer to write fugues and canons. Chopin nowadays takes all the glory for his well-known "Chopinesque style". Even though Hummel used it before Chopin. People nowadays freak out saying "Clara Schumann's piano concerto is Chopinesque in style!". Hummel utilized the form 24 Preludes (Op.67), 24 Etudes (Op.125) for the piano before Chopin did. No one ever talks about this.
> But then Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Debussy 'chose' Chopin over Hummel for their study. There's merit in his music the 'experts' recognized.
> In some respect, Chopin succeeded in inspiring later artists more than Hummel did. Much in the same way, Mozart is remembered today far more than Myslivecek is cause Beethoven, Rossini were inspired by Mozart but weren't so much by Myslivecek.


Why would you think everyone would know how the finale of the "Jupiter" is constructed? I doubt that everyone does. What you said earlier was that it was a "modified fugal movement" and "Bach-inspired." Neither of those is a very precise or even accurate description, so I thought there'd be some value in describing what the piece is in specific terms and pointing out that it's fundamentally different from a fugue as a form. People were comparing it to Bach, and that seemed to me beside the point. I wasn't trying to argue anything, just to introduce some clarity for whoever might care.

On top of that, I find very interesting the ways composers adapt older forms to their contemporary sensibilities and purposes. Baroque composers like Bach and Handel would probably have been very surprised and interested to hear fugal counterpoint used as a device to elaborate, decorate, and generate drama in a structure new to them, a structure which is fundamentally not dependent on counterpoint at all.

I'm not sure how the rest of your post relates.


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> Thanks for that.
> 
> it would have been surprising if Mozart, who made a point of mastering every important form of his day, wouldn't have put renewed effort into that genre as well.


Mozart "made a point of mastering every important form of his day," did he say so? To whom? When exactly?


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> I'm not sure how the rest of your post relates.


I was just using Chopin as an example to argue that the fact that "Mozart wasn't the first to write a fugal symphony" doesn't diminish the value of the work, K551 in terms of the influence it had in music history. I also think just because Beethoven paid Mozart homage many times, it doesn't diminish his greatness, as I discussed in an earlier thread Mozart Is My Enemy .


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## Littlephrase

Gallus said:


> Cosi fan tutte as one of the "other works"?
> 
> How is this even a debate?


It's not really a debate. The "versus" is more there for compare/contrast than winner/loser. However, it seems like this thread has devolved into a debate over whether Mozart's Jupiter finale is contrapuntally impressive. How that is a debate is even more mindboggling.

And FYI the "other works" part was just some other stuff written near the end of his life, but not precisely in the final year. Cosi Fan Tutte (along with the final symphonies) is obviously a work of the highest Mozartean caliber.


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## KenOC

hammeredklavier said:


> Mozart "made a point of mastering every important form of his day," did he say so? To whom? When exactly?


Mozart was a professional composer and usually wrote with an eye to making a living. This might involve a church commission for a religious work, aristocrats wanting sets of dances or some such, works for his own (paying) performance, works that a symphony orchestra might pay for, and of course chamber and piano music for the publishers.

The "important forms of his day" were defined by his market, and he was pretty successful IMO in mastering them.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> I was just using Chopin as an example to argue that the fact that "Mozart wasn't the first to write a fugal symphony" doesn't diminish the value of the work, K551 in terms of the influence it had in music history. I also think just because Beethoven paid Mozart homage many times, it doesn't diminish his greatness, as I discussed in an earlier thread Mozart Is My Enemy .


I'm certainly not devaluing the movement. It's unquestionably a tour de force. Nor would I question Mozart's ability to write a fine fugue.


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## PlaySalieri

Phil loves classical said:


> I love Mozart. But when the notes of the themes are triadic notes, with some passing tones, theoretically there is a good chance the themes will still sound stable together. Almost like you can play any note combinations in the pentatonic scale and it still sounds good. I didn't say it isn't challenging, just not as much as it may seem. With Stravinsky's polytonality you are introducing chromatic notes, which inherently will be more unstable. Or how bout Gesualdo introducing chromatic notes in his 6 part writing? But with the right skill both are achievable.


I dont know whether what you are saying has any merit or not - the two posters on this thread who might be able to evaluate what you are saying probably wont. I cant as I dont know anything about musical theory. the only other thing I would point out is that musicologists tend to rave about the jupiter finale which is far more famous than the pieces that you cite. And if as you seem to be implying that the finale of the jupiter is not quite as impressive as we have been led to believe - why are there not any comparably esteemed and praised pieces from the same era?

I think perhaps what you miss is that Mozart wasnt just doing something clever - he also had to make it all sound wonderful which is surely the greater challenge than pure technical wizardry.


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## tdc

I don't agree with what Phil says in terms of the Jupiter symphony, and I doubt anyone on this thread does. I think he is trying to get more people to appreciate the accomplishments of modern composers to the same degree as the old masters. I can sympathize to an extent, but I think his approach here is flawed.


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## janxharris

tdc said:


> I don't agree with what Phil says in terms of the Jupiter symphony, and I doubt anyone on this thread does. I think he is trying to get more people to appreciate the accomplishments of modern composers to the same degree as the old masters. I can sympathize to an extent, but I think his approach here is flawed.


Depending on the taste of the listener such counterpoint can often sound as if it's just an academic exercise. I like some moments in the Jupiter symphony but much of it leaves me cold.


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## EdwardBast

Phil loves classical said:


> I was only referring to the Jupiter last movement. It is a great piece of music, just the integration of those themes is not really that challenging as it may seem, when some of the individual themes are basic diatonic building blocks.


I agree the _combining_ of those motives is not as challenging as it might seem, but I think that a big part of the challenge, and the genius, of the movement, is in the choosing and planning, not the combining. If one thinks Mozart wrote the first part of the finale using those five motives and fragments and then magically figured out a way to combine them when he got around to writing the coda, one probably has it backwards. Isn't it more likely he wrote the coda before the rest of the movement was finished? If I had to guess, I'd say he (1) started out knowing that a couple of the initial ideas he had sketched worked together in counterpoint. Then (2) made the plan of writing a grand contrapuntal coda and started sketching that. After that plan was formulated, he likely (3) created a couple more ideas that fit with those initial ones, finished the coda, and then retrofitted those later ideas back into the early part of the movement so they would be familiar and readily recognized when they sounded in the coda.

Alternatively, Mozart could have begun composing the finale with the five-part invertible counterpoint idea already in mind, and then derived the movement's themes from melodic material already proven to work together. In this case, the coda would have been the first thing finished. It's like those mazes one finds in puzzle books. Even the most complicated ones are easy if one starts at the end and works back  - not implying Mozart's task was easy by any means, just saying the genius in it isn't exactly where people usually see it.

I'm not sure if Mozart's sketches for the symphony are part of the small fraction that survived his wife's and others' culling after his death. Those would have been fascinating to see.

I think a central skill underlying the passage is one Mozart honed in writing big ensemble scenes in his operas: that is, finding a number of ideas that work together yet each have memorable individual features attuned to the character who will be singing them. This skill at musical characterization, I suspect, is at least as important as raw contrapuntal skill in composing that amazing finale.



hammeredklavier said:


> Mozart "made a point of mastering every important form of his day," did he say so? To whom? When exactly?


He made the point by doing it!


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## dismrwonderful

Both of these composers were on a path of continuing development. Mozart was experimenting with tonality while Schubert was steadily improving his craftsmanship. Considering how both of these composers were developing only accentuates the greatness of their loss.

Dan


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> I agree the combining of those motives is not as challenging as it might seem,


again, I want to hear an argument from a 'professional' saying it's not challenging or impressive. (Like how I quoted Wagner's remark on Chopin's skills in mono/homo/polyphony) 
You and Phil seem to forget the fact that the challenge is not just maintaining harmonic control, but writing subsequent 'episodes' so that all voices are individual lines of music on their own.



EdwardBast said:


> He made the point by doing it!


Nope. He didn't compose cello sonatas like Beethoven or cello concertos like Haydn.


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## PlaySalieri

I think a lot of armchair critics and composers make the mistake - as Eric Blom noted - of seeing what has already been done and saying - well how else could it be done - its so obvious - from the first notes it is clear which direction the piece must inevitably follow. Blom admitted to composing a passable Mozartian half a dozen bars of a symphony- but soon found himself lost when he tried to do what he imagined Mozart would have done. Looking at a piece after the fact it is of course not hard to see which way it will go and say its obvious - only Mozart would have taken it in that direction which is plain to see.

I think this is fallacious and meaningless since the piece is already composed.

Imagine the first 9 notes of Eine Kleine Natchsmusik.

what if all we had was the first 9 notes - well of course - any fool could fill in the next 9 - its so obvious what will come next - or is it?


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## PlaySalieri

hammeredklavier said:


> again, I want to hear an argument from a 'professional' saying it's not challenging or impressive. (Like how I quoted Wagner's remark on Chopin's skills in mono/homo/polyphony)
> You and Phil seem to forget the fact that the challenge is not just maintaining harmonic control, but writing subsequent 'episodes' so that all voices are individual lines of music on their own.
> 
> Nope. He didn't compose cello sonatas like Beethoven or cello concertos like Haydn.


I think he's saying that combining them is one thing - arranging them in such a way that a great piece of music results is another.


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## PlaySalieri

hammeredklavier said:


> again, I want to hear an argument from a 'professional' saying it's not challenging or impressive. (Like how I quoted Wagner's remark on Chopin's skills in mono/homo/polyphony)
> You and Phil seem to forget the fact that the challenge is not just maintaining harmonic control, but writing subsequent 'episodes' so that all voices are individual lines of music on their own.
> 
> Nope. *He didn't compose cello sonatas like Beethoven or cello concertos like Haydn.*


and if he had you would be pointing out he never composed a concerto for double bass. The fact is he covered every form even if he did not compose sonatas for every single instrument.


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## Enthusiast

stomanek said:


> I think a lot of armchair critics and composers make the mistake - as Eric Blom noted - of seeing what has already been done and saying - well how else could it be done - its so obvious - from the first notes it is clear which direction the piece must inevitably follow. Blom admitted to composing a passable Mozartian half a dozen bars of a symphony- but soon found himself lost when he tried to do what he imagined Mozart would have done. Looking at a piece after the fact it is of course not hard to see which way it will go and say its obvious - only Mozart would have taken it in that direction which is plain to see.
> 
> I think this is fallacious and meaningless since the piece is already composed.
> 
> Imagine the first 9 notes of Eine Kleine Natchsmusik.
> 
> what if all we had was the first 9 notes - well of course - any fool could fill in the next 9 - its so obvious what will come next - or is it?


I'd settle for (in fact I could almost say I would die for) the Requiem as Mozart will have written it.


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## EdwardBast

hammeredklavier said:


> again, I want to hear an argument from a 'professional' saying it's not challenging or impressive. (Like how I quoted Wagner's remark on Chopin's skills in mono/homo/polyphony)
> You and Phil seem to forget the fact that the challenge is not just maintaining harmonic control, but writing subsequent 'episodes' so that all voices are individual lines of music on their own.


You obviously didn't read my post beyond the first line or two. I didn't say it isn't challenging or impressive, I said the challenge is different than the way it is commonly conceived - but just as impressive.



hammeredklavier said:


> Nope. He didn't compose cello sonatas like Beethoven or cello concertos like Haydn.


Those aren't forms or genres. The form in both cases is the sonata cycle, the genres are the sonata and concerto. You are talking about choice of instruments. Trivial. Mozart didn't write a trombone concerto either


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## PlaySalieri

Enthusiast said:


> I'd settle for (in fact I could almost say I would die for) the Requiem as Mozart will have written it.


Quite - apart from correcting some technical errors Sussmayr made in his contributions and filling in some orchestration nobody has much touched the requiem. Sussmayr had the benefit of conferring with Mozart before the latter's death and may have been working from sketches Mozart made of the missing sections. Of all composers he was better placed to complete the work and yet his completion is inadequate and disappointing.

There are fragments of various works that have been completed by musicologists - so that performing versions can be published and used - but from what I have heard completions tend to be merely perfunctory.


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## eugeneonagain

stomanek said:


> Looks like there is some disagreement about what counterpoint is? Your assessment is at odds with Larkenfield.


I'm again reminded that a lot of folk like to say and use the word counterpoint, without really knowing what it is. There was no counterpoint worthy of the name in that cello largo and it beats me how anyone could seriously make the claim.


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## hammeredklavier

Enthusiast said:


> I'd settle for (in fact I could almost say I would die for) the Requiem as Mozart will have written it.


Even the parts Sussamayer finished reference Mozart's earlier masses. 



(There's a speculation Mozart specifically told Sussamayer to refer to his earlier masses in finishing the requiem.) 
It seems some people find Stravinsky's polytonality impressive at the same time they forget how he 'failed' to replicate something like 



 with his neo-classicism.


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## Dimace

I could write many things about the character and the elements in Mozart's late symphonies. But you, fellow members, 
have done it already. What I can say only, is that these late symphonies are extremely complex and contain so much various musical elements, we had to wait almost 150 years to have something like this from Bruckner. As for the other question, Mozart VS Schubert (late years) it isn't a comparison. The music they have composed have nothing in common, except the tremendous quality.


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## janxharris

Dimace said:


> I could write many things about the character and the elements in Mozart's late symphonies. But you, fellow members,
> have done it already. What I can say only, is that these late symphonies are extremely complex and contain so much various musical elements, we had to wait almost 150 years to have something like this from Bruckner. As for the other question, Mozart VS Schubert (late years) it isn't a comparison. The music they have composed have nothing in common, except the tremendous quality.


Pretty controversial and Bruckner died in 1896.


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## Phil loves classical

tdc said:


> I don't agree with what Phil says in terms of the Jupiter symphony, and I doubt anyone on this thread does. I think he is trying to get more people to appreciate the accomplishments of modern composers to the same degree as the old masters. I can sympathize to an extent, but I think his approach here is flawed.


Gesualdo and Stravinsky are not old Masters? But yes, I'm saying other composers can achieve things as great as what Mozart did. As in those examples considering how Gesualdo introduced some chromaticism in 6 part writing over a century before Mozart, and what Stravinsky achieved with Rite of Spring. Why do we need to be so selective in elevating some achievements?


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## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> I'm saying other composers can achieve things as great as what Mozart did. As in those examples considering how Gesualdo introduced some chromaticism in 6 part writing over a century before Mozart... *Why do we need to be so selective in elevating some achievements?*










Ok, but how much influence did Gesualdo have on music history compared with Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven?
I think I pretty much answered this sort of question in the previous thread, you should go have a look.

_"I think Mozart could have broken all rules and become the biggest rebel of music if he wanted to, (like Rebel's Les Elemens, for example, which was pretty 'revolutionary' for its time.. People tend to think more complex or revolutionary-sounding the music is, the more innovation in music. But what's the point of doing all kinds of revolutionary stuff (in regards to development of music) if it fails to inspire future composers continuously?
I think it was Woodduck who said that "complexity is only worth it if it enriches meaning". I agree with his point... " Mozart Is My Enemy

"As I said, just because music is experimental or bold it doesn't automatically make it 'extraordinary'. If we were to follow the logic 'being experimental = being great in music', atonal music would be the greatest music ever composed by mankind and Ein musikalischer Spaß K522 would be the greatest piece composed by Mozart cause it explores techniques that would later be revisited by Debussy and Stravinsky-- polytonality and whole-tone scales etc. As I said, there were composers like Jean-Féry Rebel who wrote 'revolutionary' works like Les Elemens, but they're forgotten in many quarters cause their music failed to make a great impression on generations of later composers..." Mozart Is My Enemy_


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## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> View attachment 110549
> 
> Ok, but how much influence did Gesualdo have on music history compared with Bach, Mozart, or Beethoven?
> I think I pretty much answered this sort of question in the previous thread, you should go have a look.
> 
> _"I think Mozart could have broken all rules and become the biggest rebel of music if he wanted to, (like Rebel's Les Elemens, for example, which was pretty 'revolutionary' for its time.. People tend to think more complex or revolutionary-sounding the music is, the more innovation in music. But what's the point of doing all kinds of revolutionary stuff (in regards to development of music) if it fails to inspire future composers continuously?
> I think it was Woodduck who said that "complexity is only worth it if it enriches meaning". I agree with his point... " Mozart Is My Enemy
> 
> "As I said, just because music is experimental or bold it doesn't automatically make it 'extraordinary'. If we were to follow the logic 'being experimental = being great in music', atonal music would be the greatest music ever composed by mankind and Ein musikalischer Spaß K522 would be the greatest piece composed by Mozart cause it explores techniques that would later be revisited by Debussy and Stravinsky-- polytonality and whole-tone scales etc. As I said, there were composers like Jean-Féry Rebel who wrote 'revolutionary' works like Les Elemens, but they're forgotten in many quarters cause their music failed to make a great impression on generations of later composers..." Mozart Is My Enemy_


But an argument can be made that there was no direction left to take where Gesualdo went, as in late Mozart. They were at the epitome of their craft and ultimately refined, and there was nothing more to say in that regard. Beethoven did not go in the direction as late Mozart. As there was nothing left to further upon in Beethoven's late quartets, piano sonatas. Going back to Schubert, he took a step back from away from late Mozart and Beethoven and went on a bit from there.


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## Larkenfield

Gesualdo's shifting harmonies and advanced chromatic tonalities are marvelous and not unknown to many listeners; and it's easy to hear why Stravinsky would be drawn to him. There have been many great accomplishments in music, and the listeners I admire seek to appreciate and illuminate them, to open one's ears to the beauty and creativity of what some have done that others may be missing. What happens all too often, in my opinion, is that some of these composers of genius are nickeled and dimed with faint praise, or none at all, rarely anything wholehearted and swept away, for what they have done that may be exceptional. There's too little praise and I decry the stinginess that too often goes along with the music criticism or the diminishment of their efforts that may have taken the composer a lifetime to bring about. I do not believe that what Mozart accomplished diminishes what Gesualdo or Stravinsky ultimately did. Nor do I believe that what Mozart wrote, such as his 5-part counterpoint "Jupiter," which some consider "not really that challenging," is not undeserving of infinite praise and admiration.


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## Phil loves classical

Larkenfield said:


> Gesualdo's shifting harmonies and advance tonalities are marvelous and not unknown to many listeners; and it's easy to hear why Stravinsky would be drawn to him. There have been many great accomplishments in music, and the listeners I admire seek to appreciate and illuminate them, to open one's ears to the beauty and creativity of what some have done that others may be missing. What happens all too often, in my opinion, is that some of these composers of genius are nickeled and dimed with faint praise, or none at all, rarely anything wholehearted and swept away, for what they have done that may be exceptional. There's too little praise and I decry the stinginess that too often goes along with the music criticism or the diminishment of their efforts that may have taken a lifetime to bring about. I do not believe that what Mozart accomplished diminishes what Gesualdo or Stravinsky ultimately did. Not do I believe that what Mozart wrote, such as his 5-part counterpoint "Jupiter," which some consider "not really that challenging," is not undeserving of infinite praise and admiration.


Agree. Who said the Jupiter is not really that challenging?  Remember I put in a qualification "as it [may] seem".


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## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> *But an argument can be made that there was no direction left to take where Gesualdo went,* as in late Mozart. They were at the epitome of their craft and ultimately refined, and there was nothing more to say in that regard.


You could probably say the same about the more obscure composers of classical period such as Dittersdorf or Myslivecek too. One could ask why aren't they getting the same attention as Mozart or Haydn? 
In the 400 YEAR span after Gesualdo's death, he could have had so many more musicians and composers paying tribute to him than both. But most 'experts of music' simply refused to pay him respect cause they thought his music had little merit; too ugly or boring. Sorry, but this is reality. If you don't get any followers, you're doomed to be forgotten. Did Gesualdo write anything influential as Don Giovanni in music history? The work Beethoven, Chopin, Rossini, Weber, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Mahler etc etc all paid tribute in some way?
Why do you think the great Romantic Tchaikovsky wrote Mozartiana but not "Gesualdina"?

Also as I said, we must get away from the "the more dissonance, the more chromaticism, the better the music is" mentality. If stuff like dissonance, serialism, polytonality always creates objective beauty in music, why don't all of us listen to atonal music all the time then? I can probably write the most complex, dissonant "Death Waltzes" on the spot, but that won't give me a place in history of music in any way.



Phil loves classical said:


> Agree. Who said the Jupiter is not really that challenging?  Remember I put in a qualification "as it [may] seem".


Again, this is really vague. That's why there's continual disagreement and misunderstanding going on here. Not challenging or impressive as it may seem? Seen by whom? Chopin? Schubert? Bach?


----------



## Phil loves classical

hammeredklavier said:


> You could probably say the same about the more obscure composers of classical period such as Dittersdorf or Myslivecek too. One could ask why aren't they getting the same attention as Mozart or Haydn?
> In the 400 YEAR span after Gesualdo's death, he could have had so many more musicians and composers paying tribute to him than both. But most 'experts of music' simply refused to pay him respect cause they thought his music had little merit; too ugly or boring. Sorry, but this is reality. If you don't get any followers, you're doomed to be forgotten. Did Gesualdo write anything influential as Don Giovanni in music history? The work Beethoven, Chopin, Rossini, Weber, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, Mahler etc etc all paid tribute in some way?
> Why do you think the great Romantic Tchaikovsky wrote Mozartiana but not "Gesualdina"?
> 
> Also as I said, we must get away from the "the more dissonance, the more chromaticism, the better the music is" mentality. If stuff like dissonance, serialism, polytonality always creates objective beauty in music, why don't all of us listen to atonal music all the time then? I can probably write the most complex, dissonant "Death Waltzes" on the spot, but that won't give me a place in history of music in any way.
> 
> Again, this is really vague. That's why there's continual disagreement and misunderstanding going on here. Not challenging or impressive as it may seem? Seen by whom? Chopin? Schubert? Bach?


Gesualdo's Tenebrae Reponsories are generally considered masterpieces of the Renaissance, and a groundbreaking work. Dittersdorf and Myslivecek never wrote anything of that stature or importance, or on the level of their contemporaries. Mozart's Jupiter last movement counterpoint may not be as impressive as the general listener that get their info mainly from critics, who tend to exaggerate to prove a point, may be led to believe. I have no doubt the themes were designed to fit together, and then introduced separately beforehand. There is the romantic notion being sold (as in the movie Amadeus) that Mozart composed all in his head from scratch, and thus the Coda magically made the themes work together, that were independently realized before. That is the way it was advertised in this thread as well. But Mozart worked his butt off like everyone else, as supremely talented as he was. And as in the analysis in some other thread, the first theme is 4 notes. I heard, not only in this forum, that the coda consolidated themes from other movements. That is just misinfo.


----------



## Woodduck

Phil loves classical said:


> *Mozart's Jupiter last movement counterpoint may not be as impressive as the general listener that get their info mainly from critics, who tend to exaggerate to prove a point, may be led to believe. I have no doubt the themes were designed to fit together, and then introduced separately beforehand.* There is the romantic notion being sold (as in the movie Amadeus) that Mozart composed all in his head from scratch, and thus the Coda magically made the themes work together, that were independently realized before. That is the way it was advertised in this thread as well. But Mozart worked his butt off like everyone else, as supremely talented as he was. And as in the analysis in some other thread, the first theme is 4 notes. I heard, not only in this forum, that the coda consolidated themes from other movements. That is just misinfo.


Some artists, in creating a work, plan extensively, making preliminary studies and extensive outlines which will be filled in with detail. Others turn on the tap and let the final shape of a work emerge in a more improvisatory way. Temperaments differ, brains work differently, different works require different approaches.

