# If Mozart lived longer how would he have impacted the romantic era?



## Bevo

With how prolific he was, it's insane to truly comprehend the fact that Mozart lived to only be 35 years old. So had he lived a full life, say somewhere in the range of 90-95, what kind of impact do you think he would have left on the development of the Romantic Era? Would the Classical Era have lasted longer, would Mozart have started writing music in the style of the Romantic Era, or what? Another thought; with how Beethoven admired Mozart, how would it have impacted the music of Beethoven?


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## DavidA

A full life then certainly wasn't 90-95. Beethoven would have been considered quite elderly at 57. One problem is Mozart suffered ill health all his life as a result the travels he was dragged on by his father so it's actually a wonder he lived as long as he did.
I think it's useless to speculate on what WAM would have achieved. He was at his peak when he died so one can only boggle what another 5 years might have given us


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## Strange Magic

I remember reading somewhere Glenn Gould saying that, rather than dying before his time, Mozart in a sense outlived his time. Europe was changing. The French Revolution, the subsequent rise of Napoleon, and the parallel phenomenon of Beethoven rendered the Classical world irrelevant and obsolete. It was time for a different kind of music.


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## hpowders

He already did reach Romanticism with the slow movement to Piano Concerto No. 21, romanticized as the "Elvira Madigan" movement.

Its guise as such may have helped convert some to classical music. Who knows?


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## Pugg

DavidA said:


> A full life then certainly wasn't 90-95. Beethoven would have been considered quite elderly at 57. One problem is Mozart suffered ill health all his life as a result the travels he was dragged on by his father so it's actually a wonder he lived as long as he did.
> I think it's useless to speculate on what WAM would have achieved. He was at his peak when he died so one can only boggle what another 5 years might have given us


For sure more great works, the man was a genius.


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## MarkW

Mozart was certainly a towering genius, but he was also every bit a man of his time. We would certainly have received more masterworks, but I suspect they would have been Classically constructed and his influence on Romanticism would have been small. He did not have the same revolutionary temperament as Beethoven, nor the tendencies toward Romantic flights of fancy of, say, Weber or Berlioz.


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## brianvds

MarkW said:


> Mozart was certainly a towering genius, but he was also every bit a man of his time. We would certainly have received more masterworks, but I suspect they would have been Classically constructed and his influence on Romanticism would have been small. He did not have the same revolutionary temperament as Beethoven, nor the tendencies toward Romantic flights of fancy of, say, Weber or Berlioz.


It is possible that the same fate would have befallen him as did Vivaldi: his music considered ever more old fashioned and irrelevant. And instead of Beethoven admiring him, he might have seen him as a rival. One can imagine some unpleasant scenes of Beethoven disparaging Mozart's music, and Mozart making tasteless jokes about deaf people.


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## PlaySalieri

I hold the view that musical history would have been much different to what we have today.
One musicologist said all Mozart's works are early works - he had no middle or late periods, unlike Beethoven.
I think an intelligence of that calibre would sooner or later start to experiment and make changes - Mozart had a comfortable and lucrative court position lined up before his death and only had 2 years to wait for that - something that would have given him the financial security he needed in order to extend his artistic boundaries. 
I doubt if there would have been an eroica - Mozart would have produced something far far greater and Beethoven would have been forever watching the great master's ever move - he would have been in Mozart's shadow.

Sadly and tragically for music - in Mozart and Schubert we lost at a young age (in my view) the two greatest musical talents to walk the earth and we can only dream about what might have been.


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## PlaySalieri

Strange Magic said:


> *I remember reading somewhere Glenn Gould saying that, rather than dying before his time, Mozart in a sense outlived his time.* Europe was changing. The French Revolution, the subsequent rise of Napoleon, and the parallel phenomenon of Beethoven rendered the Classical world irrelevant and obsolete. It was time for a different kind of music.


No he said he died too late rather than too soon. I think Gould preferred Mozart's earlier style. A stupid statement in my view but that is Gould for you.