It's fairly obvious that a fine piece of music created by careful labor would have been an even more impressive achievement had it been created as a pure improvisation. But how do we know that it could have been created - by anyone, ever - without the planning and work that actually went into it? And if it couldn't have, saying that the work is less impressive than it seems because it required certain procedures to be created at all is simply saying that doing something impossible would be more impressive than doing something possible.

Well, gee whiz. Who can argue with that?

It's worth pointing out - to expand the knowledge of those who don't understand such things - that a long, complex piece of music which superimposes multiple motifs in an exhilarating and superbly satisfying way could not have been created as an improvisation, and that the compatibility of the motifs would have had to be worked out in advance of their development. How this makes the "Jupiter" less impressive than it seems I don't know, unless by "seems" we mean "seems to people who have no idea that composing music consists of some activity besides praying for the heavens to open and Jupiter to hurl his lightning bolts into the composer's empty skull."

I'd say that if Mozart's 41st symphony isn't as impressive as it seems, it's probably more so, since Mozart, as usual, makes things unachievable by others sound easy.


----------



## KenOC

It's for sure that Mozart used sketches for his later works. Still, his last three symphonies were written in an astonishingly short time. Dates of Completion:

Symphony 39 - 26 June, 1788
Symphony 40 - 25 July, 1788
Symphony 41 - 10 August, 1788.

Obviously he didn't spend too much time puzzling these out! If I could do that, I'd certainly regard it as "taking dictation from God". (apologies to _Amadeus_…)


----------



## hammeredklavier

Phil loves classical said:


> Gesualdo's Tenebrae Reponsories are generally considered masterpieces of the Renaissance, and a groundbreaking work. Dittersdorf and Myslivecek never wrote anything of that stature or importance, or on the level of their contemporaries. Mozart's Jupiter last movement counterpoint may not be as impressive as the general listener that get their info mainly from critics, who tend to exaggerate to prove a point, may be led to believe. I have no doubt the themes were designed to fit together, and then introduced separately beforehand.


Ok, enough with this 'conspiracy theory' Gesualdo actually ranks among Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven etc in importance and significance but critics (namely "Bach, Mozart, Beethoven-enthusiasts") are fabricating/hiding/distorting truths to promote their favorite composers' works even further. If you like Gesualdo, keep listening to his music and praise him all you like. But I have to agree with tdc in this; you're not doing it the right way.

Sometimes I hear these 'judgmental remarks' (how Mozart's fugal finale is not good) by some individuals in some communities.
But to me they sound more like they're just jealous because their favorite composer didn't compose the work rather than making a fair criticism from an unbiased standpoint with some objectivity. 
It's like saying, 'all Bach did in the D major fugue from WTC II was just mass-produce the same 5-note, 4-note figuration and adjust the pitches so that they sound good. It's not that hard.' by citing

" One can learn it, your Majesty " ( 



 )

I don't buy into any of it.
Bring me analysis or argument done by a 'professional academic' to prove your point and I'll reconsider.


----------



## PlaySalieri

KenOC said:


> It's for sure that Mozart used sketches for his later works. Still, his last three symphonies were written in an astonishingly short time. Dates of Completion:
> 
> Symphony 39 - 26 June, 1788
> Symphony 40 - 25 July, 1788
> Symphony 41 - 10 August, 1788.
> 
> Obviously he didn't spend too much time puzzling these out! If I could do that, I'd certainly regard it as "taking dictation from God". (apologies to _Amadeus_…)


What is the evidence for those time frames?


----------



## PlaySalieri

Phil loves classical said:


> Gesualdo's Tenebrae Reponsories are generally considered masterpieces of the Renaissance, and a groundbreaking work. Dittersdorf and Myslivecek never wrote anything of that stature or importance, or on the level of their contemporaries. Mozart's Jupiter last movement counterpoint may not be as impressive as the general listener that get their info mainly from critics, who tend to exaggerate to prove a point, may be led to believe. I have no doubt the themes were designed to fit together, and then introduced separately beforehand. There is the romantic notion being sold (as in the movie Amadeus) that Mozart composed all in his head from scratch, and thus the Coda magically made the themes work together, that were independently realized before. That is the way it was advertised in this thread as well. But Mozart worked his butt off like everyone else, as supremely talented as he was. And as in the analysis in some other thread, the first theme is 4 notes. I heard, not only in this forum, that the coda consolidated themes from other movements. That is just misinfo.


Perhaps you feel that esteemed critics and music figures such as Bernstein unjustifiably elevate their praise because Mozart has become the name he is - associated with supreme artistic achievements. Is he over hyped? It is a possibility since once an artist acquires a certain reputation they become almost infallible - and anybody who has the audacity to highlight weaknesses immediately exposes themselves to ridicule. I acknowledge this may be the case - and personally I cant judge as I have not training. So when Bernstein highlights passages in the g minor and invites us to sit back in awe - I tend to believe - but then I'm one of the converted. Had nobody told me that the finale of k551 is particularly clever, not just powerful music as I hear it - this never would have occurred to me - I would have given it no more credit for being well crafted than the finale of the Linz or even the Haffner sy.

Whether critics over hype Mozart, even at the expense of other composers, may be something worth considering. Not all do - Gould was very cautious with his praise - open in his dislike of late Mozart. Gershwin dismissed Mozart's quartets, much to the fury of Schoenberg, as simple. Verdi on the other overlooked Mozart's operas, calling him a composer of quartets. I suspect a lot of musicians in significant positions whose opinion of Mozart runs against received wisdom tend to keep it to themselves, which is a shame as it would be good to see more debate.


----------



## Phil loves classical

Woodduck said:


> Some artists, in creating a work, plan extensively, making preliminary studies and extensive outlines which will be filled in with detail. Others turn on the tap and let the final shape of a work emerge in a more improvisatory way. Temperaments differ, brains work differently, different works require different approaches.
> 
> It's fairly obvious that a fine piece of music created by careful labor would have been an even more impressive achievement had it been created as a pure improvisation. But how do we know that it could have been created - by anyone, ever - without the planning and work that actually went into it? And if it couldn't have, saying that the work is less impressive than it seems because it required certain procedures to be created at all is simply saying that doing something impossible would be more impressive than doing something possible.
> 
> Well, gee whiz. Who can argue with that?
> 
> It's worth pointing out - to expand the knowledge of those who don't understand such things - that a long, complex piece of music which superimposes multiple motifs in an exhilarating and superbly satisfying way could not have been created as an improvisation, and that the compatibility of the motifs would have had to be worked out in advance of their development. How this makes the "Jupiter" less impressive than it seems I don't know, unless by "seems" we mean *"seems to people who have no idea that composing music consists of some activity besides praying for the heavens to open and Jupiter to hurl his lightning bolts into the composer's empty skull."*
> 
> I'd say that if Mozart's 41st symphony isn't as impressive as it seems, it's probably more so, since Mozart, as usual, makes things unachievable by others sound easy.


Yeah, that is what I'm saying. It is not as impressive as some make it out to be based on what they claim. I actually read some say that the "complexity" of the Coda is unmatched in all of Western music. It is not complex. Just great counterpoint nothing more, nothing less. Bach writes great counterpoint all the time. The greatness of the movement in Jupiter is from the development around the 5 themes, including their combination (which is only part of it). I'm a huge Mozart fan, remember?



hammeredklavier said:


> Ok, enough with this 'conspiracy theory' Gesualdo actually ranks among Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven etc in importance and significance but critics (namely "Bach, Mozart, Beethoven-enthusiasts") are fabricating/hiding/distorting truths to promote their favorite composers' works even further. If you like Gesualdo, keep listening to his music and praise him all you like. But I have to agree with tdc in this; you're not doing it the right way.
> 
> Sometimes I hear these 'judgmental remarks' (how Mozart's fugal finale is not good) by some individuals in some communities.
> But to me they sound more like they're just jealous because their favorite composer didn't compose the work rather than making a fair criticism from an unbiased standpoint with some objectivity.
> It's like saying, 'all Bach did in the D major fugue from WTC II was just mass-produce the same 5-note, 4-note figuration and adjust the pitches so that they sound good. It's not that hard.' by citing
> 
> " One can learn it, your Majesty " (
> 
> 
> 
> )
> 
> I don't buy into any of it.
> Bring me analysis or argument done by a 'professional academic' to prove your point and I'll reconsider.


Hey, I'm not here to convince anyone that doesn't want to believe that Gesualdo is not a master of the Renaissance, or Stravinsky is not one of the few greatest composers who ever lived. I'm speaking from my own analysis by hearing and looking at scores. People always use the popularity argument why some are greater than others, and riding on the analyses (sometimes exaggerated) of others.


----------



## Eschbeg

stomanek said:


> Looks like there is some disagreement about what counterpoint is?


This matter comes up from time to time on TC, usually in conjunction with Chopin. (Often it starts with someone quoting Charles Rosen's famous claim, in _The Romantic Generation_, that Chopin was the greatest master of counterpoint since Mozart.) The gist of the matter is that there are two general uses of the word "counterpoint," one of them academic and one of them common parlance.

The common parlance usage is the narrower, more restrictive one: counterpoint is the technique of superimposing one or more independent linear voices simultaneously. While the term "independent" can be subjective, in common parlance it is usually understood that a basic texture of melody and accompaniment texture does not qualify, and that is why many listeners do not hear Chopin's music as contrapuntal.

The academic use of the term is broader: counterpoint is a series of guidelines governing the simultaneous occurrence of one or more notes. ("Counterpoint" literally means "against note," i.e. note-against-note.) This use of the term involves basic rules of voice leading and dissonance treatment in addition to the more involved and expected stuff like inventions and fugues. There is no requirement that the simultaneous notes come from independent linear melodies, so a basic texture of melody and accompaniment qualifies just as much as a fugue.

I've seen adherents to the common parlance usage argue that the academic usage is so broad as to drain the term "counterpoint" of its meaning, since anything with harmony of any kind will by definition have one or more notes simultaneously occurring, and that anything with harmony would therefore count as contrapuntal. But the introduction of harmony into the literate tradition of Western music (i.e. the invention of Medieval organum) is exactly what led to the first theories of counterpoint in the first place. To repeat, that's all counterpoint meant, historically speaking: once Medieval composers started allowing harmony in sacred music, an arbitrary set of "rules" needed to be devised to establish the preferred musical contexts in which those harmonies should occur.

At least one historian, Alfred Mann, has identified a 15th century text, Baldemandis's _Treatise of Counterpoint_, as the first real example of counterpoint being used in the common parlance manner of melody-against-melody rather than note-against-note; even then, the treatise acknowledges that there are two understandings of the term and that the melody-against-melody usage is a recent deviation from the original note-against-note usage. It is not until the 18th century and the writings of Rameau (so Mann argues) that "harmony" and "counterpoint" even become fully distinct concepts. In Fux's _Gradus ad Parnassum_, written in 1725 and from which his _Study of Counterpoint_ is extracted, counterpoint is still understood to include basic principles of voice leading and dissonance treatment, and every modern counterpoint textbook I've encountered has followed suit. Kent Kennan's _Counterpoint_ seems to be an exception, but only because Kennan states in his intro that he is deliberately restricting himself to the narrower use of the term, and that nearly all of his musical examples are from the Baroque era. From his intro: "The chief objective of counterpoint study, in the author's view, is to awaken or sharpen in students a feeling for the contrapuntal element that is present to some degree in virtually all music." His second chapter is devoted to voice leading principles in a single melodic line, without any reference at all to a simultaneous melodic line. (Not to mention that the book's front cover, at least in the 3rd edition that I'm holding in my hands right now, depicts a chart of the basic methods of dissonance treatment, any of which could apply to polyphonic or homophonic music equally.)

By this point, the two competing usages of the term have become an irresolvable divide. It seems to me that the academic usage has the merit of being more historically accurate, and in the case in question here it at least makes Chopin's worship of Bach more understandable. But common parlance counts for a lot in classical music. (That's why we still cling to concepts like "Gregorian" or "sonata form" or even the term "classical music" itself that are demonstrably anachronistic for most of the music the concepts are thought to include.) It has become central to our perception of Bach that he was a master of counterpoint, and that he was also a master of fugue; therefore, we've come to equate counterpoint with fugue. It has also become central to our perception of the Classical period that it was the moment when homophony replaced counterpoint as the dominant texture; therefore, we've come to polarize homophony and counterpoint. Whatever the case, those who hear counterpoint in Chopin are hearing what most practitioners of counterpoint throughout history would have heard too, even if others today don't.


----------



## Woodduck

Phil loves classical said:


> It is not as impressive as some make it out to be based on what they claim. I actually read *some say that the "complexity" of the Coda is unmatched in all of Western music. [/B]It is not complex. Just great counterpoint nothing more, nothing less. Bach writes great counterpoint all the time. The greatness of the movement in Jupiter is from the development around the 5 themes, including their combination (which is only part of it). I'm a huge Mozart fan, remember? *


*

I do think it's odd to be so concerned about how impressed some people claim to be by a piece of music, but I suppose that's your business. What's missing here is a description of the music in question that would make the discussion useful.

What is Mozart doing, specifically, in the "Jupiter's" finale that makes it so impressive to some but, apparently, less impressive to you? Are there other aspects of the movement that make the counterpoint more impressive in context than it would be if its "tricks" were heard in isolation? What does it even mean to "isolate" the counterpoint from the structure of the movement as an entity of a particular kind - specifically, as a work in sonata form? After all, any semi-talented composition student can come up with five motifs that can be played together. But is that all Mozart has done? Is that really why people find this movement so impressive? Is the coda to that movement really "just great counterpoint, nothing more, nothing less"? Isn't it likely that when people praise Mozart's contrapuntal brilliance and cite this movement as unique, they are really referring to the the daunting task, so brilliantly fulfilled, of enlisting all the devices Mozart uses to make it the dramatic and exciting work that it is? Any piece of music can be broken down into components that can be viewed as "merely" this or that; doing that is actually what musical analysis consists of. But, as the saying goes, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and a simple motif or harmonic turn can be a miracle in the hands of a genius.

It seems to me that instead of telling people that what they're hearing isn't as impressive as they think it is - hardly a way to win friends and influence people! - it would be more useful to try to understand and explain why the music makes the powerful impression on them that it does. Those who say that there's nothing in all of music like the finale of the "Jupiter" are right, and they're right to be impressed, even overwhelmed, by its brilliance. But when they say it's the counterpoint that overwhelms them, they aren't telling the whole story, and that's partly because the formal factors that make that counterpoint so striking and effective - the uses to which that counterpoint is put - are something they don't know how to describe. How many of us can describe music at that level of comprehension? And even if we can, sometimes we just want to turn off our analytical brains and be knocked off our feet by something magnificent and moving.

For anyone analytically inclined who'd like to see as well as hear Mozart's contrapuntal skills in action, here's a fellow who'll take us on a guided tour:





*


----------



## KenOC

stomanek said:


> What is the evidence for those time frames?


They are from Wiki, which cites _Deutsch, Otto Erich (1965). Mozart: A Documentary Biography. Stanford: Stanford University Press_. From the exactness of the dates, I assume (but don't know) that they are inscribed in the manuscripts.


----------



## Woodduck

Eschbeg said:


> This matter comes up from time to time on TC, usually in conjunction with Chopin. (Often it starts with someone quoting Charles Rosen's famous claim, in _The Romantic Generation_, that Chopin was the greatest master of counterpoint since Mozart.) The gist of the matter is that there are two general uses of the word "counterpoint," one of them academic and one of them common parlance.
> 
> The common parlance usage is the narrower, more restrictive one: counterpoint is the technique of superimposing one or more independent linear voices simultaneously. While the term "independent" can be subjective, in common parlance it is usually understood that a basic texture of melody and accompaniment texture does not qualify, and that is why many listeners do not hear Chopin's music as contrapuntal.
> 
> The academic use of the term is broader: counterpoint is a series of guidelines governing the simultaneous occurrence of one or more notes. ("Counterpoint" literally means "against note," i.e. note-against-note.) This use of the term involves basic rules of voice leading and dissonance treatment in addition to the more involved and expected stuff like inventions and fugues. There is no requirement that the simultaneous notes come from independent linear melodies, so a basic texture of melody and accompaniment qualifies just as much as a fugue.
> 
> By this point, the two competing usages of the term have become an irresolvable divide. It seems to me that the academic usage has the merit of being more historically accurate, and in the case in question here it at least makes Chopin's worship of Bach more understandable. But common parlance counts for a lot in classical music. (That's why we still cling to concepts like "Gregorian" or "sonata form" or even the term "classical music" itself that are demonstrably anachronistic for most of the music the concepts are thought to include.) It has become central to our perception of Bach that he was a master of counterpoint, and that he was also a master of fugue; therefore, we've come to equate counterpoint with fugue. It has also become central to our perception of the Classical period that it was the moment when homophony replaced counterpoint as the dominant texture; therefore, we've come to polarize homophony and counterpoint. Whatever the case, those who hear counterpoint in Chopin are hearing what most practitioners of counterpoint throughout history would have heard too, even if others today don't.


On the principle that terms should be used in the way that leads to the greatest clarity of thought, I'd suggest that using "counterpoint" to refer to any tones sounding simultaneously in any manner whatsoever serves little purpose and leaves us without a term referring specifically to the superposition of melodic lines. It also sounds wrong or misleading given that "counterpoint" contains the word "point," which is hardly evocative of a wash of harmony supporting a melody or, for that matter, another wash of harmony. The more general concept of "polyphony" would suit a Chopin nocturne or a Schubert song very nicely, or at least it would if we didn't have the word "homophony" trying to screw that up. At least "monophony" isn't likely to lead to confusion.


----------



## PlaySalieri

That detailed exposition is certainly worth watching - anyone - even me - can follow it.


----------



## Eschbeg

Woodduck said:


> I'd suggest that using "counterpoint" to refer to any tones sounding simultaneously in any manner whatsoever serves little purpose


I wouldn't use it that way either, agreed. Harmony was a precondition of counterpoint, but I don't know of any academic who would call this its defining feature now. However, I do think dissonance treatment (one of harmony's consequences) does legitimately fall under the purview of counterpoint. Its theoreticians would of course also agree with you that the "point" in "counterpoint" shouldn't be taken to mean harmony in and of itself; it was never intended to mean that. "Point" originally meant "note," and the "counter-" meant that what was of interest was the note's relationship to something that was happening at the same time. That is as appropriate a description of dissonance treatment as it is of multiple simultaneous melodies. Sure, there can be some ambiguity about which one you're referring to if you simply say "counterpoint" without further explanation. But in the same way that "harmony" can refer to individual chords, to voicing and spacing, or to the key scheme of an entire work, the broad applicability of "counterpoint" doesn't bother me much.


----------



## Kieran

EdwardBast said:


> I always wonder, given Mozart's obvious genius and skill in vocal genres, if he might not have become a great composer of lieder at the same time Schubert was? Does anyone know offhand about Mozart's literary interests? Drama? Poetry?


You might enjoy this "collaboration" between Mozart and Goethe:






As for Mozart's literary tastes, he was well-educated but i think he'd have been most familiar with theatre work. He wrote many songs, but generally for house parties, and friends, etc, some of them humorous, but many of them gems. I read elsewhere that composing for theatre was more natural for Mozart, he was addicted to opera, it was his great desire to be involved in and compose opera, the whole hullabaloo, the costumes, the ensembles, the challenge and thrill of composing great comedies and dramas - whereas Schubert was maybe more shy, less suited to this atmosphere, and composing lieder was better suited to him temperamentally.

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but it can't be denied that Mozart was a theatre beast, and also a composer who loved to work on a grand scale. I think you're right - he'd have been prompted some time later, had he lived long enough, to compose song cycles, but such things weren't hugely popular in his day. I believe Beethoven wrote one of the first modern song cycles, long after Mozart was dead, but before Schubert, though I maybe wrong...


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## Luchesi

If you deeply appreciate late Schubert this video depicting his health and conditions is difficult to watch. Do I understand him more, treasure his efforts more? 
Well, it made an impression which I think I will remember when listening. Do we 'want' these impressions?


----------



## Dimace

janxharris said:


> Pretty controversial and Bruckner died in 1896.


Ja! One 5 instead one 0 makes a big difference! :lol:


----------



## Phil loves classical

Woodduck said:


> I do think it's odd to be so concerned about how impressed some people claim to be by a piece of music, but I suppose that's your business. What's missing here is a description of the music in question that would make the discussion useful.
> 
> What is Mozart doing, specifically, in the "Jupiter's" finale that makes it so impressive to some but, apparently, less impressive to you? Are there other aspects of the movement that make the counterpoint more impressive in context than it would be if its "tricks" were heard in isolation? What does it even mean to "isolate" the counterpoint from the structure of the movement as an entity of a particular kind - specifically, as a work in sonata form? After all, any semi-talented composition student can come up with five motifs that can be played together. But is that all Mozart has done? Is that really why people find this movement so impressive? Is the coda to that movement really "just great counterpoint, nothing more, nothing less"? Isn't it likely that when people praise Mozart's contrapuntal brilliance and cite this movement as unique, they are really referring to the the daunting task, so brilliantly fulfilled, of enlisting all the devices Mozart uses to make it the dramatic and exciting work that it is? Any piece of music can be broken down into components that can be viewed as "merely" this or that; doing that is actually what musical analysis consists of. But, as the saying goes, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and a simple motif or harmonic turn can be a miracle in the hands of a genius.
> 
> It seems to me that instead of telling people that what they're hearing isn't as impressive as they think it is - hardly a way to win friends and influence people! - it would be more useful to try to understand and explain why the music makes the powerful impression on them that it does. Those who say that there's nothing in all of music like the finale of the "Jupiter" are right, and they're right to be impressed, even overwhelmed, by its brilliance. But when they say it's the counterpoint that overwhelms them, they aren't telling the whole story, and that's partly because the formal factors that make that counterpoint so striking and effective - the uses to which that counterpoint is put - are something they don't know how to describe. How many of us can describe music at that level of comprehension? And even if we can, sometimes we just want to turn off our analytical brains and be knocked off our feet by something magnificent and moving.
> 
> For anyone analytically inclined who'd like to see as well as hear Mozart's contrapuntal skills in action, here's a fellow who'll take us on a guided tour:


I think my response was taken way out of context. I was originally responding to Edward on that Coda.


----------



## PlaySalieri

This discussion seems to have shifted a bit. Where is the discussion on what the composers did in their last year and comparison. 

what I would like to posit though - the possibility - that had Schubert had the 5 years extra life that Mozart had - he would have advanced more relative to where he was when he was 31 than Mozart did in the last 5 years of his life. This may well be that, as someone already pointed out - Mozart was more complete as a composer at 31 than Schubert - so was composing works equally impressive at 31 as those he composed at 36.


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## Woodduck

Phil loves classical said:


> I think my response was taken way out of context. I was originally responding to Edward on that Coda.


Then excuse me for butting in.

Sometimes I wonder why I put so much effort into this forum.


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## KenOC

stomanek said:


> ...This may well be that, as someone already pointed out - Mozart was more complete as a composer at 31 than Schubert - so was composing works equally impressive at 31 as those he composed at 36.


This suggests that Mozart had peaked and had he lived, there would have been little to look forward to except his inevitable decline.


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## PlaySalieri

Woodduck said:


> Then excuse me for butting in.
> 
> Sometimes I wonder why I put so much effort into this forum.


I think your repy to Phil's views was correct as you are probably as baffled by his statements as I am.


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## PlaySalieri

KenOC said:


> This suggests that Mozart had peaked and had he lived, there would have been little to look forward to except his inevitable decline.


But that's false. I said he was a complete composer when he was 31. Are you saying his next 5 years output was not something we could have looked forward to? Had he lived I assume he would have continued exploring his art and delivering great works.


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## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> Then excuse me for butting in.
> 
> Sometimes I wonder why I put so much effort into this forum.


We appreciate all of it. I know that 3 long posts will take up half my day, on and off, or so it seems. I do think about that.. but it's personally constructive and freeing for me.

At the same time I'm doing many other things, usually working, while thinking about something that might not have been mentioned before. For the most part, some aspect or isolated idea I hadn't fully formed yet. So I get more out of my posts than others. lol

I'd like to read a letter that Mozart and Schubert wrote in his last year. I wish I was a native speaker for that..


----------



## Luchesi

KenOC said:


> This suggests that Mozart had peaked and had he lived, there would have been little to look forward to except his inevitable decline.


No, I think Mozart's creations would have only gradually morphed in 5 more years, but then after 15 or 20 years composing more searchingly a la LvB and Schubert's 8th and 9th symphonies. ..From what I hear in those 2 symphonies.

This is just guessing, and critics don't seem to agree with me about Schubert.. It's an old person like me experiencing the compositions of a thirty-something visionary. But it's fortunate and such a treasure that music can do this, across the lives.


----------



## hammeredklavier

hammeredklavier said:


> Speaking of "parallels", I would like to mention Mozart's 'Fantasies in F minor',


_"As Wolfgang Plath has pointed out, the influence of Mozart's Fantasy in F minor, K. 608 was considerable in the nineteenth century. Aside from the editions, manuscripts, and arrangements already mentioned, many public performances can be documented. Beethoven owned the work and made his own arrangement of the fugue. Schubert's F Minor Fantasy for piano four-hands, op. 103 (D. 940, 1828), suggests his reaction to the whole of Mozart's piece, whereas Franz Lachner's Wind Octet in B flat, op. 156 (1859) demonstrates his reception of the Andante"
"As already mentioned, the two principal manuscript copies of K. 608 are on four staves; one is in the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, the other in the library of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Vienna. The four-staff version of the work in both manuscripts and in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe can without further ado be played four-hands," _
https://www.loc.gov/collections/mol...e-to-archives/allegro-and-andante-in-f-minor/

So they are indeed 'parallels' in some ways, as I suggested


----------



## Larkenfield

Woodduck said:


> I do think it's odd to be so concerned about how impressed some people claim to be by a piece of music, but I suppose that's your business. What's missing here is a description of the music in question that would make the discussion useful.
> 
> What is Mozart doing, specifically, in the "Jupiter's" finale that makes it so impressive to some but, apparently, less impressive to you? Are there other aspects of the movement that make the counterpoint more impressive in context than it would be if its "tricks" were heard in isolation? What does it even mean to "isolate" the counterpoint from the structure of the movement as an entity of a particular kind - specifically, as a work in sonata form? After all, any semi-talented composition student can come up with five motifs that can be played together. But is that all Mozart has done? Is that really why people find this movement so impressive? Is the coda to that movement really "just great counterpoint, nothing more, nothing less"? Isn't it likely that when people praise Mozart's contrapuntal brilliance and cite this movement as unique, they are really referring to the the daunting task, so brilliantly fulfilled, of enlisting all the devices Mozart uses to make it the dramatic and exciting work that it is? Any piece of music can be broken down into components that can be viewed as "merely" this or that; doing that is actually what musical analysis consists of. But, as the saying goes, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and a simple motif or harmonic turn can be a miracle in the hands of a genius.
> 
> It seems to me that instead of telling people that what they're hearing isn't as impressive as they think it is - hardly a way to win friends and influence people! - it would be more useful to try to understand and explain why the music makes the powerful impression on them that it does. Those who say that there's nothing in all of music like the finale of the "Jupiter" are right, and they're right to be impressed, even overwhelmed, by its brilliance. But when they say it's the counterpoint that overwhelms them, they aren't telling the whole story, and that's partly because the formal factors that make that counterpoint so striking and effective - the uses to which that counterpoint is put - are something they don't know how to describe. How many of us can describe music at that level of comprehension? And even if we can, sometimes we just want to turn off our analytical brains and be knocked off our feet by something magnificent and moving.
> 
> For anyone analytically inclined who'd like to see as well as hear Mozart's contrapuntal skills in action, here's a fellow who'll take us on a guided tour:


Bravo! Well said. I consider what Mozart did as not only great counterpoint but _inspired_ counterpoint, which elevates it, the kind that only a genius could make sound so effortless when actually upon analysis it's quite involved. I do not go along with any effort to reduce its magnificence when no one has been capable of duplicating it so spectacularly and memorably in other works. Even with Mozart, who wrote so many works of genius, it's a stellar stand out. Surely there are some extraordinary accomplishments in music that are worthy of wholehearted praise.


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## Larkenfield

“ Yeah, that is what I'm saying. It is not as impressive as some make it out to be based on what they claim. I actually read some say that the "complexity" of the Coda is unmatched in all of Western music. It is not complex. Just great counterpoint nothing more, nothing less. Bach writes great counterpoint all the time. The greatness of the movement in Jupiter is from the development around the 5 themes, including their combination (which is only part of it).”

Regardless of what others have claimed about the counterpoint that Mozart wrote in the last movement of the Jupiter, for anyone to talk about it in such matter of fact terms is to diminish the accomplishment. It was more than just great counterpoint; it was an inspired accomplishment of counterpoint that no one has been capable of since, certainly not as memorably or impressively. I can see why some argue that it’s one of the great accomplishments in western civilization, whether one exactly agree with that or not. But for someone to come along and not sound impressed is not impressive. It sounds like hubris and the product of a strictly analytical mind not capable of pulling off such a feat. It’s a fantastic passage of music, one that interweaves five themes beautifully and effortlessly together where everything is heard in such a transparent orchestration and is worthy of the highest praise without reservation. If Bach had heard it, I believe he would have stood up and cheered at its inspired brilliance because he would have understood that it wasn’t just an intellectual accomplishment. It was like catching lightning in a bottle.


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## Woodduck

Larkenfield said:


> " Yeah, that is what I'm saying. It is not as impressive as some make it out to be based on what they claim. I actually read some say that the "complexity" of the Coda is unmatched in all of Western music. It is not complex. Just great counterpoint nothing more, nothing less. Bach writes great counterpoint all the time. The greatness of the movement in Jupiter is from the development around the 5 themes, including their combination (which is only part of it)."
> 
> Regardless of what others have claimed about the counterpoint that Mozart wrote in the last movement of the Jupiter, for anyone to talk about it in such matter of fact terms is to diminish the accomplishment. It was more than just great counterpoint; it was an inspired accomplishment of counterpoint that no one has been capable of since, certainly not as memorably or impressively. I can see why some argue that it's one of the great accomplishments in western civilization, whether one exactly agree with that or not. But for someone to come along and not sound impressed is not impressive. It sounds like hubris and the product of a strictly analytical mind not capable of pulling off such a feat. It's a fantastic passage of music, one that interweaves five themes beautifully and effortlessly where everything is heard in such a transparent orchestration and is worthy of the highest praise without reservation. If Bach had heard it, I believe he would have stood up and cheered at its inspired brilliance because he would have understood that it wasn't just an intellectual accomplishment. It was like catching lightning in a bottle.


What makes the counterpoint sound so brilliant is not merely the combining of themes but the dramatic structure of the movement, which is often called a fugue but is really a sonata-form narrative carried on in quasi-fugal terms. There were precedents for this in works of Joseph and Michael Haydn, but Mozart surpasses them.


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## hammeredklavier

I still find Phillovesclassical's claim in this thread extremely ridiculous. So the last movement of Mozart 41th is about contrapuntal combination of 5 subjects and that's it? Whatabout the use of dissonance at 



 for example? Writing five subjects that combine is one thing, writing an entire contrapuntal movement based on them in such a way that everything sounds catchy under the rules of counterpoint is another. And also, what makes the 18th century masters so impressive is control and containment. 
And I'm not sure why Phillovesclassical keeps going around saying he's a Mozart fan, but everytime he talks about Mozart, he talks about what he thinks as superiority of Liszt, Haydn, Faure, Gesualdo, Bach, Stravinsky, Hindemith etc etc over Mozart, or his preference for them over Mozart. (I actually do remember all those instances he did it.) I admit I sometimes do the same thing with Schubert, but at least I don't go around lying I'm a Schubert fan.
I actually do come across a lot of other people on other classical music communities (like Phil) who make a huge deal about the Rite of Spring. I've been listening to it and Petrushka, Firebird. Stravinsky still strikes me as a really good 20th century film score composer. (a lot of interesting sound effects)


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> I still find Phillovesclassical's claim in this thread extremely ridiculous. So the last movement of Mozart 41th is about contrapuntal combination of 5 subjects and that's it? Whatabout the use of dissonance at
> 
> 
> 
> for example? Writing five subjects that combine is one thing, writing an entire contrapuntal movement based on them in such a way that everything sounds catchy under the rules of counterpoint is another. And also, what makes the 18th century masters so impressive is control and containment.
> And I'm not sure why Phillovesclassical keeps going around saying he's a Mozart fan, but everytime he talks about Mozart, he talks about what he thinks as superiority of Liszt, Haydn, Faure, Gesualdo, Bach, Stravinsky, Hindemith etc etc over Mozart, or his preference for them over Mozart. (I actually do remember all those instances he did it.) I admit I sometimes do the same thing with Schubert, but at least I don't go around lying I'm a Schubert fan.
> I actually do come across a lot of other people on other classical music communities (like Phil) who make a huge deal about the Rite of Spring. I've been listening to it and Petrushka, Firebird. *Stravinsky still strikes me as a really good 20th century film score composer. (a lot of interesting sound effects)
> *


If you think other people are unjustly insulting to a composer you love, is the best response to insult another renowned composer? Stravinsky is much more than a "film-score composer" and a creator of "interesting sound effects." And I can say that while being no great fan of Stravinsky.

No wonder you think David Wright is a respectable music critic.


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## Larkenfield

"Yeah, that is what I'm saying. It is not as impressive as some make it out to be based on what they claim. I actually read some say that the "complexity" of the Coda is unmatched in all of Western music. It is not complex. Just great counterpoint nothing more, nothing less. Bach writes great counterpoint all the time. The greatness of the movement in Jupiter is from the development around the 5 themes, including their combination (which is only part of it)." [Phillovesclassical]

[Lark:] Regardless of what others have claimed about the counterpoint that Mozart wrote in the last movement of the Jupiter, for anyone to talk about it in such matter of fact terms is to diminish the accomplishment. It was more than just great counterpoint; it was an inspired accomplishment of counterpoint that no one has been capable of since, certainly not as memorably or impressively. I can see why some argue that it's one of the great accomplishments in western civilization, whether one exactly agree with that or not. But for someone to come along and not sound impressed is not impressive. It sounds like hubris and the product of a strictly analytical mind not capable of pulling off such a feat. It's a fantastic passage of music, one that interweaves five themes beautifully and effortlessly together where everything is heard in such a transparent orchestration and is worthy of the highest praise without reservation. If Bach had heard it, I believe he would have stood up and cheered at its inspired brilliance because he would have understood that it wasn't just an intellectual accomplishment. It was like catching lightning in a bottle.[/quotes]

Just wanted to clarify that the first paragraph in quotes was not by me but by phillovesclassical. I do not view him as an insightful nor understanding Mozart listener. There are the usual reservations and half-hearted praise including on the last movement of Mozart's inspired counterpoint in the Jupiter.


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## Xisten267

I prefer late Schubert. His late chamber music does not have parallels in Mozart in my opinion.


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## Woodduck

Allerius said:


> I prefer late Schubert. His late chamber music does not have parallels in Mozart in my opinion.


Not even the G minor string quintet?


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## Xisten267

Woodduck said:


> Not even the G minor string quintet?


I love the late Mozart string quintets, but the Schubert string quintet is hors-concours for me. A matter of personal taste of course.


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## tdc

I think there is about the same difference in artistic quality between late Schubert and late Mozart as there is if we compare the output in general of Vivaldi and Bach.

In other words, the Schubert _is_ inspired and beautiful, but relatively simple and repetitive. The music is not on the same level in terms of musical structure or brilliance in my view.


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## Enthusiast

^ I don't think that catches it at all. Vivaldi did produce some wonderful music but he also produced a lot of hack work. And he lived to a ripe age. Much of what we know of Schubert was written when he was very young. He was prolific without resorting to hack work. What we know as the later works - written at a age when many composers had barely got started - is that they were a string of masterpieces quite unlike anything that had come before them. They are so great that they secure his position among the top ten composers ever. Who knows what he might have gone on to do. To make him Vivaldi to Mozart's Bach shows a deep misunderstanding of either Vivaldi or Schubert. Nor was Schubert a contemporary of Mozart. His late works are gems of the Romantic just as Mozart's are gems of the Classical.


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## elgar's ghost

Perhaps the forty years between Mozart and Schubert is the crux of it - many of Schubert's later chamber works are great but the templates for trio, quartet and quintet had already been set by others. I think comparisons are more fair if the composers in question are from the same era.


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## Xisten267

tdc said:


> I think there is about the same difference in artistic quality between late Schubert and late Mozart as there is if we compare the output in general of Vivaldi and Bach.
> 
> In other words, the Schubert _is_ inspired and beautiful, but relatively simple and repetitive. The music is not on the same level in terms of musical structure or brilliance in my view.


Interesting that you feel this way. I find Schubert particularly advanced in his use of harmony - more than Mozart. And if he can be repetitive sometimes, the same can be said about Wolfgang - think in the _Haffner_ symphony or in the _Posthorn_ serenade for example, which have many repeats. Mozart even tends to ask for repeats for the development and recapitulation sections of many of his movements in sonata form, something that is not so frequent in Schubert.

Also, Schubert expanded the texts that could be used in songs, and has a vast and sophisticated repertoire in that field. Mozart's lieder look amateurish in comparison.

...

About the Vivaldi and Bach comparison: I also prefer the latter (almost everybody here at TC does according to the polls), but at least in terms of rhythms I favour the italian and perhaps Rameau. Bach tends to use few types of musical notes for his accompaniments, what for me can be a bit too regular and even monotonous a few times, while Vivaldi seems more fluent in his (then) innovative use of forceful and syncopated rhythms.

Compare the rhythms:


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## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> Interesting that you feel this way. I find Schubert particularly advanced in his use of harmony - more than Mozart. And if he can be repetitive sometimes, the same can be said about Wolfgang - think in the _Haffner_ symphony or in the _Posthorn_ serenade for example, which have many repeats. Mozart even tends to ask for repeats for the development and recapitulation sections of many of his movements in sonata form, something that is not so frequent in Schubert.


Here's what I wrote on another thread:

With all due respect, I quote Wright only because he describes really well what I think are Schubert's weaknesses. 
I find his courage to speak against the Schubert cult admirable. I don't think of him as an authority or anything, I consider him to be just like one of us. And when it comes to Schubert's inability to develop his material, there are actually some people on TC who agree that Schubert does have those weaknesses: that Schubert's D960 is only good as an "extended song", not as a "sonata structure".

I'm also baffled why some people would accuse Mozart (out of all composers) for "repeat signs", which was customary for a lot of common practice music in instrumental genres. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repeat_sign The repeat sign gives freedom for the performers to decide whether to repeat or not. 
(I'm also baffled why some people pretend Mozart only wrote secular instrumental works that involve repeat signs, when he's just as much a composer of concertos or liturgical works that don't involve any repeat signs at all, 



 but this is topic for another day. )

Schubert's D960, with the repeat signs, the first movement goes over 20 minutes in length. With the exposition section going over 5 minutes in length. Are his material and ability to develop good enough to make up for the "heavenly length"?






Let's compare with the first movement of Mozart K310:






0:00 ~ 1:43 exposition section
1:43 ~ 3:17 exposition section repeated by repeat sign
3:17 ~ 5:56 development + recapitulation
5:56 ~ 8:39 development + recapitulation repeated by repeat sign

The section at 3:17 is the development of the section at 0:00
upon entering recapitulation at 4:12, Mozart develops on the main theme further at 4:28, 
the section at 4:58 is the "classical contrast" of the section at 0:52
It's the concept "the same face, albeit with a different expression". Notice how the earlier one sounds innocent in character, the later one tragic. It's not just undergone a change of key (major/minor). Notice the melodic variation that enhances the change of character.
The 'final resolution' at 5:34 is derived from exposition material at 1:28. 
In this way, the classical essayists had extroardinary sense to keep proportion while fully expressing themselves within the frames. http://fibonaccifacts.blogspot.com/2014/11/mozart-and-golden-ratio_2.html

Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven truly understood how to go about motivic development. Schubert did not.

In Schubert, there's no intricate skills of rhythmic, harmonic variation, or modulation, - a clear "lack of variety in technique". Is there any section in Schubert where he displays skills of imitation and stretto, for example? He's analogous to an amateur who pretends to be good at classical music composition of extended forms by changing the bass figurations accompanying the same melody he uses again and again.


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## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> I find Schubert particularly advanced in his use of harmony - more than Mozart.


Where? In Schubert, I only hear amateurism and pedantic-ness. So where does Schubert use sophisticated use of harmony? I see the introduction and the slow movement of the C major Quintet as a badly watered-down version of Mozart's Dissonance K465.



Allerius said:


> Also, Schubert expanded the texts that could be used in songs, and has a vast and sophisticated repertoire in that field. Mozart's lieder look amateurish in comparison.


Schubert is not just amateurish. He's A REAL AMATEUR. I think it's a complete joke he's placed alongside today with the real greats, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Hummel, CPE Bach, just cause he was a good melodist and a songwriter.

https://www.talkclassical.com/19670-most-repetitive-composers-7.html#post1709393
"Some people don't seem to be able to tell the difference between *"being repetitive just to fill bars" and "building form through repeititions".*

2:29 _"Repetition is what gives form to music"_.






David C F Wright might be an idiot as everyone says, but at least he understands the difference properly.

https://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/schubert.pdf
_"As a composer, Schubert was very inadequate. He had little or no sense of form or structure and his music is so repetitive as to be often downright boring and tedious. He could not develop his material as could great composers such as Haydn, Mozart and particularly Beethoven...

...Let me quote one example. Take the A flat Impromptu, the second of the set known as D935. He writes a tune of about eight bars then repeats it an octave higher. Then he repeats the theme and the octave higher version and so we have the tune four times in succession all in the same key. Then he has about 13 bars of chords which go nowhere and what does he then do? Repeat the tune and then again the same tune an octave higher. He repeats the bars of chords and the tune another twice. So the main tune comes eight times in three minutes. It is all the same and tedious and the tune is not varied rhythmically nor is there a change of key or any development.

There follows a trio section of 12 bars of nothing but broken chords. What does he do next? Repeat the 12 bars of broken chords. Another 34 bars of boring broken chords continues the piece. What follows that? Those 34 bars of broken chords again followed by eight bars of....broken chords. The tune in A flat returns and is immediately repeated an octave higher. There follows those bars of purposeless chords and the tune again and yet again that slight tune an octave higher. The tune is still in the same key and rhythmically the same. The music is so tame; it shows no invention, skill or development. There are no interesting harmonies or development. It is all so bland as well as being painfully boring and monotonous, and it is so juvenile and undeniably amateur! And do you really want to hear 90 odd bars of broken chords?

There are so many other examples which will prove the point! Schubert may have written some pretty tunes but nothing else, said Hans Keller.

*Study his songs and notice that most of the time the piano part is merely vamping, merely common chords repeated. Vamp, vamp, vamp. In one extended passage in the Piano Trio in E flat the left hand of the piano part has only three notes which appear and appear and appear. Some of his songs are really dreadful. Look at the piano part of Death and the Maiden for example. It is so sterile, unimaginative and, frankly, very poor."*"
_


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## hammeredklavier

I still find Schubert's D960 (TC's greatest piano sonata) overrated for its amateurish part-writing. Look at Both hands doing the same thing harmonically - this is typical Schubert. You see this pattern throughout his output

7:37






Compare the masses they wrote at 18. Schubert D167 and Mozart K192 and the difference is obvious. Schubert never improved. His weaknesses continued throughout the rest of his life.


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## Luchesi

hammeredklavier said:


> Where? In Schubert, I only hear amateurism and pedantic-ness. So where does Schubert use sophisticated use of harmony? I see the introduction and the slow movement of the C major Quintet as a badly watered-down version of Mozart's Dissonance K465.
> 
> Schubert is not just amateurish. He's A REAL AMATEUR. I think it's a complete joke he's placed alongside today with the real greats, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Hummel, CPE Bach, just cause he was a good melodist and a songwriter.
> 
> https://www.talkclassical.com/19670-most-repetitive-composers-7.html#post1709393
> "Some people don't seem to be able to tell the difference between "being repetitive just to fill bars" and "building form through repeititions".
> 
> 2:29 _"Repetition is what gives form to music"_.
> 
> [video=youtube;auv6hekutube.com/watch?v=auv6hek8QIY[/video]
> 
> David C F Wright might be an idiot as everyone says, but at least he understands the difference properly.
> 
> https://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/schubert.pdf
> _"As a composer, Schubert was very inadequate. He had little or no sense of form or structure and his music is so repetitive as to be often downright boring and tedious. He could not develop his material as could great composers such as Haydn, Mozart and particularly Beethoven...
> 
> ...Let me quote one example. Take the A flat Impromptu, the second of the set known as D935. He writes a tune of about eight bars then repeats it an octave higher. Then he repeats the theme and the octave higher version and so we have the tune four times in succession all in the same key. Then he has about 13 bars of chords which go nowhere and what does he then do? Repeat the tune and then again the same tune an octave higher. He repeats the bars of chords and the tune another twice. So the main tune comes eight times in three minutes. It is all the same and tedious and the tune is not varied rhythmically nor is there a change of key or any development.
> 
> There follows a trio section of 12 bars of nothing but broken chords. What does he do next? Repeat the 12 bars of broken chords. Another 34 bars of boring broken chords continues the piece. What follows that? Those 34 bars of broken chords again followed by eight bars of....broken chords. The tune in A flat returns and is immediately repeated an octave higher. There follows those bars of purposeless chords and the tune again and yet again that slight tune an octave higher. The tune is still in the same key and rhythmically the same. The music is so tame; it shows no invention, skill or development. There are no interesting harmonies or development. It is all so bland as well as being painfully boring and monotonous, and it is so juvenile and undeniably amateur! And do you really want to hear 90 odd bars of broken chords?
> 
> There are so many other examples which will prove the point! Schubert may have written some pretty tunes but nothing else, said Hans Keller.
> 
> *Study his songs and notice that most of the time the piano part is merely vamping, merely common chords repeated. Vamp, vamp, vamp. In one extended passage in the Piano Trio in E flat the left hand of the piano part has only three notes which appear and appear and appear. Some of his songs are really dreadful. Look at the piano part of Death and the Maiden for example. It is so sterile, unimaginative and, frankly, very poor."*"
> _
> 
> [video=youtucom/watch?v=V0z7mUV5rSc[/video]


If you play the impromptu you'll hear and you'll feel its potential for expression. That's what I look for in a short piece.

If you're looking for clever innovations in forms you won't find them in impromptus. Nor a development section. It's an artistic sequence of sound ideas for the performer.


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## Littlephrase

I’ve finally accepted the truth about Schubert. He was an incompetent amateur whose only talent was in churning out dull, lifeless tunes to be repeated ad nauseam. A compositional nullity if there ever was one. 

It only took 885 posts of the same exact criticisms, repeated incessantly, without much variation (not unlike the first movement of D.960, come to think of it), before this great truth revealed itself to me.