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## kyf

Interesting discussion. Please see the poll thread; we can talk about these dreams all the way to the modern day.

His spendthrift lifestyle and his heavy debt also would have forced him to keep innovating & competing for the public's attention. How long do you think that he would have lasted in the court position?


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## Strange Magic

stomanek said:


> No he said he died too late rather than too soon. I think Gould preferred Mozart's earlier style. A stupid statement in my view but that is Gould for you.


I think your memory is better than mine, but the two versions amount to the same thing. Gould only played, and said he only liked, M's Concerto No. 24.


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## Magnum Miserium

Strange Magic said:


> I remember reading somewhere Glenn Gould saying that, rather than dying before his time, Mozart in a sense outlived his time. Europe was changing. The French Revolution, the subsequent rise of Napoleon, and the parallel phenomenon of Beethoven rendered the Classical world irrelevant and obsolete. It was time for a different kind of music.


Thing is, by this logic, Goethe and Schiller should have "outlived their time," but then, oops, then the "Wallenstein" trilogy and "Faust" happened.


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## Strange Magic

Magnum Miserium said:


> Thing is, by this logic, Goethe and Schiller should have "outlived their time," but then, oops, then the "Wallenstein" trilogy and "Faust" happened.


Maybe you could flesh out your thought here. Goethe, 7 years older than Mozart, had written the _über_-Romantic Werther by 1774, helping to set Romanticism into gear. Not much hint of same in Mozart's orchestral output, though _Don Giovanni_, 1787, is heading in that direction.


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## Magnum Miserium

Strange Magic said:


> Maybe you could flesh out your thought here. Goethe, 7 years older than Mozart, had written the _über_-Romantic Werther by 1774, helping to set Romanticism into gear.


"Werther" is "Sturm und Drang," as such not clearly any more "Romantic" than Haydn's "Farewell" symphony or Mozart's "little" G minor symphony, and certainly not any more "Romantic" than Mozart's "Don Giovanni."

Romantic literature is Wordsworth, Heine, Victor Hugo.


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## Woodduck

Strange Magic said:


> I remember reading somewhere Glenn Gould saying that, rather than dying before his time, Mozart in a sense outlived his time. Europe was changing. The French Revolution, the subsequent rise of Napoleon, and the parallel phenomenon of Beethoven rendered the Classical world irrelevant and obsolete. It was time for a different kind of music.


I agree. We shouldn't underestimate the cultural revolution of the Romantic age, and if we look at what happened to music in just a few decades - Haydn to Berlioz! - we won't. Mozart showed little inclination to break from a Classical sensibility - his late works tend to look backward to the Baroque more than forward to anything essentially Romantic - and the new musical currents flowed from minds nurtured in a different milieu. He would certainly have responded to them, but the idea that his later work would have made a major difference to music (much less intimidated Beethoven, _pace_ stomanek) is highly speculative and, I think, fanciful.


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## Magnum Miserium

Woodduck said:


> I agree. We shouldn't underestimate the cultural revolution of the Romantic age, and if we look at what happened to music in just a few decades - Haydn to Berlioz! - we won't. Mozart showed little inclination to break from a Classical sensibility - his late works tend to look backward to the Baroque more than forward to anything essentially Romantic - and the new musical currents flowed from minds nurtured in a different milieu. He would certainly have responded to them, but the idea that his later work would have made a major difference to music (much less intimidated Beethoven, _pace_ stomanek) is highly speculative and, I think, fanciful.


Again, Goethe was on a Neoclassical kick in the early 1790s too ("Iphigenia at Taurus," etc.) You could make an awesome case for how he and Schiller probably wouldn't have made a major difference to literature after that, except they impolitely stayed alive and proved that yes they did.