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## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> *Where?* In Schubert, I only hear amateurism and pedantic-ness. So where does Schubert use sophisticated use of harmony? I see the introduction and the slow movement of the C major Quintet as a badly watered-down version of Mozart's Dissonance K465.


Here, I suggest you to buy this book, published by the Cambridge University Press, to discover: Harmony in Schubert: "One of Western music's great harmonists, Franz Schubert created a wondrous and treasured body of music that has retained its fascination to this day. His innovative harmonic practice has been a topic of lively discussion among analysts for generations. Harmony in Schubert presents a fresh approach, yielding insightful readings of a large and varied range of excerpts, as well as readings of fifteen complete movements spanning Schubert's chamber, choral, orchestral, piano, and vocal output."

According to the book "Music: The Definitive Visual History", "Schubert made no significant alterations to Classical forms inherited from Joseph Haydn, but did introduce a hallmark harmonic device - a temporary shift downwards by a major third while retaining a common note - which created an effect of tranquility. (...) The four-movement structure [of D944] is familiar, but the large scale of the piece was new at the time, as was it's harmonic invention."



hammeredklavier said:


> I'm also baffled why some people would accuse Mozart (out of all composers) for "repeat signs", which was customary for a lot of common practice music in instrumental genres.


Yes, Classical period composers use a lot of repetitions. Therefore, if Schubert can be accused of being repetitive, so can Mozart.


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## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> Schubert is not just amateurish. He's A REAL AMATEUR. I think it's a complete joke he's placed alongside today with the real greats, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Hummel, CPE Bach, just cause he was a good melodist and a songwriter.


Since we're talking about real amateurism, let's talk a bit about Mozart and brass . In an article published by the Oxford University Press, we have:

"Mozart composed ensemble music for at least five species of lip-blown instruments: trumpets, horns, post-horns, serpents and trombones. In this article I aim, first, to shed light on his orchestral use of these (...); second, to examine some anomalies or apparent contradictions in his scores. (...) For while Mozart's horn parts are not infrequently melodic, (...) his trumpet writing is often perfunctory in the extreme, the trumpets often having little more to do than punctuate rhythm and reinforce harmony at certain strategic points. The traditional trumpet (...) is not very apparent in Mozart's music." 

"Mozart was not big on brass: they must have been a rather loud presence for his innate sense of balance and proportion." - from this source.

Poor Wolfie couldn't handle brass intruments. Perhaps, had he lived more, he could have learned with Beethoven how to do so. :tiphat:


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## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> Here, I suggest you to buy this book, published by the Cambridge University Press, to discover: Harmony in Schubert: "One of Western music's great harmonists, Franz Schubert created a wondrous and treasured body of music that has retained its fascination to this day. His innovative harmonic practice has been a topic of lively discussion among analysts for generations. Harmony in Schubert presents a fresh approach, yielding insightful readings of a large and varied range of excerpts, as well as readings of fifteen complete movements spanning Schubert's chamber, choral, orchestral, piano, and vocal output."[/COLOR]


I'm not sure what you're trying to say by linking to a book that discusses Schubert's use of harmony. Surely he was a classical music composer who used harmony. I never said he didn't use harmony.



Allerius said:


> Since we're talking about real amateurism, let's talk a bit about Mozart and brass . In an article published by the Oxford University Press, we have:
> 
> "Mozart composed ensemble music for at least five species of lip-blown instruments: trumpets, horns, post-horns, serpents and trombones. In this article I aim, first, to shed light on his orchestral use of these (...); second, to examine some anomalies or apparent contradictions in his scores. (...) For while Mozart's horn parts are not infrequently melodic, (...) his trumpet writing is often perfunctory in the extreme, the trumpets often having little more to do than punctuate rhythm and reinforce harmony at certain strategic points. The traditional trumpet (...) is not very apparent in Mozart's music." [/URL]
> 
> "Mozart was not big on brass: they must have been a rather loud presence for his innate sense of balance and proportion." - from this source.


So you don't know that brass instruments in Mozart's time did not have valves, so their range and use were limited. He did not have the instrumental resources to write brass writing like Tchaikovsky or Wagner.



Allerius said:


> Poor Wolfie couldn't handle brass intruments. Perhaps, had he lived more, he could have learned with Beethoven how to do so. :tiphat:







5:00
_"Beethoven was not a great melodist. What he was interested in was seeds, motives, things out of which he could breed melodies. This is one of the most unremarkable melodies ever written, but the most famous, but you couldn't call it a melody, could you? [Plays main 7th theme.] So far, what have we got? One note. [...] There's no aspect of Beethoven in which you can say: Beethoven is great, as a melodist, a harmonist, contrapuntist, a tone painter, his orchestration. You'll find fault with all of them. If you take any one of these elements, separately, you find nobody. There's nothing there. He spent his whole life trying to write a good fugue. And he himself admitted he never succeeded. *And as far as his orchestration is concerned, you could have it. I mean, it is bad, it has trumpets sticking out, the same not drowning everybody else.*"_ -L. Bernstein﻿

Does this also make Beethoven an amateur, by your logic?


----------



## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> I'm not sure what you're trying to say by linking to a book that discusses Schubert's use of harmony. Surely he was a classical music composer who used harmony. I never said he didn't use harmony.


Did you read what I wrote to you?

"*One of Western music's great harmonists*, Franz Schubert created a wondrous and treasured body of music that has retained its fascination to this day. *His innovative harmonic practice has been a topic of lively discussion among analysts for generations.* Harmony in Schubert presents a fresh approach, yielding insightful readings of a large and varied range of excerpts, as well as readings of fifteen complete movements spanning Schubert's chamber, choral, orchestral, piano, and vocal output."

"Schubert made no significant alterations to Classical forms inherited from Joseph Haydn, *but did introduce a hallmark harmonic device* - *a temporary shift downwards by a major third while retaining a common note* - *which created an effect of tranquility*. (...) The four-movement structure [of D944] is familiar, but the large scale of the piece was new at the time, *as was it's harmonic invention*."



hammeredklavier said:


> So you don't know that brass instruments in Mozart's time did not have valves, so their range and use were limited. He did not have the instrumental resources to write brass writing like Tchaikovsky or Wagner.


You should write to the Oxford University to explain them that, for they obviously doesn't know, right?



hammeredklavier said:


> 5:00
> _"Beethoven was not a great melodist. What he was interested in was seeds, motives, things out of which he could breed melodies. This is one of the most unremarkable melodies ever written, but the most famous, but you couldn't call it a melody, could you? [Plays main 7th theme.] So far, what have we got? One note. [...] There's no aspect of Beethoven in which you can say: Beethoven is great, as a melodist, a harmonist, contrapuntist, a tone painter, his orchestration. You'll find fault with all of them. If you take any one of these elements, separately, you find nobody. There's nothing there. He spent his whole life trying to write a good fugue. And he himself admitted he never succeeded. *And as far as his orchestration is concerned, you could have it. I mean, it is bad, it has trumpets sticking out, the same not drowning everybody else.*"_ -L. Bernstein﻿
> 
> Does this also make Beethoven an amateur, by your logic?


No, Beethoven is fine, it was Bernstein that was completely off the mark in this video, as you already know from many discussions before and can discover again below:


----------



## hammeredklavier

Surely, Mr. Allerius, you find nothing wrong with this?
Even a blind worshipper of Schubert such as Dvorak admitted that Schubert is technically worse than Mendelssohn
https://books.google.ca/books?id=iMdZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA343#v=onepage&q&f=false


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## Larkenfield

Hammeredklavier and David Wright's pitifly shortsighted criticisms of Schubert have long outstayed their welcomed and pale in the face of a work such as this that is beyond price:






Schubert was far more than the insulting description of being a talented amateur, especially when audiences the world over have paid to hear him played by the greatest musicians in the world, whether it's his piano music, his lieder, or many of his works for orchestras. He was harmonically gifted and I've never heard a bad chord progressions despite some of Schuberts repeated figures that could indeed be heard. But they don't necessarily spoil the beauty and purity of his ideas. It's time to take this shortsighted vendetta elsewhere... It's become sickening because his inspired melodic genius is passed over without understanding that Schubert was a great inspiration to Schumann, Brahms, Franz Liszt, Bruckner and many others. Schubert was so inspired and prolific that he didn't even have the chance to hear everything that he wrote. That was left to posterity and he has been greatly appreciated as having a unique and pure voice instantly recognizable by just about anyone. If one wants to talk about amateur efforts, then hammeredklavier and David's Wright's cheap shortsighted criticism fit the bill perfectly because they fail to understand and appreciate Schubert's great harmonic and melodic strengths. The redundancy of that vendetta has become tiresome, as if Mozart's genius can only be appreciated by a misguided comparison of geniues. Both are considered immortals except by a vocal minority. After weeks upon weeks of this one-sided, shortsighted nonsense, it's time to take these tiresome criticisms elsewhere because they do not fully explain the man nor the music. In fact, it's just the opposite by replacing the focus on his weaknesses rather than his strengths which can be found in abundance. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of Western classical music and his music continues to be popular.


----------



## trazom

Allerius said:


> Yes, Classical period composers use a lot of repetitions. Therefore, if Schubert can be accused of being repetitive, so can Mozart.


I was under the impression what tdc meant, by "repetitive," was how Schubert presented and developed his melodic material and not the use of repeat signs which may be followed or ignored by the performer. He of course and can jump in and clarify if he meant something else. Mozart's recaps of his main themes tended to be more literal than Haydn's might but he would usually alter the rhythmic values of the main theme to add interest or new details via different ornamentation and the development might involve the combination of two themes in counterpoint or the presentation of an entirely new theme. That's different than the more literal repetition of the primary themes that Schubert would typically use.

I also don't get the use of the Haffner symphony as an example of "repetitiveness" via repeat signs for the exposition and recap. The first and last movements don't have any repeat signs.


----------



## Xisten267

trazom said:


> I was under the impression what tdc meant, by "repetitive," was how Schubert presented and developed his melodic material and not the use of repeat signs which may be followed or ignored by the performer. He of course and can jump in and clarify if he meant something else. Mozart's recaps of his main themes tended to be more literal than Haydn's might but he would usually alter the rhythmic values of the main theme to add interest or new details via different ornamentation and the development might involve the combination of two themes in counterpoint or the presentation of an entirely new theme. That's different than the more literal repetition of the primary themes that Schubert would typically use.


Most conductors follow the repeat signs. I've recently acquired the complete Mozart symphonies cycle with Levine/WPO and was amazed by the quality of performance whilst overwhelmed by the number of repetitions everywhere. It is being a tiresome task to slowly remove them via Audacity. It's great music of course, but has too many repeats for my taste. And because I have to do things like this, repeat signs _do_ matter to me, although perhaps not so much for other members.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> Did you read what I wrote to you?


Yes. Now, it's your turn to read David C F Wright's writing on Schubert:

https://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/schubert.pdf
_"Take the opening movement of the Symphony no.5 in B flat. The theme appears so many times in about eight minutes and it is always in the same key, same rhythm and same pitch. Schubert does not know what else to do but keep playing the same old tune over and over and over and over and over and over and over again!"_






_"*Some of the vocal lines in his songs are very amateurish and banal. Some are so bad that they are like five finger exercises on a piano. Some are no better than television commercial jingles and what compounds the issue that people deny all this and will not accept the evidence. They have only to look at the printed music.* Compare the songs of Liszt and see the variety within each song both in the vocal line and the piano part. Note that variation of rhythmic interest and the skill in developing the material, the contrasts, the tension, the excitements and often the sublime beauty as in Oh quand je dors. Another example which shows up the terrible weakness in Schubert's songs are the excellent songs of Tchaikovsky where vocal and piano parts are not just juvenile formulae but are wonderfully inventive and full of contrast.

But it was his compositional methods that further indicates what a poor composer Schubert was. He would rule lines on plain paper to make manuscript paper and put in bar lines then he would compose the opening bars and leave many bars blank but the bars would be numbered. Sometimes there were a vast number of blank bars. He would compose a few bars, then there would be another stretch of blank bars and so on. There are examples of this procedure in the Schubert museum. That is not the way to compose. It is like laying the foundation of a house, then building the third story then the fifth. The further trouble with Schubert was that when he filled in the blanks it was with repeated material or merely padding. For example, the Piano Sonata in D has in the first movement many pages of nothing but broken chords, and in Richter's performance it goes on for over five minutes!

A great composer formulates in his mind the bulk of what he is going to write. He plans it out thoroughly. A few composers have a different technique. Edmund Rubbra, for example, would start a piece and not know where it was going but he still composed one bar after another!

Another serious weakness now began to appear in his music and that concerned its length. And this weakness continues for the rest of his life. The String Quintet in C of 1828 is very long and too long to sustain the material. The Octet in F for strings and woodwind of 1824 is another case as are the late Piano Sonatas. The D major sonata has already been referred to and the B flat Sonata (D. 960) is both poor and very long as is its predecessor the Sonata in A (D.959). Some wit has referred to the Trout Quintet by saying, "It takes too long to catch that fish!"_


----------



## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> Surely, Mr. Allerius, you find nothing wrong with this?
> Even a blind worshipper of Schubert such as Dvorak admitted that Schubert is technically worse than Mendelssohn
> https://books.google.ca/books?id=iMdZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA343#v=onepage&q&f=false
> 
> View attachment 126171


Schubert lived only 31 years, and he didn't have the luck of having a professional musician father devoted to teach music to him using an original and efficient method (like Mozart) or of having been born in a wealthy family that cultivated the arts and could pay the best professionals around to teach him (like Mendelssohn). Considering this, even if he didn't master counterpoint like Mendelssohn and Mozart, I think that he has as much merit, if not more, for being able to produce so many great masterpieces to us.


----------



## trazom

Allerius said:


> Most conductors follow the repeat signs. I've recently acquired the complete Mozart symphonies cycle with Levine/WPO and was amazed by the quality of performance whilst overwhelmed by the number of repetitions everywhere. It is being a tiresome task to slowly remove them via Audacity. It's great music of course, but has too many repeats for my taste. And because I have to do things like this, repeat signs _do_ matter to me, although perhaps not so much for other members.


Until the HIP movement, it was actually more common for conductors/performers to obey only the exposition repeat and play straight through the development to the coda. To me, that strikes the most satisfying balance between building up familiarity and expectations and the surprises in the development and since Mozart was known for being a master of proportion, I'm sure he had some of this in mind when composing. In some symphonies, especially the late ones, playing through the entire movement without repeating anything, when he calls for them, just sounds off.


----------



## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> Yes. Now, it's your turn to read David C F Wright's writing on Schubert:


This author does not seem to have much reliability, considering all that has been written about him here at TC. Why should I take what he says seriously and ignore an article approved by the very famous and reputable Cambridge University?


----------



## Xisten267

trazom said:


> Until the HIP movement, it was actually more common for conductors/performers to obey only the exposition repeat and play straight through the development to the coda. To me, that strikes the most satisfying balance between building up familiarity and expectations and the surprises in the development and since Mozart was known for being a master of proportion, I'm sure he had some of this in mind when composing. *In some symphonies, especially the late ones, playing through the entire movement without repeating anything, when he calls for them, just sounds off.*


Perhaps you're right, but I don't share your perception about repeats of development/recapitulation sections. Removing these but maintaining the exposition repeats sounds more reasonable to me.

As far as I know, Beethoven and Schubert do not have a single symphony with repeats for development/recapitulation. And the first movement of Beethoven's fifth symphony for example uses the golden ratio without the need of that.


----------



## Littlephrase

hammeredklavier said:


> _Another serious weakness now began to appear in his music and that concerned its length. And this weakness continues for the rest of his life. The String Quintet in C of 1828 is very long and too long to sustain the material. The Octet in F for strings and woodwind of 1824 is another case as are the late Piano Sonatas. The D major sonata has already been referred to and the B flat Sonata (D. 960) is both poor and very long as is its predecessor the Sonata in A (D.959). Some wit has referred to the Trout Quintet by saying, "It takes too long to catch that fish!"_


Wow, he dismisses highly regarded pieces in an offhanded and uninformative manner, how enlightening.


----------



## Xisten267

Allerius said:


> Poor Wolfie couldn't handle brass intruments. Perhaps, had he lived more, he could have learned with Beethoven how to do so. :tiphat:


This was a rather malicious remark by me. I apologize for this. I would have removed it from my post by now had it not been already quoted by another member.


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## EdwardBast

hammeredklavier said:


> Yes. Now, it's your turn to read David C F Wright's writing on Schubert:


Why do you keep quoting this hack Wright? The man's a fool.



Allerius said:


> This author does not seem to have much reliability, considering all that has been writing about him here at TC. Why should I take what he says seriously and ignore an article approved by the very famous and reputable Oxford University?


You shouldn't. He has a degree in performance and no particular qualifications.


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## Woodduck

EdwardBast said:


> Why do you keep quoting this hack Wright? The man's a fool.


The answer is obvious. It takes one not to know one.


----------



## KenOC

This would be amusing if it weren’t so pathetic. On one side, generations of music lovers who have placed Schubert’s best music at the very center of the classical repertoire. In the 1820s, not yet 30 for the most part, Schubert wrote music that earns as much respect, and possibly more love, than Beethoven’s, even though that composer was at the top of his form.

On the other side, a gaseous nonentity claiming to know about music with evidently a bedraggled acolyte here and there.

Overall, a waste of perfectly good electrons and a useless contribution to the heat-death of the universe.


----------



## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> _"*Some of the vocal lines in his songs are very amateurish and banal. Some are so bad that they are like five finger exercises on a piano. Some are no better than television commercial jingles and what compounds the issue that people deny all this and will not accept the evidence. *_


_*

Evidently you are unaware that this superbly plotted song, with it's ever-developing melody and harmonic structure, dramatizes a young woman sitting at her spinning wheel, perfectly represented by the piano's figuration. You might consider the concept of repetition as a pictorial and expressive device. After a few years of thinking that over you might understand why this is a celebrated and beloved song.

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

Where I do not have him,
That is the grave,
The whole world
Is bitter to me.

My poor head
Is crazy to me,
My poor mind
Is torn apart.

For him only, I look
Out the window
Only for him do I go
Out of the house.

His tall walk,
His noble figure,
His mouth's smile,
His eyes' power,

And his mouth's
Magic flow,
His handclasp,
and ah! his kiss!

My peace is gone,
My heart is heavy,
I will find it never
and never more.

My bosom urges itself
toward him.
Ah, might I grasp
And hold him!

And kiss him,
As I would wish,
At his kisses
I should die!




But it was his compositional methods that further indicates what a poor composer Schubert was. He would rule lines on plain paper to make manuscript paper and put in bar lines then he would compose the opening bars and leave many bars blank but the bars would be numbered. Sometimes there were a vast number of blank bars. He would compose a few bars, then there would be another stretch of blank bars and so on. There are examples of this procedure in the Schubert museum. That is not the way to compose. It is like laying the foundation of a house, then building the third story then the fifth... A great composer formulates in his mind the bulk of what he is going to write. He plans it out thoroughly. A few composers have a different technique. Edmund Rubbra, for example, would start a piece and not know where it was going but he still composed one bar after another!

Click to expand...

That must be one of the stupidest things I've ever read.*_


----------



## Larkenfield

hammeredklavier said:


> Yes. Now, it's your turn to read David C F Wright's writing on Schubert:
> 
> https://www.wrightmusic.net/pdfs/schubert.pdf
> _"Take the opening movement of the Symphony no.5 in B flat. The theme appears so many times in about eight minutes and it is always in the same key, same rhythm and same pitch. Schubert does not know what else to do but keep playing the same old tune over and over and over and over and over and over and over again!"_
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _"*Some of the vocal lines in his songs are very amateurish and banal. Some are so bad that they are like five finger exercises on a piano. Some are no better than television commercial jingles and what compounds the issue that people deny all this and will not accept the evidence. They have only to look at the printed music.* Compare the songs of Liszt and see the variety within each song both in the vocal line and the piano part. Note that variation of rhythmic interest and the skill in developing the material, the contrasts, the tension, the excitements and often the sublime beauty as in Oh quand je dors. Another example which shows up the terrible weakness in Schubert's songs are the excellent songs of Tchaikovsky where vocal and piano parts are not just juvenile formulae but are wonderfully inventive and full of contrast.
> 
> But it was his compositional methods that further indicates what a poor composer Schubert was. He would rule lines on plain paper to make manuscript paper and put in bar lines then he would compose the opening bars and leave many bars blank but the bars would be numbered. Sometimes there were a vast number of blank bars. He would compose a few bars, then there would be another stretch of blank bars and so on. There are examples of this procedure in the Schubert museum. That is not the way to compose. It is like laying the foundation of a house, then building the third story then the fifth. The further trouble with Schubert was that when he filled in the blanks it was with repeated material or merely padding. For example, the Piano Sonata in D has in the first movement many pages of nothing but broken chords, and in Richter's performance it goes on for over five minutes!
> 
> A great composer formulates in his mind the bulk of what he is going to write. He plans it out thoroughly. A few composers have a different technique. Edmund Rubbra, for example, would start a piece and not know where it was going but he still composed one bar after another!
> 
> Another serious weakness now began to appear in his music and that concerned its length. And this weakness continues for the rest of his life. The String Quintet in C of 1828 is very long and too long to sustain the material. The Octet in F for strings and woodwind of 1824 is another case as are the late Piano Sonatas. The D major sonata has already been referred to and the B flat Sonata (D. 960) is both poor and very long as is its predecessor the Sonata in A (D.959). Some wit has referred to the Trout Quintet by saying, "It takes too long to catch that fish!"_


It's not enough to only voice criticisms and shortcomings. Schubert was obviously more than that, which seems to have escaped you and David Wright. He was a lyrical genius who died years before his time. If you can't illuminate his strengths as well as his weaknesses, then both of you have tin ears as far as I'm concerned. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of Western classical music and his music continues to be popular. You still have no idea why the worlds greatest musicians play him. Until you do, your criticism is unbalanced, unfair and unenlightened. It's not that he didn't have shortcomings. He did. But there was more to his inspired genius than that. David Wright is one of the most disgusting music critics I've ever read because of his unbalanced views. Why anyone would want to be associated with him is beyond me when there are far more worthy and reputable critics, such as Harold C. Schonberg. Late Schubert is full of treasures such as his Fantasie.


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## Luchesi

Larkenfield said:


> It's not enough to only voice criticisms and shortcomings. Schubert was obviously more than that, which seems to have escaped you and David Wright. He was a lyrical genius who died years before his time. If you can't illuminate his strengths as well as his weaknesses, then both of you have tin ears as far as I'm concerned. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers of Western classical music and his music continues to be popular. You still have no idea why the worlds greatest musicians play him. Until you do, your criticism is unbalanced, unfair and unenlightened. It's not that he didn't have shortcomings. He did. But there was more to his inspired genius than that. David Wright is one of the most disgusting music critics I've ever read because of his unbalanced views. Why anyone would want to be associated with him is beyond me when there are far more worthy and reputable critics, such as Harold C. Schonberg. Lake Schubert is full of treasures such as his Fantasie.


Yes, they're missing what largely makes Schubert great. That's curious to me.

Most CM listeners can find shortcomings, at least for themselves, in every composer's offerings, but they don't allege things like, "Schubert does not know what else to do but keep playing the same old tune over and over..."


----------



## tdc

Enthusiast said:


> ^ I don't think that catches it at all. Vivaldi did produce some wonderful music but he also produced a lot of hack work. And he lived to a ripe age. Much of what we know of Schubert was written when he was very young. He was prolific without resorting to hack work. What we know as the later works - written at a age when many composers had barely got started - is that they were a string of masterpieces quite unlike anything that had come before them. They are so great that they secure his position among the top ten composers ever. Who knows what he might have gone on to do. To make him Vivaldi to Mozart's Bach shows a deep misunderstanding of either Vivaldi or Schubert. Nor was Schubert a contemporary of Mozart. His late works are gems of the Romantic just as Mozart's are gems of the Classical.


First off your claim about 'hack work' is nothing but subjective and you do not back it up with any examples of this alleged 'hack work'. As you can see there are individuals here who consider some of Schubert's compositions 'hack work', but I have never made that claim. However they provided examples and reasons for why they consider the music to be of lesser quality, you have provided nothing but an opinion. Your comments about 'masterpieces' also lacks any technical insight into why you think those works are masterpieces, you seem to just be rehashing what you perceive to be common consensus. Vivaldi is often also placed in top ten lists, and his music is perhaps heard on classical radio stations as much or more than any composer. I think it is you who has a lack of understanding here, this is further revealed when you describe Schubert's late works as romantic gems, when it was in Schubert's late works that he (like Beethoven) reverted closer to classical forms. The truth is he is a transitional composer not fully romantic or classical. He was in fact closest to romanticism in earlier works like the Trout Quintet. Rosen has also referred to some of Mozart's works (such as piano concerto 26) as 'Romantic'. Therefore both composers have romantic and classicist tendencies and a comparison between these two is not as different as the Bach/Vivaldi as you are suggesting.



trazom said:


> I was under the impression what tdc meant, by "repetitive," was how Schubert presented and developed his melodic material and not the use of repeat signs which may be followed or ignored by the performer. He of course and can jump in and clarify if he meant something else. Mozart's recaps of his main themes tended to be more literal than Haydn's might but he would usually alter the rhythmic values of the main theme to add interest or new details via different ornamentation and the development might involve the combination of two themes in counterpoint or the presentation of an entirely new theme. That's different than the more literal repetition of the primary themes that Schubert would typically use.
> 
> I also don't get the use of the Haffner symphony as an example of "repetitiveness" via repeat signs for the exposition and recap. The first and last movements don't have any repeat signs.


Thank you, you are correct and understand that my point about repetitiveness has nothing to do with repeat signs.



Allerius said:


> Interesting that you feel this way. I find Schubert particularly advanced in his use of harmony - more than Mozart.


This comment I feel shows you have an equal lack of understanding about my points regarding harmony as you do about repetition. Schubert's innovations regarding harmony are connected to the fact that he modulated at times to keys not commonly used in sonata form. While this is an important innovation, (and I'm not even claiming Schubert was weak in harmony). It is not the same as Mozart's consistently sublime use of harmony in the vertical, horizontal and contrapuntal sense. The two composers are not in the same league in this area.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> As far as I know, Beethoven and Schubert do not have a single symphony with repeats for development/recapitulation. And the first movement of Beethoven's fifth symphony for example uses the golden ratio without the need of that.


Again, refer back to my post #112. Beethoven and Schubert too still had a ton of repeat signs in their music. With repeat signs taken, Beethoven's Ninth can increase in length up to 1hour 20~30 minutes, (and some people in 1899 had already complained about that: _"Is not the Scherzo insufferably long-winded?"_ https://books.google.ca/books?id=4tIaBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT268 )
From your comments, the kind of feeling I get is NOT - "Wow! Schubert's D960 doesn't have a repeat sign in the development-recapitulation of its first movement, that's impressive!" BUT rather, -
"Thank God D960 doesn't have a repeat sign the development-recapitulation of its first movement. Because if it had, a performance of the first movement would have taken fking 30 minutes!"

But regardless of repeat signs (they're not even mandatory to perform), I'm talking about the general quality of Schubert's writing style, which suffers regardless of whether repeat signs are taken or not. That mass by Schubert I posted above honestly sounds like something Mozart would have written at 6. I think there is a good reason why no serious composer in history placed him at the Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven tier. 
Other people still argue Schubert's work has some merit, in the form of lyricism or something like that and I respect their opinion. But whenever I try to appreciate his music, his semi-professionalism gets in the way too much and I keep complaining in my mind: "why is this guy so overrated compared to Haydn, Hummel, CPE Bach in the general classical music community? I still think CPE Bach's best concertos for example are superior to Schubert's orchestral works.

_"in one of these articles he (Tchaikovsky) observed that Schubert could not quite be ranked alongside Mozart and Beethoven"_
http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Franz_Schubert


----------



## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Other people still argue Schubert's work has some merit, in the form of lyricism or something like that...


Yeah, some merit. Something like that.


----------



## Larkenfield

Originally posted by * hammeredklavier*
"Other people still argue Schubert's work has some merit, in the form of lyricism or something like that..."
---
As insensitive as ever. Of course it has merit!-because it has great depth of feeling, poetry and emotion that you cannot sense or feel because you don't care for anything that's not of the intellect... You understand nothing about him. Why don't you tell us why Alfred Brendel still played Schubert, or Richter his late sonatas, or why Johannes Brahms still edited his symphonies as worthwhile, or why Robert Schumann was still inspired by his works, or why Liszt still arranged some of his lyrically inspired lieder despite all Schubert's supposed shortcomings that you and your condescending cohorts never tire of going over and over and over because you are a Mozart fanatic… Why don't you explain why Thomas Hampson still sings his Winterreise. You can't because you have a blind spot when it comes to Schubert and the most limited emotional range of any critic I have ever read except for the equally shortsighted and judgmental David Wright. You think it matters whether Schubert was as technically advanced as Mozart when it doesn't matter. He's accepted despite his shortcomings and that's what you fail to understand. He's a beloved composer and his accomplishments are not in competition with Mozart's except in a foolish comparison such as this. Schubert had great individuality, a poetic nature, purity of spirit, suspense, drama, sensitivity, imagination, lyriciism, harmonic and lyrical genius and he was just starting to take off when he died, which is another factor that you and his other critics discount or ignore. Like it or not he's considered one of the immortals and he wrote so much that there's plenty to choose from that's well worth hearing. It's truly disgusting to read what's been said about him when he continues to be played by the world's top orchestras and musicians, which you have no explanation for because you don't understand him nor have a feel for him. I believe that even Mozart would have been disgusted at what you have said about him and Mozart is your hero. He's my hero too but not in competition with Schubert. They both have earned their own rightful place in the pantheon. What a great privilege to speak on behalf of Schubert, whose life ended all too soon and he was so gifted and inspired. A Schubert work is easily identifiable whereas the ones by Mozart and Haydn are often confused. He had great individuality and that's something for which he continues to be appreciated.


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## hammeredklavier

Larkenfield said:


> As insensitive as ever.


Me? Insenstive? In this thread, there's nothing more insensitive than calling Mozart "amateurish". Calling Mozart amateurish in comparison to Schubert is even more laughable. Interestingly, the person who did it for some reason thinks Beethoven was flawlessly professional. He even calls Mass in C Op.86 "underrated", as I remember.

_According to the story, the prince, after hearing the work-and probably noticing its stark difference from the styles of Mass composition he revered in Haydn-said to Beethoven, "But, my dear Beethoven, what is that you have done again?" Whereupon, continues the story, the court chapel master was heard to laugh-this being none other than Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the composer and pianist who had himself written masses for the Esterházy court, including one in the same key, C major, just the previous year. Reacting angrily to the prince's question and furious over Hummel's pompous laughter as well as the inferior guest quarters he had been given in Eisenstadt, Beethoven left in a huff.

Charles Rosen has called the episode Beethoven's "most humiliating public failure".__ The prince had perhaps muted his reactions in directly addressing Beethoven, as in a later letter to the Countess Henriette von Zielinska he went so far as to say, "Beethoven's mass is unbearably ridiculous and detestable, and I am not convinced that it can ever be performed properly. I am angry and mortified."_

"Beethoven felt that he was a student in the vocal writing all his life."
(Beethoven as a Choral Composer by Elliot Forbes)

"He has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition." -Haydn on Mozart
"He is the only musician who had as much knowledge as genius, and as much genius as knowledge." -Rossini on Mozart


----------



## hammeredklavier

Larkenfield said:


> A Schubert work is easily identifiable whereas the ones by Mozart and Haydn are often confused. He had great individuality and that's something for which he continues to be appreciated.


How many times do I have to tell you? Mozart and Haydn works are confused by people who are not interested in knowing them.
Why do so many Romantic music fanatics live in the delusion that everyone (even those unfamiliar with general classical music) will distinguish lesser known works of Chopin from those of his contemporaries, for example?

https://www.thepianofiles.com/the-valse-melancolique/





Schubert's general style reflects his own time and place. early 19th century Austria. Maybe it's the flaws of his music that make it sound unique from his contemporaries.


----------



## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> Again, refer back to my post #112. Beethoven and Schubert too still had a ton of repeat signs in their music. With repeat signs taken, Beethoven's Ninth can increase in length up to 1hour 20~30 minutes, (and some people in 1899 had already complained about that: _"Is not the Scherzo insufferably long-winded?"_ https://books.google.ca/books?id=4tIaBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT268 )


What are you talking about? Beethoven's Ninth has only two repeat signs throughout the entire symphony. And the first movement alone contains more bars than complete symphonies by previous composers, including Mozart's.



hammeredklavier said:


> From your comments, the kind of feeling I get is NOT - "Wow! Schubert's D960 doesn't have a repeat sign in the development-recapitulation of its first movement, that's impressive!" BUT rather, -
> "Thank God D960 doesn't have a repeat sign the development-recapitulation of its first movement. Because if it had, a performance of the first movement would have taken fking 30 minutes!"


In my humble opinion there's an overuse of the repeat signs in the Classical period (I have no problem with non-exact repeats). Here I include the music of Schubert, but also that of Mozart.



hammeredklavier said:


> But regardless of repeat signs (they're not even mandatory to perform), I'm talking about the general quality of Schubert's writing style, which suffers regardless of whether repeat signs are taken or not. That mass by Schubert I posted above honestly sounds like something Mozart would have written at 6. I think there is a good reason why no serious composer in history placed him at the Haydn-Mozart-Beethoven tier.
> Other people still argue Schubert's work has some merit, in the form of lyricism or something like that and I respect their opinion. But whenever I try to appreciate his music, his semi-professionalism gets in the way too much and I keep complaining in my mind: "why is this guy so overrated compared to Haydn, Hummel, CPE Bach in the general classical music community? I still think CPE Bach's best concertos for example are superior to Schubert's orchestral works.


Schubert has a different technique to that of his predecessors. I understand that he focuses more on long, poetic melodies, and that he is very daring harmonically. I don't take this as a weakness because IMO he is a very expressive composer.



tdc said:


> This comment I feel shows you have an equal lack of understanding about my points regarding harmony as you do about repetition. Schubert's innovations regarding harmony are connected to the fact that he modulated at times to keys not commonly used in sonata form. While this is an important innovation, (and I'm not even claiming Schubert was weak in harmony). It is not the same as Mozart's consistently sublime use of harmony in the vertical, horizontal and contrapuntal sense. The two composers are not in the same league in this area.


You said that Schubert's music is simple and repetitive compared to that of Mozart. My point is that this can be relativized depending on the perspective, because Mozart uses a lot of repeat signs in his music - what matters to me - and is not so adventurous as Schubert in his modulations, as you acknowledge.


----------



## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> Me? Insenstive? In this thread, there's nothing more insensitive than calling Mozart "amateurish". Calling Mozart amateurish in comparison to Schubert is even more laughable. Interestingly, the person who did it for some reason thinks Beethoven was flawlessly professional. He even calls Mass in C Op.86 "underrated", as I remember.
> 
> _According to the story, the prince, after hearing the work-and probably noticing its stark difference from the styles of Mass composition he revered in Haydn-said to Beethoven, "But, my dear Beethoven, what is that you have done again?" Whereupon, continues the story, the court chapel master was heard to laugh-this being none other than Johann Nepomuk Hummel, the composer and pianist who had himself written masses for the Esterházy court, including one in the same key, C major, just the previous year. Reacting angrily to the prince's question and furious over Hummel's pompous laughter as well as the inferior guest quarters he had been given in Eisenstadt, Beethoven left in a huff.
> 
> Charles Rosen has called the episode Beethoven's "most humiliating public failure".__ The prince had perhaps muted his reactions in directly addressing Beethoven, as in a later letter to the Countess Henriette von Zielinska he went so far as to say, "Beethoven's mass is unbearably ridiculous and detestable, and I am not convinced that it can ever be performed properly. I am angry and mortified."_
> 
> "Beethoven felt that he was a student in the vocal writing all his life."
> (Beethoven as a Choral Composer by Elliot Forbes)
> 
> "He has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition." -Haydn on Mozart
> "He is the only musician who had as much knowledge as genius, and as much genius as knowledge." -Rossini on Mozart


Beethoven's vocal masterpieces have their importance acknowledged by important composers and musicologists (including the mature Haydn for example, that was so impressed by a Beethoven a cantata that decided to take him as his pupil after hearing it - he is a far more reputable figure in my opinion than a not so known prince or the young Hummel), and are usually performed even now, more than two hundred years after his death. The same can't be said about Mozart's main compositions for brass, which are largely forgotten except by his most ardent admirers.

And if you can take the liberty of calling Schubert an amateur all the time, I suppose that there's no problem if I acknowledge Mozart's deficiency in the genre of songs compared to him - Wolfgang's are so obscure that many people doesn't even know he has some.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Me? Insenstive? In this thread, there's nothing more insensitive than calling Mozart "amateurish". Calling Mozart amateurish in comparison to Schubert is even more laughable.


Who, meeeeeeee?????!!!!! 

Yah, you. Spending weeks and months and years of your life ranting about the faults of a beloved musical genius isn't exactly the occupation a sensitive person would choose, is it?

It has just occurred to me that your avatar, with its dark, sullen, sour expression, might be an actual self-portrait. Did the other kids make fun of that schnoz on the playground? Is that why you're on an unstoppable mission to destroy?

There are many masterpieces among Schubert's songs, and, yes, he surpasses Mozart in that genre. At least have the grace to concede that possibility. Mozart's reputation will survive.


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## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> Beethoven's vocal masterpieces have their importance acknowledged by important composers and musicologists (including the mature Haydn for example, that was so impressed by a Beethoven a cantata that decided to take him as his pupil after hearing it - he is a far more reputable figure in my opinion than a not so known prince or the young Hummel), and are usually performed even now, more than two hundred years after his death. The same can't be said about Mozart's main compositions for brass, which are largely forgotten except by his most ardent admirers.


_"The alpha and omega is Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, marvelous in the first three movements, very badly set in the last. No one will ever approach the sublimity of the first movement, but it will be an easy task to write as badly for voices as is done in the last movement. And supported by the authority of Beethoven they will all shout: "That's the way to do it."_ -Verdi
https://books.google.ca/books?id=oo5GA12YkEcC&pg=PA285

_"Stravinsky was never moved by the choral finale to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which he thought a hopelessly banal tune affixed to Schiller's mighty ode of liberation and brotherhood"_
https://books.google.ca/books?id=RidJh6eQNEkC&pg=PA3

Give me an example of an important figure in classical music history commenting on Mozart's use of brass. I suspect you've also noticed Bach doesn't orchestrate like Ravel, for example? Why not trash all pre-Romantic music then?



Allerius said:


> And if you can take the liberty of calling Schubert an amateur all the time,


All the time? No. I wasn't even going to do it in this thread at first. tdc's criticism on Schubert was totally valid and fair. It's other people's reaction to it that triggered me this time.


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## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> There are many masterpieces among Schubert's songs, and, yes, he surpasses Mozart in that genre. At least have the grace to concede that possibility. Mozart's reputation will survive.


There are indeed masterpieces and it's why I acknowledge Schubert as a good song-writer. But look again at TC's greatest works, look again where Schubert's Piano Sonata D960, C major Quintet, Death and the Maiden Quartet are ranked compared to works of other composers in their respective genres.
And also, What is the greatest string quintet?
From looking at these, don't you feel like: "Thank God Schubert didn't write a concerto, if he had written one, it would have been ranked as the greatest concerto at TC." "Thank God Schubert didn't finish his Unfinished, if he had, it would have been ranked as the greatest symphony at TC."
TC's secret attempt to raise Schubert's status to the greatest master of all time ever is sometimes worrisome.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> TC's attempt to raise Schubert's status to the greatest master of all time ever is sometimes worrisome.


I've been on TC for nearly six years and have never seen such an attempt. I have, however seen an obsessive attempt to trash him as a bad composer, evidently on behalf of Mozart, who currently couldn't care less.


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## Blancrocher

hammeredklavier said:


> There are indeed masterpieces and it's why I acknowledge Schubert as a good song-writer. But look again at TC's greatest works, look again where Schubert's Piano Sonata D960


It's good, but there isn't enough repetition--for one of the truly great sonata recordings, try Sviatoslav Richter playing D.894.


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## tdc

Allerius said:


> You said that Schubert's music is simple and repetitive compared to that of Mozart. My point is that this can be relativized depending on the perspective, because Mozart uses a lot of repeat signs in his music - what matters to me - *and is not so adventurous as Schubert in his modulations, as you acknowledge*.


I don't acknowledge this. I think Mozart was equally and likely more adventurous in this regard, often modulating to remote key areas with ease. Mozart's modulations were more brilliant. Schubert's major innovation in this regard is a simple modulation to the subdominant, an extremely common chord change. What makes this modulation innovative is that he did it in a sonata exposition, which has an effect of relaxation. The classical style demands tension to be created in an exposition, not relaxation, this is why this very basic modulation at this point in a sonata was avoided.

Often times innovations can be just very simple things, and they are often accomplished by lesser even forgotten composers. Remember there are many obscure composers of Italian opera that deserve much credit for the rhythmic approach of the classical era, and also the more lyrical approach of the Romantic.

The only thing I can agree with is that Schubert was a greater composer of lieder than Mozart.


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## Luchesi

tdc said:


> I don't acknowledge this. I think Mozart was equally and likely more adventurous in this regard, often modulating to remote key areas with ease. Mozart's modulations were more brilliant. Schubert's major innovation in this regard is a simple modulation to the subdominant, an extremely common chord change. What makes this modulation innovative is that he did it in a sonata exposition, which has an effect of relaxation. The classical style demands tension to be created in an exposition, not relaxation, this is why this very basic modulation at this point in a sonata was avoided.
> 
> Often times innovations can be just very simple things, and they are often accomplished by lesser even forgotten composers. Remember there are many obscure composers of Italian opera that deserve much credit for the rhythmic approach of the classical era, and also the more lyrical approach of the Romantic.
> 
> The only thing I can agree with is that Schubert was a greater composer of lieder than Mozart.


"The only thing I can agree with is that Schubert was a greater composer of lieder than Mozart."

That's it?
I don't think Mozart (or Haydn) could've composed the Klavierstücke D. 946 or the Wanderer Fantasy with their depths of pounding emotion. Mozart never did that, largely because the pianos weren't up to it. He (they) might've thought they were vulgar displays, too strident. We don't today. Schubert was ahead of them ..and for me, he's beyond their conceptions of expression. This is valuable.


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## EdwardBast

tdc said:


> I don't acknowledge this. I think Mozart was equally and likely more adventurous in this regard, often modulating to remote key areas with ease. Mozart's modulations were more brilliant. Schubert's major innovation in this regard is a simple modulation to the subdominant, an extremely common chord change. What makes this modulation innovative is that he did it in a sonata exposition, which has an effect of relaxation. The classical style demands tension to be created in an exposition, not relaxation, this is why this very basic modulation at this point in a sonata was avoided.
> 
> Often times innovations can be just very simple things, and they are often accomplished by lesser even forgotten composers. Remember there are many obscure composers of Italian opera that deserve much credit for the rhythmic approach of the classical era, and also the more lyrical approach of the Romantic.
> 
> The only thing I can agree with is that Schubert was a greater composer of lieder than Mozart.


I refrain from participating in this ridiculous composer-wars nonsense, but let's be kinder to the facts: How about F# minor (bVIb) as the second key theme of a sonata in B-flat major? Schubert did plenty of modulations Mozart wouldn't have dreamed of. Lots in the lieder too.


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## Larkenfield

The styles and personalities of Mozart and Schubert are so different that it does a great injustice to compare them beyond a certain point. They cannot be adequately compared except if one takes the heart out of both. Each clearly has his own reason for being and for Schubert it was his incredibly fertile imagination and gift for melody and song. He was not in competition with Mozart, and Beethoven thought highly of him without the need of comparing him with Mozart. Both were miracles in their own right and most people understand this without these academic and counterproductive comparisons that try to prove one wrong and the other right and entirely miss the point of each when many listeners enjoy both.

'During Beethoven's last illness, a collection of Schubert's songs was placed in his hands, and after examining them, he exclaimed: "Truly, Schubert possesses the divine fire." Schubert stood with many others for a long while around Beethoven's deathbed. The invalid was told the names of his visitors, and made feeble signs to them with his hands. Of Schubert he said: "Franz has my soul."'

https://www.wrti.org/post/whats-so-great-about-franz-schubert-gregg-whiteside-knows

'Liszt called Schubert "the most poetical musician that ever was." Schumann was equally complimentary, saying that "Schubert's pencil was dipped in moonbeams and in the flame of the sun."'

I can understand how they feel because music is more than an academic and intellectual exercise driven by a bunch of egos who want to objectively prove one right over the other when there are the intangibles of these composers that cannot be exactly weighed and measured.


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## tdc

Luchesi said:


> "The only thing I can agree with is that Schubert was a greater composer of lieder than Mozart."
> 
> That's it?
> I don't think Mozart (or Haydn) could've composed the Klavierstücke D. 946 or the Wanderer Fantasy with their depths of pounding emotion. Mozart never did that, largely because the pianos weren't up to it. He (they) might've thought they were vulgar displays, too strident. We don't today. Schubert was ahead of them ..and for me, he's beyond their conceptions of expression. This is valuable.


Schubert was ahead of them in terms of being born later and composing at a time when there were different approaches to music in the air based on the contributions of a number of different composers some major and some minor. This is how new styles gradually come into form. I don't see him as 'beyond their (Mozart's) conception of expression' as much as building off his work and the work of others. Yes he had his own valid and valuable contributions, as do all composers from the past we remember today, this is how music evolves.

If you prefer his aesthetic that is completely valid. It would be equally valid for me to prefer the conception of expression in Vivaldi or Lully.


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## tdc

EdwardBast said:


> I refrain from participating in this ridiculous composer-wars nonsense, but let's be kinder to the facts: How about F# minor (bVIb) as the second key theme of a sonata in B-flat major? Schubert did plenty of modulations Mozart wouldn't have dreamed of. Lots in the lieder too.


What does bVIb mean? A flat 6 flat? Anyway in Schubert's time modulation began to be used in different ways changing the dynamic of sonata form. I do know Mozart modulated to remote keys in a number of works, I haven't kept track of all of them.


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## Luchesi

tdc said:


> Schubert was ahead of them in terms of being born later and composing at a time when there were different approaches to music in the air based on the contributions of a number of different composers some major and some minor. This is how new styles gradually come into form. I don't see him as 'beyond their (Mozart's) conception of expression' as much as building off his work and the work of others. Yes he had his own valid and valuable contributions, as do all composers from the past we remember today, this is how music evolves.
> 
> If you prefer his aesthetic that is completely valid. It would be equally valid for me to prefer the conception of expression in Vivaldi or Lully.


"If you prefer his aesthetic that is completely valid. It would be equally valid for me to prefer the conception of expression in Vivaldi or Lully.'