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## Strange Magic

Magnum Miserium said:


> "Werther" is "Sturm und Drang," as such not clearly any more "Romantic" than Haydn's "Farewell" symphony or Mozart's "little" G minor symphony, and certainly not any more "Romantic" than Mozart's "Don Giovanni."
> 
> Romantic literature is Wordsworth, Heine, Victor Hugo.


Sturm und Drang is a bit more robust than you're picturing it. If not yet full-blown Romanticism, it's certainly most of the way there. I'd say Sturm und Drang plus a kick from the French Revolution equals full Romanticism.


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## Magnum Miserium

Strange Magic said:


> Sturm und Drang is a bit more robust than you're picturing it. If not yet full-blown Romanticism, it's certainly most of the way there. I'd say Sturm und Drang plus a kick from the French Revolution equals full Romanticism.


OK fine but then early Haydn & occasionally early Mozart is as "Romantic" as early Goethe.


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## Strange Magic

While we're at it, let's reference Walpole's _The Castle of Otranto_, 1764, and the Gothic genre as another early look at Romanticism. Here's an interesting article on the Romantics' (Coleridge, Wordsworth) condemnation of Gothic while at the same time energetically mining it for their own purposes--

https://reszita.wordpress.com/2012/...-castle-of-otranto-and-englands-gothic-craze/


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## Woodduck

Magnum Miserium said:


> Again, Goethe was on a Neoclassical kick in the early 1790s too ("Iphigenia at Taurus," etc.) You could make an awesome case for how he and Schiller probably wouldn't have made a major difference to literature after that, except they impolitely stayed alive and proved that yes they did.


Literature is different in that it deals with ideas more than with forms. Even Beethoven remained largely a Classicist, albeit an eccentric and innovative one.

Opera - which dramatizes ideas, including words and actions - was the form in which musical Romanticism could flower soonest. _Don Giovanni_ was even thought Romantic in its time. But Mozart's late instrumental works show no signs, in their construction, of things to come.


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## itarbrt

We ever saw paintings/images of WAM powdered on face and with a wig . We ever saw paintings/images of LvB toughtful and with matted hair . It' a neverlasting clichè . I feel that almost 10 years of different birthday doesn't allow to tell that one is " classical " and the other " romantic " . Probably WAM would have written something more and so , to answer , would have an impact in so called romantic era .


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## SONNET CLV

I've long speculated upon what Mozart may have achieved had he had access to what Beethoven was doing. Mozart's final symphony and last several piano concerti certainly show a growing sensibility, a seeming urge to "break out", something Beethoven's genius was actually able to achieve. (And it takes a certain kind of genius to "rethink" situations. Mozart always strikes me as a genius of perfecting what is already there, as was Bach, while Beethoven, like Haydn, Wagner, Debussy and Schoenberg, prevailed in the genius of revolution, creating something new.) Indeed, when a perfecting Genius takes his art to the highest level possible there remains only one direction left to go -- onward to something new and different. That's why so many artists remain unknown, obscure, or have reputations of mediocrity -- they were not creative enough to either supplant the giant perfector of their field or to create a new vision. Beethoven may have been influenced by the classicists before him, Hadyn, Mozart, the Bach sons, etc., but there is no doubt upon hearing his music, even as early as that startling Second Symphony (and, even, arguably, the First) that there is something new afoot. This is not sound one heard prior to Beethoven. 

I wonder often what the next couple of Mozart Piano Concerti would have sounded like. Each of the present concerti seems to have so much magic that I always marvel how a work could so improve as one moves from one to the next, in any order in the case of the later concerti, and eventually go round in a circle, always marvelling at that sense of magic; which is why I always seem to enjoy the Mozart Piano Concerto I am listening to at the time with a sense that "this one can't be beat!" And it won't be, until I take on another of the Mozart Piano Concerti.

But what would this artist have made of Beethoven? Could Mozart have heard that Third Symphony, or the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth or Ninth! How would his musical mind have reacted? I personally think he would have learned from Beethoven, adjusted his own sensibilities of form and harmony, and pushed onward to realms certainly beyond my pedestrian imagination.