Yes, if you're a pianist Mozart is Mozart, older - simpler sounds, but you look to Schubert and Chopin for the expressive, experimental new ideas. The miniatures are often full of the new, and the drama and cleverness packed into short forms.


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## EdwardBast

tdc said:


> What does bVIb mean? A flat 6 flat? Anyway in Schubert's time modulation began to be used in different ways changing the dynamic of sonata form. I do know Mozart modulated to remote keys in a number of works, I haven't kept track of all of them.


The designation bVI means a chord built on the flatted-6th degree in the major mode. The second flat, the one after VI, is figured-bass notation for flatting the third of the chord. So bVIb means a minor chord built on the flatted-6th degree. Since the work in question is the Piano Sonata in Bb, D 960, that means a minor chord built on Gb, Gb minor. Schubert, however, used the key of F# minor in notating the second theme because it's much easier and more practical than trying to do it with flats and double flats.

This particular example doesn't support the generalization that Schubert uses weaker, less tense secondary keys than his Classical Era forebears. Whichever way it is spelled, the move to bVIb is fraught with tension. It is a strong move.


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## trazom

tdc said:


> What does bVIb mean? A flat 6 flat? Anyway in Schubert's time modulation began to be used in different ways changing the dynamic of sonata form. *I do know Mozart modulated to remote keys in a number of works, I haven't kept track of all of them.*


The slow movements of two of his late violin sonata, k.481 and k.454, both contain some very striking enharmonic modulations. Also the first movement of the E major piano trio, k.542, because there is a lot of modulation just within the exposition.


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## hammeredklavier

Luchesi said:


> Yes, if you're a pianist Mozart is Mozart, older - simpler sounds, but you look to Schubert and Chopin for the expressive, experimental new ideas. The miniatures are often full of the new, and the drama and cleverness packed into short forms.


Stop overrating the new-age master. Chopin sounds boring if you're used to classicism and baroque. I'm a piano player too, after getting to know Hummel piano concertos and etudes, I'm finding Chopin a little overrated. There are some ok moments like the 4th Ballade. But a lot of his output feels new-agey and dumb to me. Listen to the spammy middle sections of Op.53, Op.44, Op.48 No.1, or the last movement of Sonata Op.35 where both hands play in unison all the way. Mozart or Haydn would never have written something so boring. A lot of his preludes are boring too. 14th, 18th, 21th are too full of sections with both hands going in unison. I find the constant rhythm of the last D minor (24th) boring and annoying as well. He's the true Yiruma of classical music.


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## Larkenfield

Then for a little perspective there's always _this_ guy. He sounds as mad as a Hatter but in a good way:


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## hammeredklavier

Luchesi said:


> "The only thing I can agree with is that Schubert was a greater composer of lieder than Mozart."
> That's it?
> I don't think Mozart (or Haydn) could've composed the Klavierstücke D. 946 or the Wanderer Fantasy with their depths of pounding emotion. Mozart never did that, largely because the pianos weren't up to it. He (they) might've thought they were vulgar displays, too strident. We don't today. Schubert was ahead of them ..and for me, he's beyond their conceptions of expression. This is valuable.







_"Written between May and June 1785, Mozart C minor Fantasy KV 475 is a perfect illustration example of what Brahms had in mind when proclaiming Mozart as "a fellow modernist."Extremely controversial, generating doubts and questions from the very first measure, musical ideas far ahead of their time make the adventure of exploring this piece with performance purposes one of the most exciting... The very first intriguing aspect we encounter is the non-establishment of any specific tonality..." Through the Fantasy's musical discourse, the confirmation of C minor as the main key is held until the end of the piece, justifying the term "musical plot"; the "mystery" will be solved only at the end, like in his operas."_






Schubert never achieved anything like Mozart K394, K475, K511, K608 either. How do I know this? Because there are a number of weak pastische of Mozart in Schubert. Like the 5th symphony, which is a weak pastiche of Mozart's 40th. As well, Fantasia in C Minor, D.993, which is of Mozart Fantasie in C minor K475. After trying to achieve the mastery of Mozart, Schubert resorted to vamps and padding. Good thing you mention the Wanderer Fantasy - it's full of them.






It's quite telling that Philip Glass considered Schubert his idol.

_"I was fascinated to hear Philip Glass, a pioneer of Minimalism, single out Schubert as a crucial influence on his own music."_
https://books.google.ca/books?id=0LhMDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA192


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> I refrain from participating in this ridiculous composer-wars nonsense, but let's be kinder to the facts:





EdwardBast said:


> Yes, he was a great tune smith. That isn't the same as being a great melodist. If the OP had asked if Schubert wrote better vocal style, periodic melodies in a limited range, the answer would be an easy yes. Melodist is a much broader category. It includes the ability to write good fugue subjects, sonata themes, melodies that exploit the full range of the piano keyboard, themes with dramatic internal contrasts, obligato countermelodies, and many other styles of writing. Beethoven excelled at all of them. Schubert didn't.


What irony, Mr. EdwardBast. in the Beethoven vs Schubert thread, I still remember you desperately defending Beethoven's melodic abilities by diminishing Schubert as a mere _"tune smith"_, claiming that a _"tune smith"_ is something different from a _"great melodist"_ and that Schubert is not even a _"great melodist"_. You said that Beethoven excelled at all areas, while Schubert did not. But when it comes to Mozart vs Schubert, somehow Schubert is not a mere _"tune smith"_, according to you?



EdwardBast said:


> How about F# minor (bVIb) as the second key theme of a sonata in B-flat major?


Wow, that is really impressive.  But remember how often JS Bach uses a tonic pedal and a picardy third to end in tonic major in his fugues? Is that a bad thing in the context of his music? I don't think so. This strict adherence to form is what defines baroque and classicism in my view. I know some people find the symmetric phrasing and cadences of classicism unappealing. But they're one of many elements that appeal to me. It is as if they're constantly telling me the "focus" is not "modern cheapness" (new-age, minimalism, film-music, etc), when I listen to the 18th century masters.






No matter how hard Luchesi tries to pass off Chopin as objectively superior to Mozart, he'll never convince me because Chopin sounds new-agey to me. And conversely, I respect preferences of other people who don't like features of 18th century music. 
Mozart wasn't always stubborn with the tonic-dominant rule or the minor-relative major rule in his sonata forms. In the first movement of Mozart's G minor Quintet stays in G minor in the second theme. Schubert was just following the tradition of "doing new things" after the classical predecessors. I don't think it's that big of a deal honestly.

I also remember you saying skills of part-writing are a big part of what makes harmony:



EdwardBast said:


> "Harmonist" isn't a meaningful category for me because harmony can't be abstracted out from melody, voice-leading, counterpoint and rhythm. IMO, it is the least independent parameter of common practice music, which makes this a particularly silly exercise.


What do you think of Schubert's capabilities of part-writing compared to Mozart's, in the masses (D167, K192) I posted previously #114. I think it's a good point for comparison because the works are similar in form and size and the composers wrote them at the same age.


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## Larkenfield

hammeredklavier said:


> It's quite telling that Philip Glass considered Schubert his idol.
> 
> _"I was fascinated to hear Philip Glass, a pioneer of Minimalism, single out Schubert as a crucial influence on his own music."_
> https://books.google.ca/books?id=0LhMDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA192


That Philip Glass was influenced in the negative, you mean. Just one more example where you are unable to give credit to Schubert for anything though he continues to be played by and interest the world's top orchestras and musicians. You have no answer to that and most likely never will. How could you or anyone possibly understand anything about him when all you're interested in is looking for weaknesses and pastiches and cannot acknowledge his lyrical and harmonic genius and what is highly individual and unmistakably unique in personality in those works. His unique style is unmistakable and Schubert's individuality is stronger than Mozart's in many instances because Mozart is limited by the conservative constraints of the classical style and he sometimes lamented about what he _wished_ he could do. You're missing everything in Schubert but his influences and apparently haven't the ears to hear his unique voice and highly individual harmonic style that he's known for. He often exceeds Mozart in warmth, poetry and personality though Mozart was a superior craftsman. But it doesn't matter because people love Schubert's inspired warmth and lyricism anyway and there's nothing that the repeatedly redundant critics will ever be able to about that but complain to little or no avail. I've never seen such unbalanced music criticism except with David Wright who's even worse. Unless you can come up with the answer to why Schubert has been played and continues to be played by the world's top musicians despite his shortcomings according to you, you have nothing. They clearly hear and value something that you have entirely missed.


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## Enthusiast

One of the things I have learned while participating on this site has been that there is a close correlation between obsessive behaviour and an inability to experience the miracle of Schubert's music. It has been terminal in some cases.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> Stop overrating the new-age master. Chopin sounds new-agey... boring if you're used to classicism and baroque. There are some ok moments... But a lot of his output feels new-agey and dumb... spammy... Mozart or Haydn would never have written something so boring. A lot of his preludes are boring too...boring and annoying...He's the true Yiruma of classical music.
> 
> Stravinsky strikes me as a really good 20th century film score composer. (a lot of interesting sound effects)


I just thought it might help us accept the depressing realization that Schubert is not the poetic genius we thought he was to remember that Chopin and Stravinsky were crap composers too.


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## Luchesi

hammeredklavier said:


> Stop overrating the new-age master. Chopin sounds boring if you're used to classicism and baroque. I'm a piano player too, after getting to know Hummel piano concertos and etudes, I'm finding Chopin a little overrated. There are some ok moments like the 4th Ballade. But a lot of his output feels new-agey and dumb to me. Listen to the spammy middle sections of Op.53, Op.44, Op.48 No.1, or the last movement of Sonata Op.35 where both hands play in unison all the way. Mozart or Haydn would never have written something so boring. A lot of his preludes are boring too. 14th, 18th, 21th are too full of sections with both hands going in unison. I find the constant rhythm of the last D minor (24th) boring and annoying as well. He's the true Yiruma of classical music.


I wonder what you get out of music. (You nitpick as if there was a better way.) I appreciate the classicism of Hummel and Mozart and Haydn. I've played through all the Mozart and Haydn sonatas, and over the years I always go back to the better ones.

Don't you eventually want to move on a few decades? It's a new world of expression and it begins to address the issues of the modern mind. This alone makes it fascinating because it's only the beginning. In technical terms, I want to know how they extended and then surpassed the mindset of the classicists. The Baroque mindset in turn was also transcended by the composing techniques and dramatic ideas of the classicists.

Mozart was a supernova and it's difficult to see the big picture of the progression since he was a bright supernova.


----------



## Luchesi

Larkenfield said:


> The styles and personalities of Mozart and Schubert are so different that it does a great injustice to compare them beyond a certain point. They cannot be adequately compared except if one takes the heart out of both. Each clearly has his own reason for being and for Schubert it was his incredibly fertile imagination and gift for melody and song. He was not in competition with Mozart, and Beethoven thought highly of him without the need of comparing him with Mozart. Both were miracles in their own right and most people understand this without these academic and counterproductive comparisons that try to prove one wrong and the other right and entirely miss the point of each when many listeners enjoy both.
> 
> 'During Beethoven's last illness, a collection of Schubert's songs was placed in his hands, and after examining them, he exclaimed: "Truly, Schubert possesses the divine fire." Schubert stood with many others for a long while around Beethoven's deathbed. The invalid was told the names of his visitors, and made feeble signs to them with his hands. Of Schubert he said: "Franz has my soul."'
> 
> https://www.wrti.org/post/whats-so-great-about-franz-schubert-gregg-whiteside-knows
> 
> 'Liszt called Schubert "the most poetical musician that ever was." Schumann was equally complimentary, saying that "Schubert's pencil was dipped in moonbeams and in the flame of the sun."'
> 
> I can understand how they feel because music is more than an academic and intellectual exercise driven by a bunch of egos who want to objectively prove one right over the other when there are the intangibles of these composers that cannot be exactly weighed and measured.


I've noticed in a spreadsheet that the last years of Bach were about 40 years before the last years of Mozart.

...the last years of Mozart were about 40 years before the last years of Schubert.

...the last years of Chopin were about 40 years before the last years of Brahms.

40 years is a long time for people who have devoted their lives to creating works of art. Human outlooks progress by leaps and plateaus and then more leaps.


----------



## Luchesi

This is late Schubert (1828). Bending some rules. Soaring effects. Excellent writing.


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> This is late Schubert (1828). Bending some rules. Soaring effects. Excellent writing.


What rules are bent? It all sounds textbook. Nothing unusual.


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> What rules are bent? It all sounds textbook. Nothing unusual.


I meant bending the rules of good taste.


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> I meant bending the rules of good taste.


Was the shepherd doing something unseemly on the rock?


----------



## hammeredklavier

Woodduck said:


> and Stravinsky were crap composers too.


I don't think he was crap. He did have a wide variety of techniques and skills. It's just that there's a lot of people in various communities pretending like the Rite of Spring was the second Tristan und Isolde and I don't agree with them.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Luchesi said:


> I wonder what you get out of music. (You nitpick as if there was a better way.) I appreciate the classicism of Hummel and Mozart and Haydn. I've played through all the Mozart and Haydn sonatas, and over the years I always go back to the better ones.
> 
> Don't you eventually want to move on a few decades? It's a new world of expression and it begins to address the issues of the modern mind. This alone makes it fascinating because it's only the beginning. In technical terms, I want to know how they extended and then surpassed the mindset of the classicists. The Baroque mindset in turn was also transcended by the composing techniques and dramatic ideas of the classicists.


By your logic, Chopin and Schubert are irrelevant to our age because he was "transcended" by Scriabin, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff. What's the whole point of classical music appreciation? Why don't we just listen to contemporary music composed in this year 2019 only?



Luchesi said:


> I've noticed in a spreadsheet that the last years of Bach were about 40 years before the last years of Mozart.
> 40 years is a long time for people who have devoted their lives to creating works of art. Human outlooks progress by leaps and plateaus and then more leaps.


Hummel piano concertos actually predate Chopin's only by 15 years. :tiphat: And I prefer Mendelssohn over Chopin and Schubert. I prefer Songs Without Words over the endless tah-dah-dahs of Chopin Mazurkas and Waltzes. I don't think anything in Chopin and Schubert beats Mendelssohn's violin concerto and final string quartet.
You're free to decide what your "best stuff" is. I'm free to decide mine. 
I find your posts dictating what works as "emotional depth" for everyone presumptuous. 
Your nonsense about how _"Chopin is more relevant to us than Mozart"_ comes off as _"Yiruma and Yuhki Kuramoto are more relevant to us than classical music"_ to me.


----------



## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> I don't think he was crap. He did have a wide variety of techniques and skills. It's just that there's a lot of people in various communities pretending like the Rite of Spring was the second Tristan und Isolde and I don't agree with them.


What "lot of people" said that? I don't remember it. And what if someone _had_ said it? How does someone's possible overestimation of one piece of music lead you to say that Stravinsky strikes you as "a really good 20th century film score composer (a lot of interesting sound effects)"?

These obsessive put-downs of major composers and beloved pieces of music are getting really tiresome. There's so much hyperbole, inaccuracy, arrogance and outright craziness in your musical opinions that they, and you, cannot be taken seriously. Your unwillingness to admit that you have musical blind spots - we all do, by the way - has made you a chronic sower of discord and spoiler of conversation.

Nobody cares any more - if anyone ever did - what you dislike and can't appreciate. What you are doing, in post after post, is perilously close to trolling. It's time for a time out and some serious thought about how to make a positive contribution to a discussion of music. That need not mean one devoid of carefully considered criticism, but it MUST not mean one in which the judgments of other musically knowledgeable and devoted listeners are treated with contempt simply because you are incapable of sharing in them.

Schubert, Chopin and Stravinsky are important composers of important music, whether you can share others' love of their work or not. You are not the final judge here. Get over yourself.


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> In technical terms, I want to know how they extended and then surpassed the mindset of the classicists. The Baroque mindset in turn was also transcended by the composing techniques and dramatic ideas of the classicists.
> 
> Mozart was a supernova and it's difficult to see the big picture of the progression since he was a bright supernova.


What do you mean by "surpassed" and "transcended"? Are you resurrecting - or perpetuating - the idea of "progress" in art?


----------



## tdc

Luchesi said:


> Human outlooks progress by leaps and plateaus and then more leaps.


I'm not sure human outlooks 'progress' necessarily. Look at the astounding achievements of earlier composers, look at the brilliant minds of the Renaissance. Look at the ruins of the pyramids. Do you really think outlooks have progressed so much? One could argue there is compelling evidence of humanity getting steadily dumber, and 'progressing' now in a negative way.


----------



## Luchesi

hammeredklavier said:


> By your logic, Chopin and Schubert are irrelevant to our age because he was "transcended" by Scriabin, Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninoff. What's the whole point of classical music appreciation? Why don't we just listen to contemporary music composed in this year 2019 only?
> 
> Hummel piano concertos actually predate Chopin's only by 15 years. :tiphat: And I prefer Mendelssohn over Chopin and Schubert. I prefer Songs Without Words over the endless tah-dah-dahs of Chopin Mazurkas and Waltzes. I don't think anything in Chopin and Schubert beats Mendelssohn's violin concerto and final string quartet.
> You're free to decide what your "best stuff" is. I'm free to decide mine.
> I find your posts dictating what works as "emotional depth" for everyone presumptuous.
> Your nonsense about how _"Chopin is more relevant to us than Mozart"_ comes off as _"Yiruma and Yuhki Kuramoto are more relevant to us than classical music"_ to me.


Was JC Bach irrelevant because of Mozart? Some folks at the time probably thought so. But Schubert and Chopin were speaking to a new audience.


----------



## Luchesi

tdc said:


> I'm not sure human outlooks 'progress' necessarily. Look at the astounding achievements of earlier composers, look at the brilliant minds of the Renaissance. Look at the ruins of the pyramids. Do you really think outlooks have progressed so much? One could argue there is compelling evidence of humanity getting steadily dumber, and 'progressing' now in a negative way.


I know I've gone backwards because of all the modern distractions. I grew up before the internet and I had good listening and study habits compared to recently. I remember those years and today people spend their time differently, but there's only the same 24 hours minus sleeping. With all the superficial messaging, googling and social small talk, can they ever catch up?

But I wasn't talking about individuals.


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> What do you mean by "surpassed" and "transcended"? Are you resurrecting - or perpetuating - the idea of "progress" in art?


That's a deep subject..

"I have a truly marvelous demonstration of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain."
Pierre de Fermat

I think art progresses because human comprehension progresses. Humans make discoveries and share discoveries.


----------



## KenOC

Luchesi said:


> I think art progresses because human comprehension progresses. Humans make discoveries and share discoveries.


Is that why today's composers are so superior to Bach? No, I think more discussion of "advancements" in art is needed.


----------



## hammeredklavier

Luchesi said:


> Was JC Bach irrelevant because of Mozart? Some folks at the time probably thought so. But Schubert and Chopin were speaking to a new audience.


_"JC Bach irrelevant because of Mozart"_: I never go around saying things like this, unlike you. You're the one who keeps going around saying "Chopin = Musical God who surpassed everyone before him." 
You answer my question first: "By following your logic, wasn't Chopin surpassed by Rachmaninoff?"



Woodduck said:


> Nobody cares any more - if anyone ever did - what you dislike and can't appreciate. What you are doing, in post after post, is perilously close to trolling. It's time for a time out and some serious thought about how to make a positive contribution to a discussion of music.


I'll try to refrain. But let's not pretend other people are innocent. Remember, Luchesi also has history of bashing Mozart sonatas about their artistry and performance difficulty in a thread irrelevant to the subject and going on for pages even though I advised him to stop.


----------



## Luchesi

KenOC said:


> Is that why today's composers are so superior to Bach? No, I think more discussion of "advancements" in art is needed.


Their outlooks are superior. We can discuss that.


----------



## Luchesi

hammeredklavier said:


> _"JC Bach irrelevant because of Mozart"_: I never go around saying things like this, unlike you. You're the one who keeps going around saying "Chopin = Musical God who surpassed everyone before him."
> You answer my question first: "By following your logic, wasn't Chopin surpassed by Rachmaninoff?"


Unlike you, a composer understands that he can further the development of the art, otherwise why would he put in the effort?


----------



## Luchesi

hammeredklavier said:


> _"JC Bach irrelevant because of Mozart"_: I never go around saying things like this, unlike you. You're the one who keeps going around saying "Chopin = Musical God who surpassed everyone before him."
> You answer my question first: "By following your logic, wasn't Chopin surpassed by Rachmaninoff?"
> 
> I'll try to refrain. But let's not pretend other people are innocent. Remember, Luchesi also has history of bashing Mozart sonatas about their artistry and performance difficulty in a thread irrelevant to the subject and going on for pages even though I advised him to stop.


The Mozart's sonatas are teaching pieces, in addition to everything else that they are. I didn't bash them.

It was in the headlines. Why do obvious lies make great propaganda?


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> Their outlooks are superior. We can discuss that.


I believe we're speaking of progress in art, not in people's "outlooks." Anyway, how do you know what Scelsi's or Lachenmann's or Kurtag's "outlook" is, and how "superior" it is to Josquin's or Monteverdi's or Debussy's? When you listen to Schoenberg's _Erwartung_ or Poulenc's _Les Mamelles de Tiresias,_ what "outlook" do you detect in them that's "superior" to the "outlook" expressed in _Les Nozze di Figaro?_ or _Lohengrin?_ Are the violin concertos of Adams, Glass or Gubaidulina superior to those of Bach, Beethoven or Sibelius, either aesthetically or in the "outlook" they represent?

There is progress in knowledge, but you might have a hard time demonstrating that that leads to either greater wisdom or better music.


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> I believe we're speaking of progress in art, not in people's "outlooks." Anyway, how do you know what Scelsi's or Lachenmann's or Kurtag's "outlook" is, and how "superior" it is to Josquin's or Monteverdi's or Debussy's? When you listen to Schoenberg's _Erwartung_ or Poulenc's _Les Mamelles de Tiresias,_ what "outlook" do you detect in them that's "superior" to the "outlook" expressed in _Les Nozze di Figaro_ or _Lohengrin?_
> 
> There is progress in knowledge, but you might have a hard time demonstrating that that leads to either greater wisdom or better music.


Ask each group what they know and how they know it.
Our outlooks affect everything we do, including art and expression and appreciation.


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> Ask each group what they know and how they know it.
> Our outlooks affect everything we do, including art and expression and appreciation.


That's an evasion. "Affect" - sure. Whether positively, negatively, or neutrally, is another matter.


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> That's an evasion. "Affect" - sure. Whether positively, negatively, or neutrally, is another matter.


It's more objective. I'm thinking that the findings of evolutionary psychology indicate that the harmony of Chopin is more effective than the harmony of Mozart's time. The harmonies alone, not what he did with them.


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> It's more objective. I'm thinking that the findings of evolutionary psychology indicate that the harmony of Chopin is more effective than the harmony of Mozart's time. The harmonies alone, not what he did with them.


What do you mean "effective"? Effective at doing what? What does evolutionary psychology have to say about harmony?

Chopin did some things harmonically that Mozart didn't do. Wagner did some things that Chopin didn't do. Stravinsky did some things that Wagner didn't do. Consequently, these composers expressed different qualities of feeling, qualities not expressed before. But did they all make better music than their predecessors? I'm still not seeing your point.


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> What do you mean "effective"? Effective at doing what? What does evolutionary psychology have to say about harmony?
> 
> Chopin did some things harmonically that Mozart didn't do. Wagner did some things that Chopin didn't do. Stravinsky did some things that Wagner didn't do. Consequently, these composers expressed different qualities of feeling, qualities not expressed before. But did they all make better music than their predecessors? I'm still not seeing your point.