I wish we had more Mozart music, and Mozart music that reacted to Beethoven.

Which brings me to Schubert, another fellow who invites speculation, and upon whom I ponder when I ponder this same issue of what Mozart would have become had he lived. I like to think that Schubert is a continuation of Mozart, that Schubert's music is the sort of music Mozart would have written had he gotten the chance to hear Beethoven. Schubert, too, grows, and when one studies the Unfinished Symphony or the Great Ninth, let alone the final chamber works, one senses a man who was setting to open new realms of expression himself. Are the fantastical soundscapes of Bruckner and Mahler the true legacy of Schubert? And what would Bruckner and, especially, Mahler have produced had Schubert had opportunity to live well beyond age 32?

Alas, it does little good to speculate upon such issues. But if one does so as one listens to the fine music of these masters (as I am doing at this very moment, spinning a Schubert disc on my turntable), one at least has spent the time well.


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## Magnum Miserium

Woodduck said:


> Literature is different in that it deals with ideas more than with forms. Even Beethoven remained largely a Classicist, albeit an eccentric and innovative one.


Same goes for Goethe and Schiller.


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## EarthBoundRules

I think he would've kept doing his own thing in the Classical style. But what's so bad about that?


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## Alydon

There is a possibility in Mozart's case that he would have suffered from some sort of burn-out had he lived for another 10 years or so but that like other theories can only be pure conjecture. However, Mozart's music has its own strange logical progression and there is a sense that what he wrote was his work done with no room for another note. Rather like any of the other great composers it is always a fascinating game wondering what might have been and in Mozart's case the vacuum left with his death in terms of artistic influence was a slight one considering what was round the corner with Beethoven and the birth of the romantic era. Rather than have any impact if he had lived say to the 1820s which would have been quite elderly then, I believe Mozart's music wouldn't have progressed any more as he had achieved perfection but would have been regarded as old fashioned and he might have ended his life as a director of an opera house or as a very famous teacher.


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## Magnum Miserium

For the record, I said on another forum recently that if Mozart had lived until 1829 he would have written Rossini's "William Tell" and if Schubert had lived until 1857 he would have written Liszt's "Faust" symphony.


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## Bruckner Anton

We never know. But the impact would be tremendous.


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## Woodduck

To those who think an elderly Mozart would have had a great impact on Romanticism, I would ask what you hear in his existing music that makes you think that. I hear nothing at all that would have done any such thing, except perhaps to reinforce conservatives like Brahms in their conviction that old ways were the best ways. Aren't your assumptions about Mozart's ability to move with the times - much less move the times in some original direction - unjustified by anything he actually did?


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## KenOC

Woodduck said:


> To those who think an elderly Mozart would have had a great impact on Romanticism, I would ask what you hear in his existing music that makes you think that.


ETA Hoffman considered Mozart a "romantic" composer. I know definitions have changed, but think that he wasn't far wrong despite this.

Note: He also though Haydn was a "romantic" composer, but I won't mention that because it doesn't support my argument.


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## PlaySalieri

Woodduck said:


> Literature is different in that it deals with ideas more than with forms. Even Beethoven remained largely a Classicist, albeit an eccentric and innovative one.
> 
> Opera - which dramatizes ideas, including words and actions - was the form in which musical Romanticism could flower soonest. _Don Giovanni_ was even thought Romantic in its time. *But Mozart's late instrumental works show no signs, in their construction, of things to come.[*/QUOTE]
> 
> I dont know how you can say that when then late symphonies are more expansive than anything composed before - they clearly show Mozart pushing the boundaries. The first movements of the prague and no 41 are longer than entire symphonies composed by his contempories like CPE etc. The prague in particular with its long and serious opening clearly demonstrates mozart moving the conceptual basis of the symphony in a direction not fully realised until Beethoven. You have a blinkered view of Mozart.