Evolutionary psychology gives us the tools we need to explore the effectiveness of harmonies and forms and rhythms. How it all works.


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> Evolutionary psychology gives us the tools we need to explore the effectiveness of harmonies and forms and rhythms. How it all works.


Really? Are any evolutionary psychologists exploring the effectiveness of harmonies and forms and rhythms, or offering theories of how it all works?

I'm trying to figure out what, in later music, causes it - in your words - to "surpass" earlier music. Do new ideas - of forms, harmonies, etc. - make music better, or just different? Is the choral music of Brahms or Verdi better than that of Josquin des Prez because it contains forms, harmonies, etc. that no one thought of in 1500?


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> Really? Are any evolutionary psychologists exploring the effectiveness of harmonies and forms and rhythms, or offering theories of how it all works?
> 
> I'm trying to figure out what, in later music, causes it - in your words - to "surpass" earlier music. Do new ideas - of forms, harmonies, etc. - make music better, or just different? Is the choral music of Brahms or Verdi better than that of Josquin des Prez because it contains forms, harmonies, etc. that no one thought of in 1500?


There are many ideas by different scientists and some are far out, to me.

None of this is interesting to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_musicology

We can look at it in the opposite direction. What would the Brahm's Requiem do to the audiences of Josquin des Prez? I don't think it would be effective for appreciation back then. I think it would be offputting, too complex, "too big". Again this involves the outlook of the people and harmonies up until their time, but it bears out the idea that there's something objective going on. The survival history of our species affects everything we receive.


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> What would the Brahm's Requiem do to the audiences of Josquin des Prez? I don't think it would be effective for appreciation back then. I think it would be offputting, too complex, "too big". Again this involves the outlook of the people and harmonies up until their time, but it bears out the idea that there's something objective going on. The survival history of our species affects everything we receive.


Isn't this question unanswerable? "Offputting," "too complex," "too big" - that says nothing, really. Brahms would sound different and strange to Josquin. That's all we can confidently say. You haven't shown any relationship between changes in artistic style and "survival history," whatever you mean by that, and you're still ignoring the question of how later art "surpasses" earlier art.


----------



## Mandryka

Luchesi said:


> What would the Brahm's Requiem do to the audiences of Josquin des Prez? I don't think it would be effective for appreciation back then. I think it would be offputting, too complex,


I think you should listen again to the Josquin Stabat Mater or the Miserere.



Luchesi said:


> "too big".


There were pieces bigger than the Brahms requiem -- a John Taverner mass, for example, like Missa Maria Zart.


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> Isn't this question unanswerable? "Offputting," "too complex," "too big" - that says nothing, really. Brahms would sound different and strange to Josquin. That's all we can confidently say. You haven't shown any relationship between changes in artistic style and "survival history," whatever you mean by that, and you're still ignoring the question of how later art "surpasses" earlier art.


You'll find answers here.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?...+articles&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

It's a larger subject than music. I can't teach it in these small posts, even if I had time..


----------



## Luchesi

Mandryka said:


> I think you should listen again to the Josquin Stabat Mater or the Miserere.
> 
> There were pieces bigger than the Brahms requiem -- a John Taverner mass, for example, like Missa Maria Zart.


Bigger in sound texture/orchestration, not longer.


----------



## tdc

Luchesi said:


> It's more objective. I'm thinking that the findings of evolutionary psychology indicate that the harmony of Chopin is more effective than the harmony of Mozart's time. The harmonies alone, not what he did with them.


If you are talking about 'the harmonies alone, not what he did with them.' What harmonies are there in Chopin that are not in Bach?

Whatever science you are quoting from, it sounds pretty questionable. Particularly since you seem unable to give even a vague indication as to what these harmonies are 'more effective' at.


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> You'll find answers here.
> 
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?...+articles&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
> 
> It's a larger subject than music. I can't teach it in these small posts, even if I had time..


You seem to have plenty of time to make remarks you can't defend. My guess is that you have nothing to "teach," regardless of the length of the posts.


----------



## Luchesi

tdc said:


> If you are talking about 'the harmonies alone, not what he did with them.' What harmonies are there in Chopin that are not in Bach?
> 
> Whatever science you are quoting from, it sounds pretty questionable. Particularly since you seem unable to give even a vague indication as to what these harmonies are 'more effective' at.


Well, read the papers yourself. Maybe you can falsify the science.


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> You seem to have plenty of time to make remarks you can't defend. My guess is that you have nothing to "teach," regardless of the length of the posts.


Are you frustrated because there's so much to read? It's a subject which encompasses all of art, and other subjects like war and racism and religion and altruism etc.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?...ary+psychology+scholarly+articles+music&btnG=


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> Are you frustrated because there's so much to read? It's a subject which encompasses all of art, and other subjects like war and racism and religion and altruism etc.
> 
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?...ary+psychology+scholarly+articles+music&btnG=


Why should anyone read anything on the basis of your empty assertions? If you have nothing to offer on a subject, just bow out gracefully.


----------



## Dimace

I will vote for Mozart! Late Symphonies and the Requiem are enough to win the battle with his great compatriot.


----------



## Luchesi

Woodduck said:


> Why should anyone read anything on the basis of your empty assertions? If you have nothing to offer on a subject, just bow out gracefully.


You seemed interested in the concept. I googled it for you. I'm not going to digest it all and teach it to you. You will need background in evolutionary science.


----------



## millionrainbows

Luchesi said:


> You seemed interested in the concept. I googled it for you. I'm not going to digest it all and teach it to you. You will need background in evolutionary science.


He just wants you to go away. He's not interested in discussing anything with you. He does the same thing to others.

I'm voting for late Mozart. I just love these comparison threads, don't you?


----------



## millionrainbows

Luchesi said:


> It's more objective. I'm thinking that the findings of evolutionary psychology indicate that the harmony of Chopin is more effective than the harmony of Mozart's time. The harmonies alone, not what he did with them.


I agree completely, as I also believe that music "evolved" as it progressed through time. "The harmonies alone" is a big generalization, which includes the expanded index of "feelings" and emotional reactions we get when listening to music which is more advanced harmonically than Mozart's rather pedestrian diatonic excursions. Mozart is great for other reasons, none of them harmonic.
These critics are afraid of applying any objective criteria to their precious subjective, "magical" world of emotional responses to art.


----------



## Bwv 1080

Luchesi said:


> Well, read the papers yourself. Maybe you can falsify the science.


Science is a generous term there,


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> He just wants you to go away. *He's not interested in discussing* anything with you. He does the same thing to others.


It would pay you - and spare everyone else - if you would investigate a situation before you butt in. The fact is, I have been asking Luchesi to discuss - yes, millionrainbows, DISCUSS - the ideas he's alluding to since post #176, and he's been evading my every request for explanations and telling me to go read about whatever it is he's refusing to talk about, saying that he doesn't have time to be bothered.

When people drop assertions into the midst of a discussion, I ask only that they clarify or justify them. I don't expect to be sent to the library to do research. I do not want Luchesi to "go away." Reasonable?


----------



## millionrainbows

Bwv 1080 said:


> Science is a generous term there,


Which is a perfectly converse reply, as the idea of art and its parameters have just as effectively been shrunken by a miserly attitude.


----------



## millionrainbows

Woodduck said:


> It would pay you - and spare everyone else - if you would investigate a situation before you butt in. The fact is, I have been asking Luchesi to discuss - yes, millionrainbows, DISCUSS - the ideas he's alluding to since post #176, and he's been evading my every request for explanations and telling me to go read about whatever it is he's refusing to talk about, saying that he doesn't have time to be bothered.
> 
> When people drop assertions into the midst of a discussion, I ask only that they clarify or justify them. I don't expect to be sent to the library to do research. I do not want Luchesi to "go away." Reasonable?


Okay; it's just that some of these replies might be easily misinterpreted as being needlessly mean-spirited. I have the greatest respect for your formidable knowledge.

"Butting in" is a good strategy. It's like swooping-in unexpectedly, and catching people with their defenses down, letting their true colors show. Then the "guest" arrives, and everybody feels compelled to "act right" and cease the family feud.


----------



## Woodduck

Luchesi said:


> You seemed interested in the concept. I googled it for you. I'm not going to digest it all and teach it to you. You will need background in evolutionary science.


I merely asked you a few questions. I'm not interested in doing independent research into some subject the relevance of which is not even established. You don't "have the time" to be responsive, yet you do "have the time" to hang out and repeatedly put off inquiries into your assertions?

One begins to suspect that there's no there there.


----------



## millionrainbows

Generally speaking, no research is needed. Most "modernists" like me agree that music and art "evolved" as it progressed through history; most "traditionalists" reject this idea.


----------



## tdc

millionrainbows said:


> Generally speaking, no research is needed. Most "modernists" like me agree that music and art "evolved" as it progressed through history; most "traditionalists" reject this idea.


It evolves to a degree, but it will inevitably lose some attributes as it takes on others. It cannot be everything at once. If it really evolved in the sense you are suggesting the harmonies Luchesi referred to as more 'effective' would be ubiquitous in all new music rendering all old styles obsolete. It would then at a certain point likely become completely static unable to be improved on.

But obviously art does not progress this way. As Beethoven said "Art demands from us, always something new."


----------



## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> Generally speaking, no research is needed. Most "modernists" like me agree that music and art "evolved" as it progressed through history; most "traditionalists" reject this idea.


As tdc says, everything depends on the meaning of "evolve." What idea, exactly, do these putative "traditionalists" reject?


----------



## DaveM

There are variations in the meaning of the word ‘evolve’. As someone who I’m sure is labeled as a traditionalist, I would be willing to agree that in the 20th century CM evolved insofar as it changed into something else and, to some extent, became more complex. But evolving doesn’t always infer changing for the better. Without getting into the same old discussion we’ve had before, I’ll just say that this traditionalist was quite happy with the evolution of CM over 350 years, but was dismayed to see it then, in the last century, splinter into several categories, some so obscure that they have removed melody, harmony and have little in the way of structure so as to be unrecognizable from any CM that preceded them.


----------



## Woodduck

DaveM said:


> There are variations in the meaning of the word 'evolve'. As someone who I'm sure is labeled as a traditionalist, I would be willing to agree that in the 20th century CM evolved insofar as it changed into something else and, to some extent, became more complex. But evolving doesn't always infer changing for the better. Without getting into the same old discussion we've had before, I'll just say that this traditionalist was quite happy with the evolution of CM over 350 years, but was dismayed to see it then, in the last century, splinter into several categories, some so obscure that they have removed melody, harmony and little in the way of structure so as to be unrecognizable from any CM that preceded it.


What? You don't understand that the grand principle of evolution, eternally working its teleological wisdom, brought us from this






to this?






If this proof of the ineluctable advance in mankind's spiritual comprehension doesn't fill you with joy, you just haven't read enough in evolutionary psychology. Or so we've been told.


----------



## hammeredklavier

millionrainbows said:


> Generally speaking, no research is needed. Most "modernists" like me agree that music and art "evolved" as it progressed through history; most "traditionalists" reject this idea.


Even if an argument be made "Romanticism extended music from Classicism", it's someone like Wagner who should be getting the praise. 
As I said, I find a lot of Chopin dumb and lazy. He reminds me of the undisplined-ness of Satie. Sure he did know how to "write for the piano", but his understanding of writing actual musical content in terms of harmony and part-writing is far lower than that of Mozart. Mozart is so much more skillful and inspirational in this regard.
Prelude in C K394:












As I said before, in Chopin, the mentality is "when in doubt what to write for the lefthand, just write both hands in unison all the way." It's boring and unimaginative in my view. No sense of balance whatsoever. Just listen to the middle sections of Polonaises Op.44 and Op.53, and Nocturne Op.48 No.1.


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## hammeredklavier

I have not realized until recently Luchesi has had this level of blind cultism for Chopin.
Since he doesn't answer my question "Was Chopin surpassed by Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Scriabin?", 
and he even said something to the effect once that Schumann was too little a musical mind to understand Chopin:



Luchesi said:


> Did Schumann even understand all of Beethoven?
> As you know, you can't appreciate Op61 unless you've memorized it and made it your own. Chopin's mind was at an end.


Can we assume he's essentially saying:

1. Chopin surpassed all composers before him 
2. No contemporaries of Chopin surpassed him
3. No composes after Chopin surpassed him

I remember writing about the Chopin cultists once. I have to say Luchesi is one of the worst I've ever met.



hammeredklavier said:


> A few months ago, TwoSetViolin (a massive fan-based youtube channel run by two Asian guys who study violin to be classical musicians in Australia) uploaded a video wherein they discussed and ranked major classical composers based on their greatness by alphabetical letters, S, A, B, C, D.. In the video, the guys first ranked Chopin at C, and later moved him to B.
> The comment section was completely full of angry comments, "how could you rank Chopin so low?" Eventually, TwoSetViolin had to take down the video. They ranked Paganini at D, but nobody complained about that.
> 
> Sorry I just can't take the general Chopin fandom seriously anymore. I'm amazed whenever I talk with those people:
> Casual piano players who think the piano is the best instrument and think that Chopin is actually a Wagner-tier composer.
> People who just came to know classical music through anime, thinking that Chopin Ballade No.1 in G minor is the best stuff there is, etc.
> (I do not mean the kind of knowledgeable Chopin admirers we have here on TC)
> 
> I remember reading David C F Wright's essay on Chopin and getting upset a long time ago. I was upset because back then, I did not think this negatively about the general Chopin fandom. Nowadays I understand why Wright wrote the way he did.
> Just look what's going on in the general classical music community. Johann Strauss II is regarded as "not being a serious composer" for writing Wo die Zitronen blühn op. 364. Chopin is regarded as the "Poet of the Piano" for writing Waltz in C sharp minor Op.64 No.2.


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## hammeredklavier

Instead of looking at random science papers that have nothing to do with Chopin whatsoever, why don't we look at things actual great masters through history have said about him:

_"A composer for one right hand"_
-Richard Wagner
https://books.google.ca/books?id=TgZADwAAQBAJ&pg=PT109

https://books.google.ca/books?id=OYo7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA34
_"In Schumann's other writings about Chopin that exist from 1836 through 1842, there is a good deal of positive feedback, although one will likely glean that Schumann was disappointed that there was not more significant development or innovation. In fact, he said more than once that Chopin's work was instantly recognizable because it was all so similar. He acknowledged Chopin's original showing as fabulous, and worried that it was too much for him to be more than that. "When he has given you a whole succession of the rarest creations, and you understand him more easily, do you suddenly demand something different? This is like chopping down your pomegranate tree because it produces, year after year, nothing but pomegranates." And furthermore: "We fear he will never achieve a level higher than that he has already reached. . . . With his abilities he could have achieved far more, influencing the progress of our art as a whole."_

_"Chopin's mazurkas are 'so mannered they are hard to stand'"_
-Felix Mendelssohn
https://www.jstor.org/stable/936166?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

_"A sickroom talent"_
-John Field


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## Larkenfield

hammeredklavier said:


> Instead of looking at random science papers that have nothing to do with Chopin whatsoever, why don't we look at actual things great masters through history have said about him:
> 
> _"A composer for one right hand"_
> -Richard Wagner
> https://books.google.ca/books?id=TgZADwAAQBAJ&pg=PT109
> 
> https://books.google.ca/books?id=OYo7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA34
> _"In Schumann's other writings about Chopin that exist from 1836 through 1842, there is a good deal of positive feedback, although one will likely glean that Schumann was disappointed that there was not more significant development or innovation. In fact, he said more than once that Chopin's work was instantly recognizable because it was all so similar. He acknowledged Chopin's original showing as fabulous, and worried that it was too much for him to be more than that. "When he has given you a whole succession of the rarest creations, and you understand him more easily, do you suddenly demand something different? This is like chopping down your pomegranate tree because it produces, year after year, nothing but pomegranates." And furthermore: "We fear he will never achieve a level higher than that he has already reached. . . . With his abilities he could have achieved far more, influencing the progress of our art as a whole."_
> 
> _"Chopin's mazurkas are 'so mannered they are hard to stand'"_
> -Felix Mendelssohn
> https://www.jstor.org/stable/936166?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
> 
> _"A sickroom talent"_
> -John Field


Well, maybe Schumann was wrong! Jesus, they were both born in 1810 and in competition with each other and Chopin never exactly warmed up to Schumann's works. He said virtually nothing favorable about him, basically tried to be diplomatic but ignored him. But you... still on your anti-Chopin vendetta just because some listeners prefer him over Mozart. Such childishness to go on for weeks about it.

Both Chopin and Schumann were great composers for the piano, but Chopin is played more than Schumann and Schumann learned from him and not the other way around. Chopin remained Chopin and only improved with age for those with the ears to hear it. He was an absolutely brilliant composer for the piano and Schumann's works are not idiomatical for the piano and sound thick in texture by comparison. Chopin forgot more than Schumann ever knew about writing for the piano though Schumann understood a great deal after being influenced by Chopin and not the other way around. Schumann said, "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius-and he was right the first time.

You should be LEARNING from Chopin rather than constantly trying to drag him through the mud of your own 18th-century thinking and open your mind at least to the 19th-century. Then maybe you'll eventually understand something about the 20th. Such boring redundancy from you on Chopin and just about anyone else. The only reason you quote Schumann on Chopin is not because you like Schumann any more than you like Chopin or the Romantic era, but because he could be critical of Chopin who he never fully understood in the first place. Chopin was far in advance of Schumann melodically and harmonically. He was a genius in both categories and that's why virtually everything that Chopin wrote is still played today. You have NO IDEA why the greatest musicians of the past 150 years still play composers that you do not care for, and that's what's wrong with your arguments against them. You can't explain that because your ears can only hear Mozart though the evolution of music moved on more than 200 years ago. It's nothing to be proud of because you constantly mischaracterize musicians who move the music forward in its harmonic and melodic development-all that you still cannot understand or appreciate.


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## hammeredklavier

Larkenfield said:


> But you... still on your anti-Chopin vendetta just because some listeners prefer him over Mozart. Such childishness to go on for weeks about it.


I apologize, but look at Luchesi. He's again trying in vain to prove that Chopin's harmony is *objectively* more effective than Mozart. :lol: This is why I'm always specific about what I feel unsatisfactory about Chopin.


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## mikeh375

Larkenfield said:


> Well, maybe Schumann was wrong! Jesus, they were both born in 1810 and in competition with each other and Chopin never exactly warmed up to Schumann's works. He said virtually nothing favorable about him, basically tried to be diplomatic but ignored him. But you... still on your anti-Chopin vendetta just because some listeners prefer him over Mozart. Such childishness to go on for weeks about it. Both Chopin and Schumann were great composers for the piano, but Chopin is played more than Schumann and Schumann learned from him and not the other way around. Chopin remained Chopin and only improved with age for those with the ears to hear it. He was an absolutely brilliant composer for the piano and *Schumann's works are not idiomatical for the piano and sound thick in texture in comparison. *Chopin forgot more than Schumann ever knew about writing for the piano though Schumann. understood a great deal after being influenced by Chopin and not the other way around. Schumann said, "Hats off, gentlemen, a genius" and he was right the first time.


I agree with some of this Larkenfield (I am a Chopin fan), but I can't accept that Schumann didn't write in an idiomatic way for the piano. Having played several of his works, I find his oft clever invention for the fingers to be eminently pianistic and satisfying to play. I would even go so far as to say that because of the imaginative technical approach in some of his work, his writing for piano is as sophisticated as Chopin.


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## Larkenfield

hammeredklavier said:


> I apologize, but look at Luchesi. He's again trying in vain to prove that Chopin's harmony is *objectively* more effective than Mozart. :lol: This is why I'm always specific about what I feel unsatisfactory about Chopin.


I said a heck of a lot more about it. It's time to educate your ears to more than Mozart as great as he was. I have no interest or respect for one-trick ponies who have no constructive insights into anyone else but ONE composer except in the negative when the greatest musicians in the world are playing more than Mozart. Grow up!


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## Larkenfield

hammeredklavier said:


> I apologize, but look at Luchesi. He's again trying in vain to prove that Chopin's harmony is *objectively* more effective than Mozart. :lol: This is why I'm always specific about what I feel unsatisfactory about Chopin.


Okay, fine. But harmony continued to develop after the death of Mozart and it was considered progress or an advance at the time because it somehow provided greater freedom of expression. Certainly, a change was in order from the Classical era because after Napoleon that world had dramatically changed and the aristocracy was no longer the same after heads had rolled. It's called a paradigm shift in the thinking of mankind-a change from one era that was dying out (the Classical) and a new era that was being born (the Romantic). I consider Luchesi sloppy in explanations from someone who also has a scientific background but cannot seem to explain things clearly, IMO, or makes assumptions about Mozart without references.

I believe that mistakes in narrow or careless thinking are on both sides on the forum and I rarely agree with Luchesi on just about anything, including that Mozart's sonatas were for_ study purposes_. Really? Where does THAT come from and no sources are ever cited... this from a PIANO teaching without any documentation ever being mentioned.


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## Woodduck

hammeredklavier said:


> As I said, *I find a lot of Chopin dumb and lazy.* He reminds me of the *undisplined*-ness of Satie. Sure he did know how to "write for the piano", but his understanding of writing actual musical content in terms of harmony and part-writing is far lower than that of Mozart. relude in C K394:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As I said before, in Chopin, the mentality is "when in doubt what to write for the lefthand, just write both hands in unison all the way." It's *boring and unimaginative* in my view. *No sense of balance whatsoever.* Just listen to the middle sections of Polonaises Op.44 and Op.53, and Nocturne Op.48 No.1.


This is all marvelous music, unlike anything heard before, by a strong, unique artistic personality. The only thing "dumb" here - and by now truly sinister - is your stubborn insistence on putting your severely limited artistic sensibilities on public display.


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## Luchesi

As I remember, I mentioned one finding from evolutionary science and we get all this. 'Touched a nerve. 

We have a vibrant (passionate) forum.


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## millionrainbows

tdc said:


> It evolves to a degree, but it will inevitably lose some attributes as it takes on others. It cannot be everything at once. If it really evolved in the sense you are suggesting the harmonies Luchesi referred to as more 'effective' would be ubiquitous in all new music rendering all old styles obsolete. It would then at a certain point likely become completely static unable to be improved on.
> 
> But obviously art does not progress this way. As Beethoven said "Art demands from us, always something new."


No, it's a cumulative process, not reductionist.


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## Woodduck

millionrainbows said:


> No, it's a cumulative process, not reductionist.


There's an accumulaton of technical means, but surely tdc is right when he says that as music evolves, it loses some attributes while taking on others. It's always possible for a composer to incorporate elements of past styles - we can still write fugues - but these tend to become increasingly irrelevant and unused. Most of the attributes of 18th-century Classicism are alien to our age; even Romanticism has taken on a period flavor. And have you heard a Landini cadence lately?

Music in the 20th century was frequently bent on rejecting its accumulated heritage. It's rather difficult to find much evidence of the "cumulative" progression of music in Feldman, Glass or Cage.


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## tdc

millionrainbows said:


> No, it's a cumulative process, not reductionist.


The knowledge is to a degree cumulative. Though certainly some things are lost, such as the original underlying reasons for many voice leading rules, the fact we don't know how performances sounded in the pre-recording age etc.

The compositional process will always be reductionist, it is unavoidable. Rules will contradict each other and will not be compatible. Even if one attempts to do a bit of everything by being a 'polystylist', by literally being cumulative in the process they will cancel out the aesthetic of all of the original styles.

Each new musical style is as much a reaction against the previous style as it is an outgrowth of it.