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## PlaySalieri

Woodduck said:


> To those who think an elderly Mozart would have had a great impact on Romanticism, I would ask what you hear in his existing music that makes you think that.* I hear nothing at all that would have done any such thing, *except perhaps to reinforce conservatives like Brahms in their conviction that old ways were the best ways. Aren't your assumptions about Mozart's ability to move with the times - much less move the times in some original direction - unjustified by anything he actually did?


You have also said the requiem sounds stylistically and qualitively consistent throughout. You are a poor judge of Mozart's music! In Mozart's life 1 year was a long time, let alone the 20 or 30 extra years of life he might have had. With his abilities there is absoluetly nothing that could be discounted - it may be speculation - but not unjustified.


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## PlaySalieri

SONNET CLV said:


> I've long speculated upon what Mozart may have achieved had he had access to what Beethoven was doing. Mozart's final symphony and last several piano concerti certainly show a growing sensibility, a seeming urge to "break out", something Beethoven's genius was actually able to achieve. (And it takes a certain kind of genius to "rethink" situations. Mozart always strikes me as a genius of perfecting what is already there, as was Bach, while Beethoven, like Haydn, Wagner, Debussy and Schoenberg, prevailed in the genius of revolution, creating something new.) Indeed, when a perfecting Genius takes his art to the highest level possible there remains only one direction left to go -- onward to something new and different. That's why so many artists remain unknown, obscure, or have reputations of mediocrity -- they were not creative enough to either supplant the giant perfector of their field or to create a new vision. Beethoven may have been influenced by the classicists before him, Hadyn, Mozart, the Bach sons, etc., but there is no doubt upon hearing his music, even as early as that startling Second Symphony (and, even, arguably, the First) that there is something new afoot. This is not sound one heard prior to Beethoven.
> 
> I wonder often what the next couple of Mozart Piano Concerti would have sounded like. Each of the present concerti seems to have so much magic that I always marvel how a work could so improve as one moves from one to the next, in any order in the case of the later concerti, and eventually go round in a circle, always marvelling at that sense of magic; which is why I always seem to enjoy the Mozart Piano Concerto I am listening to at the time with a sense that "this one can't be beat!" And it won't be, until I take on another of the Mozart Piano Concerti.
> 
> But what would this artist have made of Beethoven? Could Mozart have heard that Third Symphony, or the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth or Ninth! How would his musical mind have reacted? I personally think he would have learned from Beethoven, adjusted his own sensibilities of form and harmony, and pushed onward to realms certainly beyond my pedestrian imagination.
> 
> I wish we had more Mozart music, and Mozart music that reacted to Beethoven.
> 
> Which brings me to Schubert, another fellow who invites speculation, and upon whom I ponder when I ponder this same issue of what Mozart would have become had he lived. I like to think that Schubert is a continuation of Mozart, that Schubert's music is the sort of music Mozart would have written had he gotten the chance to hear Beethoven. Schubert, too, grows, and when one studies the Unfinished Symphony or the Great Ninth, let alone the final chamber works, one senses a man who was setting to open new realms of expression himself. Are the fantastical soundscapes of Bruckner and Mahler the true legacy of Schubert? And what would Bruckner and, especially, Mahler have produced had Schubert had opportunity to live well beyond age 32?
> 
> Alas, it does little good to speculate upon such issues. But if one does so as one listens to the fine music of these masters (as I am doing at this very moment, spinning a Schubert disc on my turntable), one at least has spent the time well.


Mozart learned from Haydn - and no doubt he would have learned from Beethoven. But the world would have been different if Mozart had lived on and there might not have been the Beethoven we have now.


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## Magnum Miserium

KenOC said:


> ETA Hoffman considered Mozart a "romantic" composer. I know definitions have changed, but think that he wasn't far wrong despite this.
> 
> Note: He also though Haydn was a "romantic" composer, but I won't mention that because it doesn't support my argument.


This is perhaps simplified if we understand Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert (and Goethe, Schiller, and the Gothic genre) as representative of the "age of sensibility" - that is, roughly, the second half of the 18th century - that is, approximately, a transitional period between the age of reason - which reached a zenith in music in the late 1730s through early 1750s in the later works of Handel ("Saul," "Messiah," "Solomon," etc) and J S Bach (YES - not the earlier 1720s Pietist Bach of the passions and most of the cantatas, but the Bach of the 2nd book of the "Well Tempered Clavier," the Goldberg variations, the "Musical Offering," the B minor mass, and the "Art of Fugue") - and the true Romanticism of Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann, and Liszt.


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## kyf

*Bringing together relevant discussions*

http://www.talkclassical.com/25389-if-mozart-had-lived-3.html

http://www.talkclassical.com/47661-if-mozart-were-alive-4.html


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## SONNET CLV

Woodduck said:


> Literature is different in that it deals with ideas more than with forms.


Not quite sure what this comment means. Sorry, Woodduck.

But having taught literature for several decades now I maintain that a major principal of literary interpretation (indeed, of interpretation of all art forms!) is that "form is meaning." True, I would agree that form as meaning is often overlooked in arts, especially, perhaps, in literature, but it remains a truism that to properly comprehend the "meaning" of a poem or drama or novel one must have a firm grasp of the writing's form.

An obvious example of this may be found in the Sophocles_ Oedipus Tyrannus_ where the form of the play is that of a riddle, the very notion of which helps comprehend the meaning of the work. And Medieval Drama (take _Everyman_, or _Second Shepherd's Play_) is always bipartite in some manner, signifying the "truth" of their vision that there is a "this world" and an "other world -- the Heavenly Sphere" and that the drama enacted must be viewed on two planes, that of the body here and now and of the soul to come.

Form as meaning in art proves a provocative subject. In music, of course, form takes on larger significances than just "a sonata form" or a "rondo". Elsewhere on this site I've argued that Beethoven's Fifth is a psychological study of the composer's fear of deafness. First you rage and anger as you confront fate. First you cry (and Beethoven even gives us a little oboe lachrymae). Then you move into denial (mvt. 2), and then to confrontation and struggle (mvt. 3), till you reach a final apotheosis or acceptance or ruin. Beethoven suggests in that final movement a sense of not only acceptance but defiance of fate. The form of the work speaks volumes.

I contrasted this with Tchaikovsky's Sixth, which I maintain is a rewriting of Beethoven's Fifth but with a very different finale. One of utter defeat and despair. I marvel that the small oboe lachrymae of Beethoven's Fifth's first movement becomes the great secondary theme of Tchaikovsky's first movement. Form is indeed meaning.

And one can certainly trace form as meaning in great paintings.


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## Woodduck

SONNET CLV said:


> Not quite sure what this comment means. Sorry, Woodduck.
> 
> But having taught literature for several decades now I maintain that a major principal of literary interpretation (indeed, of interpretation of all art forms!) is that "form is meaning." True, I would agree that form as meaning is often overlooked in arts, especially, perhaps, in literature, but it remains a truism that to properly comprehend the "meaning" of a poem or drama or novel one must have a firm grasp of the writing's form.
> 
> An obvious example of this may be found in the Sophocles_ Oedipus Tyrannus_ where the form of the play is that of a riddle, the very notion of which helps comprehend the meaning of the work. And Medieval Drama (take _Everyman_, or _Second Shepherd's Play_) is always bipartite in some manner, signifying the "truth" of their vision that there is a "this world" and an "other world -- the Heavenly Sphere" and that the drama enacted must be viewed on two planes, that of the body here and now and of the soul to come.
> 
> Form as meaning in art proves a provocative subject. In music, of course, form takes on larger significances than just "a sonata form" or a "rondo". Elsewhere on this site I've argued that Beethoven's Fifth is a psychological study of the composer's fear of deafness. First you rage and anger as you confront fate. First you cry (and Beethoven even gives us a little oboe lachrymae). Then you move into denial (mvt. 2), and then to confrontation and struggle (mvt. 3), till you reach a final apotheosis or acceptance or ruin. Beethoven suggests in that final movement a sense of not only acceptance but defiance of fate. The form of the work speaks volumes.
> 
> I contrasted this with Tchaikovsky's Sixth, which I maintain is a rewriting of Beethoven's Fifth but with a very different finale. One of utter defeat and despair. I marvel that the small oboe lachrymae of Beethoven's Fifth's first movement becomes the great secondary theme of Tchaikovsky's first movement. Form is indeed meaning.
> 
> And one can certainly trace form as meaning in great paintings.