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## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> Beethoven's Ninth has only two repeat signs throughout the entire symphony. And the first movement alone contains more bars than complete symphonies by previous composers, including Mozart's.
> there's an overuse of the repeat signs in the Classical period (I have no problem with non-exact repeats). Here I include the music of Schubert, but also that of Mozart.


I've been thinking about this for some time, but I have to conclude this is bullcrap. I know Beethoven expanded the symphonic form with his 3rd and 9th, and wrote fewer repeat signs in his sonata form than Mozart and Haydn. But Mozart still wrote far more large-scale works that have not much to do with repeat signs (except some fugal sections of da capo markings that lead back to places, like the Hosanna fugue of Missa Brevis K192 or the Quam olim Abrahae of the Requiem) than Beethoven.
Concertos (except a few sections of movements in variations like K456), operas, and liturgical works, K65, K66, K109, K125, K139, K167, K192, K193, K194, K195, K220, K243, K257, K258, K259, K262, K275, K317, K321, K337, K339, K341, K427, K626
Are there any repeat signs in these, for example?

















And "repeat signs" are never a weakness in 18th century style of writing. Bach also has them in various instrumental suites, partitas, variations, etc. The style of writing is more about being concise (writing "just as many notes as required"), albeit powerful in expression. And again, repeat signs are not even mandatory to perform. I "skip repeat signs" whenever I feel like it. Maybe you're listening to 18th century music in the wrong way.


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## Mandryka

Can someone explain to me what the point of repeating sections of music is? It happens so much less in prose and poetry, hardly at all in English and French prose as far as I know, and even in verse its use is restrained. Yet in c18 music it’s widespread, and my impression less so in c19, c20 and c21. Why? What was so special about c18 and early c19 sensibility to demand repeats?


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## larold

I don't think it fair to call Mozart's late period "maturity" since he wasn't even 40 years of age. Schubert was even younger, 31.


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## EdwardBast

Mandryka said:


> Can someone explain to me what the point of repeating sections of music is? It happens so much less in prose and poetry, hardly at all in English and French prose as far as I know, and even in verse its use is restrained. Yet in c18 music it's widespread, and my impression less so in c19, c20 and c21. Why? What was so special about c18 and early c19 sensibility to demand repeats?


The forms of instrumental movements in the Classical Era grew out of dance forms, which were usually binary, with each half repeated, or, in the case of the minuet, compound ternary form. The repetition in dance music allows people to dance longer.  The Baroque suite, a collection of dances in the above forms, was an important precursor of the Classical Era sonata and symphony. The repeats in the Classical forms were held over from their dance precursors.

Sonata form, the most important form of the Classical Era, grew out of binary dance form. The intermediate stage was rounded binary form, where the beginning of the second section was expanded and the end of the second section began to echo the first section. The expansion at the beginning of the second part became the development, the echo of the first section became the recapitulation. This expansion began to make the second section of the overall binary structure much longer than the first, at which time composers began dropping the repeat of the second section entirely. The result was the standard Classical Era sonata form (although the term sonata form was not used until the 1830s): A repeated exposition, a development section, and a recapitulation.

So it wasn't really a special sensibility in the 18thc and early 19thc that demanded repeats, but just the slow evolution from earlier forms where repetitions were standard for purely practical reasons. It was a change in sensibility in the mature music of Beethoven and the Romantics that caused the repetition to be dropped.


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> So it wasn't really a special sensibility in the 18thc and early 19thc that demanded repeats, but just the slow evolution from earlier forms where repetitions were standard for purely practical reasons. It was a change in sensibility in the mature music of Beethoven and the Romantics that caused the repetition to be dropped.


I see what you're saying, but I feel that many people often talk like "everything Mozart and Haydn wrote were symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas", when in fact they wrote stuff like Fantasies K394, K397, K475, K608, Rondo K511 as well.










notice how this piece can be "reduced" in length:


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## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> I've been thinking about this for some time, but I have to conclude this is bullcrap. I know Beethoven expanded the symphonic form with his 3rd and 9th, and wrote fewer repeat signs in his sonata form than Mozart and Haydn. But Mozart still wrote far more large-scale works that have not much to do with repeat signs (except some fugal sections of da capo markings that lead back to places, like the Hosanna fugue of Missa Brevis K192 or the Quam olim Abrahae of the Requiem) than Beethoven.
> Concertos (except a few sections of movements in variations like K456), operas, and liturgical works, K65, K66, K109, K125, K139, K167, K192, K193, K194, K195, K220, K243, K257, K258, K259, K262, K275, K317, K321, K337, K339, K341, K427, K626
> Are there any repeat signs in these, for example?
> 
> And "repeat signs" are never a weakness in 18th century style of writing. Bach also has them in various instrumental suites, partitas, variations, etc. The style of writing is more about being concise (writing "just as many notes as required"), albeit powerful in expression.


I ask you that you kindly do not remove content from the phrases you quote from me in a next time. I said that _in my opinion_ there's an overuse of repeats in the Classical period, a relative, not absolute, statement. This can be corrobored by the fact that a good deal of my listening experience of the period is focused in instrumental pieces (don't tell me to forget the Mozart symphonies and chamber music, please), that tend to have repeat signs due to formal aspects, and that I find it a bit tiresome to keep removing some of them. I don't have problems with repeats overall, but I have my own ideas of when I want to listen to them and when not, and usually I don't want to listen to entire development sections plus recapitulations twice, something that happens somewhat frequently (in relative terms) in the Classical period of Mozart (his symphonies with Levine were the examples I cited on this thread) but not in the romanticism of, say, Chopin, a composer whose music for piano I admire for example because of what I perceive as a fluency in form. Hence the criticism. Relative to _my perspective_, and I stress this because it's important to me.



> And again, repeat signs are not even mandatory to perform. I "skip repeat signs" whenever I feel like it. Maybe you're listening to 18th century music in the wrong way.


Perhaps, but many conductors tend to perform them, so I think that it could be argued that these repeats may be mandatory to be performed at least in their perspective. Could you provide me some reliable source (something from some authority of our century, not from some long dead composer, please) that enforces this idea of yours of "skipping repeat signs whenever one feels like it" as the correct way of listening to the music of the 18th century?



hammeredklavier said:


> I see what you're saying, but I feel that many people often talk like "everything Mozart and Haydn wrote were symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas", when in fact they wrote stuff like Fantasies K394, K397, K475, K608, Rondo K511 as well.


I hope that you're not including me in this, for I never said that.



hammeredklavier said:


> notice how this piece can be "reduced" in length:


Thank you for posting these beautiful Chopin pieces! Such a master of the piano. I bet that Mozart would have respected his music, very advanced for his time in terms of harmony, melody, rhythms and even counterpoint (according to Rosen), had they ever met.


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## EdwardBast

hammeredklavier said:


> I see what you're saying, but I feel that many people often talk like "everything Mozart and Haydn wrote were symphonies, string quartets, piano sonatas", when in fact they wrote stuff like Fantasies K394, K397, K475, K608, Rondo K511 as well.


Yes, not to mention the concerto, arguably the instrumental form to which Mozart made the greatest and most original contribution. For what it's worth, I've never criticized the amount of repetition in the instrumental works of Haydn and Mozart. Repeating the exposition in their first movements is a matter of balance, and when there are different first and second endings, the process often has narrative and dramatic significance. Styles change over time. Some dramatic works of Beethoven wouldn't work with repeated expositions, so he sometimes didn't use them. This doesn't make these works better than those of earlier composers, or better than works by Beethoven that do use the traditional repeats. It's just a symptom of changing styles.


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## Mandryka

I’m wondering now about the repeats in The Goldberg Variations, about whether it’s a good idea for performers to use the repeats to display their skills of embellishment. Or whether that harms the “balance” of the music.


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## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> Maybe you're listening to 18th century music in the wrong way.





Mandryka said:


> I'm wondering now about the repeats in The Goldberg Variations, about whether it's a good idea for performers to use the repeats to display their skills of embellishment. Or whether that harms the "balance" of the music.


I like to skip the repeats for the Goldberg, but whether this is the "right" way of listening or not I couldn't know. In the sense of what Mandryka said, I think that it may be an interesting approach to listen comparatively to both Gould recordings of it, for in the first he omitted many of the repeats and in the second he played most of them.


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## Mandryka

I think it's strange to include some repeats but not others. 

The idea of a repeat as something which is identical to the music first time is interesting, in HIP baroque you sometimes hear people say that the function of the repeat is to act as a vehicle for displaying the performer's creativity. But the symmetries in The Goldberg Variations may be damaged as a result.

As far as I can see, the symmetries would remain unaltered if you played no repeats at all. Except to this extent, with the repeats, each variation is in two halves, and each half is in two halves. Does it matter? I suspect it did for the composer for all sorts of strange pre-modern reasons, maybe lost on a modern audience, I don’t know.


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## Woodduck

Mandryka said:


> I think it's strange to include some repeats but not others.
> 
> The idea of a repeat as something which is identical to the music first time is interesting, in HIP baroque you sometimes hear people say that the function of the repeat is to act as a vehicle for displaying the performer's creativity. But the symmetries in The Goldberg Variations may be damaged as a result.
> 
> As far as I can see, the symmetries would remain unaltered if you played no repeats at all. Except to this extent, with the repeats, each variation is in two halves, and each half is in two halves. Does it matter? I suspect it did for the composer for all sorts of strange pre-modern reasons, maybe lost on a modern audience, I don't know.


It's only strange if we forget that repeats haven't always served the same purpose. In some cases they contribute an extra dimension of form or meaning to a work. In other cases they afford the performer a chance to exercise some creativity. In many cases they do no more than give the listener a chance to enjoy something a second time, offering him a little more music for his money. Performers have to decide what purpose a repeat is designed to fulfill.

In my judgment, the most important category of repeat is the exposition repeat in a sonata movement, where it helps to establish the material in one's mind before it's subjected to manipulation in the development-recapitulation, the complexity of which might otherwise unbalance the movement. In most cases I like to hear these repeats. Repeats in other musical forms often seem redundant unless the performer does something interesting with them. They might even be annoying to some listeners. The thought of listening to a full hour's worth of Schubert's 9th symphony, with all repeats taken, fills me with horror.


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## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> I ask you that you kindly do not remove content from the phrases you quote from me in a next time. I said that _in my opinion_ there's an overuse of repeats in the Classical period, a relative, not absolute, statement.


I saw fit to remove the "in my opinion" phrase in your sentence because this is something we can discuss objectively. It didn't matter to me if you said "in my opinon" in that sentence or not, in that particular case. We're not talking about subjective concepts like "emotional depth" for example.



Allerius said:


> This can be corrobored by the fact that a good deal of my listening experience of the period is focused in instrumental pieces (don't tell me to forget the Mozart symphonies and chamber music, please), .


That's not good enough for an excuse.  So in Chopin, if I only listen to stuff like Grande Valse Brillante Op.18, or Scherzo in B flat minor Op.31, can I say Chopin is too full of "repeats"? (Not "repetitions"). But I know people like you would object by saying: "Are you kidding me? Whatabout the Ballades?", right? 
So I'm telling you: "Are you kidding me? Whatabout Mozart's operas, concertos, liturgical works?"
You've often discussed the subject of Bach vs Mozart vs Beethoven in the many threads and posts and you even talked about "variety" in them as if you know and listen to all they wrote on regular basis. And I have discussed the merit of the Mozart works in many threads now. (Don't tell me you never saw any one of them, please. )
Now you're telling me, with Mozart, you only know and listen to his instrumental pieces? Ok.. Then with Chopin, if I only know and listen to Grande Valse Brillante Op.18, Scherzo in B flat minor Op.31, Mazurka Op.33 No.2 in D major, would you allow me to say "Chopin is too full of repeats, _in my humble opinion_"?



Allerius said:


> that tend to have repeat signs due to formal aspects, and that I find it a bit tiresome to keep removing some of them. I don't have problems with repeats overall, but I have my own ideas of when I want to listen to them and when not, and usually I don't want to listen to entire development sections plus recapitulations twice, something that happens somewhat frequently (in relative terms) in the Classical period of Mozart (his symphonies with Levine were the examples I cited on this thread) but not in the romanticism of, say, Chopin, a composer whose music for piano I admire for example because of what I perceive as a fluency in form. Hence the criticism. Relative to _my perspective_, and I stress this because it's important to me.
> Perhaps, but many conductors tend to perform them, so I think that it could be argued that these repeats may be mandatory to be performed at least in their perspective. Could you provide me some reliable source (something from some authority of our century, not from some long dead composer, please) that enforces this idea of yours of "skipping repeat signs whenever one feels like it" as the correct way of listening to the music of the 18th century?


By saying "maybe you're listening in the wrong way," I'm not trying to impose my way of listening on you. I'm simply suggesting. I'm saying maybe you shouldn't feel so obligated to listen from start to finish for every piece. 
For pieces that I already know, I rarely listen to them in full from start to finish (unless I'm attending a concert). Have you ever had urge to listen to, just one movement, or just a section of a movement? In fact I do all the time. There are different parts of Beethoven Grosse Fuge (for example) that I want to listen to at different times. 
You sound so frustrated with your own listening habits with 18th century music, so I'm only suggesting a different way. Or shouldn't you only listen to recordings that don't repeat development-recapitulation?






And in addition to the description by EdwardBast, I would like to add that, the precursor to the symphony was the Italian overture. From what I understand, people at the time played best hit overtures from operas as encores, so eventually they became standalone works, and that's how the symphony came into being. Initially, they were like JC Bach, CPE Bach, Myslivecek's symphonies. 
And so, there are overture-like symphonies in Mozart that don't have repeat signs in them and the movements are "connected" by transitions. 23rd, 26th symphonies, for example. Yes, these are early/lesser works of his not many people listen to, but the 23rd was the first piece that sparked interest in me of Mozart long ago. (I find 21th also memorable. There was something that made him special from the galant style composers of his time.)








Allerius said:


> I hope that you're not including me in this, for I never said that.


I hate to say, but sometimes you sound "a bit" like them. 



Allerius said:


> Thank you for posting these beautiful Chopin pieces! Such a master of the piano. I bet that Mozart would have respected his music, very advanced for his time in terms of harmony, melody, rhythms and even counterpoint (according to Rosen), had they ever met.


I wasn't really talking about the quality of the Chopin pieces.


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## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> I saw fit to remove the "in my opinion" phrase in your sentence because this is something we can discuss objectively. It didn't matter to me if you said "in my opinon" in that sentence or not, in that particular case. We're not talking about subjective concepts like "emotional depth" for example.


I don't think that we can discuss in absolute terms something that is based in a particular person's way of listening. I don't want to generalize some of my assumptions as if they were a truth for everybody else.



hammeredklavier said:


> That's not good enough for an excuse.  So in Chopin, if I only listen to stuff like Grande Valse Brillante Op.18, or Scherzo in B flat minor Op.31, can I say Chopin is too full of "repeats"? (Not "repetitions"). But I know people like you would object by saying: "Are you kidding me? Whatabout the Ballades?", right?
> So I'm telling you: "Are you kidding me? Whatabout Mozart's operas, concertos, liturgical works?"


Chopin tend to not repeat large sections of music like Mozart in his development/recapitulation repeats. To my ears his repeats do not compromise the flowing of the music, what to me seems to sometimes be the case with the composer of the _Haffner_ symphony.



hammeredklavier said:


> You've often discussed the subject of Bach vs Mozart vs Beethoven in the many threads and posts and you even talked about "variety" in them as if you know and listen to all they wrote on regular basis. And I have discussed the merit of the Mozart works in many threads now. (Don't tell me you never saw any one of them, please. )
> Now you're telling me, with Mozart, you only know and listen to his instrumental pieces? Ok.. Then with Chopin, if I only know and listen to Grande Valse Brillante Op.18, Scherzo in B flat minor Op.31, Mazurka Op.33 No.2 in D major, would you allow me to say "Chopin is too full of repeats, _in my humble opinion_"?


Whatever. I didn't say that I "only know and listen to his instrumental pieces". I said that they are the focus of my listening experience, this is, I listen more to them. And when you see Chopin sistematically repeating very long sections of music without any purpose other than to fill in some aesthetic formula you come here saying that he is full of repeats.



hammeredklavier said:


> By saying "maybe you're listening in the wrong way," I'm not trying to impose my way of listening on you. I'm simply suggesting. I'm saying maybe you shouldn't feel so obligated to listen from start to finish for every piece.


I don't, and if you've read my other posts on this thread you already realized this. But I'm still curious to know what basis you have to assume that listening to all the repeats in the 18th century music is absolutely the "wrong way" of doing so, for some other people may prefer this way.



hammeredklavier said:


> I hate to say, but sometimes you sound "a bit" like them.


But you know that nowhere in that random post you quoted from me here I said that Mozart and Haydn only composed piano sonatas, symphonies and string quartets, right? 



hammeredklavier said:


> I wasn't really talking about the quality of the Chopin pieces.


Oh, really? How so? It's known that you love his music and would never, never want to annoyingly keep trashing it...


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## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> Chopin tend to not repeat large sections of music like Mozart in his development/recapitulation repeats. To my ears his repeats do not compromise the flowing of the music, what to me seems to sometimes be the case with the composer of the _Haffner_ symphony.


With all due respect, I'm still not sure why you're making such a big issue out of it, to be honest.






















 (Bernstein)



Allerius said:


> annoyingly keep trashing it...


I apologize if you find it annoying. But there have been many attempts at TC to elevate Schubert to the status of greatest composer and Chopin to the greatest innovator.

What is the greatest string quintet?
Best harmonist among the Romantics?
Mozart or Chopin: Piano Works



Jacck said:


> I would place Schubert very high of my list of best composers (in the top 10).





Jacck said:


> most overrated are Beethoven and Mozart





Larkenfield said:


> (Chopin was also called "the greatest harmonist since Bach" by one of his biographers, James Huneker, and I couldn't agree more. Chopin was as exacting and disciplined as Bach.





Partita said:


> Bach just made more of as dog's breakfast of the whole thing, by over-extending it to a quite ludicrous length.
> 
> 
> Bulldog said:
> 
> 
> 
> There you go. Pump up the Schubert mass by disparaging Bach's.
Click to expand...

---------------------------------------------



Allerius said:


> And when you see Chopin sistematically repeating very long sections of music without any purpose other than to fill in some aesthetic formula you come here saying that he is full of repeats.


I'm not sure if we're talking about the same thing regarding "fluency in form". But stuff like Chopin Op.44, Op.53 strikes me as being static and clumsy. I'm curious why Luchesi always likes to talk about how Chopin is better than Mozart (and Haydn), but refuses to comment how Rachmaninoff Prelude in G minor Op.23 No.5 is better than this.

3:00~5:00


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## EdwardBast

hammeredklavier said:


> I saw fit to remove the "in my opinion" phrase in your sentence because this is something we can discuss objectively. It didn't matter to me if you said "in my opinon" in that sentence or not, in that particular case. We're not talking about subjective concepts like "emotional depth" for example.


Allerius is right in requesting that you quote him accurately. What you did was improper by any standard of writing and public discourse. When omitting part of another person's sentence, a practice only acceptable when the omission doesn't change the writer's meaning or intent, one uses ellipses to indicate the omission. In this case, there was no excuse for omitting his words, since the omission materially changes the rhetorical sense of his statement.


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## Luchesi

Mozart or Schubert, whose music will be of most interest in 100 years?

About the same? with the new listening environments that are coming?

I'd like to 'experience' their works in chronological order because I've been fascinated by how each new, important work subtly transcends earlier ones (but I would be one of the minority 100 years from now I expect).


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## hammeredklavier

EdwardBast said:


> Allerius is right in requesting that you quote him accurately. What you did was improper by any standard of writing and public discourse. When omitting part of another person's sentence, a practice only acceptable when the omission doesn't change the writer's meaning or intent, one uses ellipses to indicate the omission. In this case, there was no excuse for omitting his words, since the omission materially changes the rhetorical sense of his statement.


You're right, but that was the whole point.  It was my way of provocatively saying: _"hey dude, "in my opinion" is not a free ticket that enables you say whatever you want at any situation. "_
I think it's a phrase that, the more you abuse, the less chances people will take you seriously. It's not exactly the same thing as expression of uncertainty _"it seems to me that probably.."_ either.


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## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> You're right, but that was the whole point.  It was my way of provocatively saying: _"hey dude, "in my opinion" is not a free ticket that enables you say whatever you want at any situation. "_
> I think it's a phrase that, the more you abuse, the less chances people will take you seriously. It's not exactly the same thing as expression of uncertainty _"it seems to me that probably.."_ either.


All right "dude", but I'm not abusing it as you say. Classical era composers such as Mozart tend to use repeat signals relatively often in intrumental forms when compared to composers of the other eras, but if this makes their music repetitive or not is a matter of opinion. Some may think that the repeats are a necessity due to the to ideals of formal balance and proportions inherent to that era, and that all of them must be played, while others may believe that there's an overuse of them and that some of them should be omitted. Yet others may have other opinions.

Opinions aren't necessarily a conclusive truth, they can change with time, and are typical of a person. If I came here and just said "Mozart is repetitive", as if this was an universal fact, I think that _this_ wouldn't be taken seriously, because the notion of "repetitiveness" can vary according to the individual. I understand that a difficulty in talking about music is that the values that each person attributes to the many characteristics that it can assume can vary a lot. What is "passionate" for one can be "sentimental" to the other, what is "delightfully complex" to one can be "overproduced" to others, etc. And what is "repetitive" to some may be "formally perfect" to others. That's why I avoid not using the "in my opinion" or it's synonyms in talkings here.


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## hammeredklavier

Allerius said:


> Opinions aren't necessarily a conclusive truth, they can change with time, and are typical of a person. If I came here and just said "Mozart is repetitive", as if this was an universal fact, I think that _this_ wouldn't be taken seriously, because the notion of "repetitiveness" can vary according to the individual.


I see, but people sometimes have opinions that are shortsighted, misguided, or biased. I understand that, with Mozart, you're only interested in listening to the instrumental works, but note that you didn't just say "instrumental works", you said "music" as if all of Mozart's music is like the kind you described.



Allerius said:


> In my humble opinion there's an overuse of the repeat signs in the Classical period (I have no problem with non-exact repeats). Here I include the music of Schubert, but also that of Mozart.


The point I was making, just because you don't listen to works like the operas and K65, K66, K109, K125, K139, K167, K192, K193, K194, K195, K220, K243, K257, K258, K259, K262, K275, K317, K321, K337, K339, K341, K427, K626, it doesn't mean they don't exist.

Missa brevis in B flat K275:

















Missa brevis in F K192:

















Also these movements don't have repeat signs written on the score in their development-recapitulation sections.


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## Xisten267

hammeredklavier said:


> I see, but people sometimes have opinions that are shortsighted, misguided, or biased.


Exactly. That's why I recommend you to stop bashing composers just because you don't like them.



hammeredklavier said:


> I understand that, with Mozart, you're only interested in listening to the instrumental works, but note that you didn't just say "instrumental works", you said "music" as if all of Mozart's music is like the kind you described.


You understand wrong. I've already said in a previous post that I don't listen only to Mozart's instrumental works, although I focus my listening on them.



hammeredklavier said:


> The point I was making, just because you don't listen to works like the operas and K65, K66, K109, K125, K139, K167, K192, K193, K194, K195, K220, K243, K257, K258, K259, K262, K275, K317, K321, K337, K339, K341, K427, K626, it doesn't mean they don't exist.


Yes, but it doesn't mean that the symphonies, quartets, quintets, sonatas, divertimenti and serenades don't exist either. My point is that _to me_ Classical period music sounds a bit repetitive sometimes due to what I think is an overuse of repeat signs in _some_ forms.


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