Form may be meaning, but meaning isn't necessarily form.

I know that's a poor aphorism, but the difference between verbal meaning and musical meaning is fundamental. Writers can employ forms which reinforce or clarify the meaning of the words they use, but musical tones, basically abstract by nature, carry no denotative meaning. Romanticism was initially a literary movement, and it's significant that it was the infusion of literary goals - the attempt to make music more denotative or concrete in its expressive goals - into musical aesthetics (with all that that implied for musical form) which distinguished musical Romanticism in a definitive way.

Your interpretation of Beethoven's _Fifth_ strikes me as a true Romantic (_literary_) fancy. Schumann or Liszt would have been proud of you. Beethoven, not so much - and Mozart, not at all.


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## Woodduck

stomanek said:


> You have also said the requiem sounds stylistically and qualitively consistent throughout. *You are a poor judge of Mozart's music!* In Mozart's life 1 year was a long time, let alone the 20 or 30 extra years of life he might have had. *With his abilities there is absoluetly nothing that could be discounted* - it may be speculation - but not unjustified.


Yeah, you're terrific too.

I never said that Mozart's Requiem was "stylistically and qualitively consistent throughout." But I do hold that the differences are slight enough that many Mozart lovers - including Beethoven - don't notice or care. If you do, or think you do, congratulations.

A statement such as "with his abilities there is absolutely nothing that could be discounted" isn't exactly evidence of good judgment, or any sort of judgment.


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## Woodduck

*Woodduck:* Literature is different in that it deals with ideas more than with forms. Even Beethoven remained largely a Classicist, albeit an eccentric and innovative one.

Opera - which dramatizes ideas, including words and actions - was the form in which musical Romanticism could flower soonest. _Don Giovanni_ was even thought Romantic in its time. But Mozart's late instrumental works show no signs, in their construction, of things to come.

*Stomanek:* I dont know how you can say that when then late symphonies are more expansive than anything composed before - they clearly show Mozart pushing the boundaries. The first movements of the prague and no 41 are longer than entire symphonies composed by his contempories like CPE etc. The prague in particular with its long and serious opening clearly demonstrates mozart moving the conceptual basis of the symphony in a direction not fully realised until Beethoven. You have a blinkered view of Mozart.

*Woodduck:* Expansiveness is not a fundamental change in the symphony's "conceptual basis." The "Prague" (a work I love, btw) has a long introduction and a lot of material in its sonata-allegro first movement. The "Jupiter" has a fugal finale. Neither is a presage of Romanticism, which is what I was talking about. Beethoven's symphonies are not distinguised from Classical models primarily by length or formal complexity, but by the programmatic and narrative aspects which move form in entirely new directions. His _Fifth_ is a drama, and a dramatic construction, without precedent in Haydn or Mozart.


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## pcnog11

Bevo said:


> With how prolific he was, it's insane to truly comprehend the fact that Mozart lived to only be 35 years old. So had he lived a full life, say somewhere in the range of 90-95, what kind of impact do you think he would have left on the development of the Romantic Era? Would the Classical Era have lasted longer, would Mozart have started writing music in the style of the Romantic Era, or what? Another thought; with how Beethoven admired Mozart, how would it have impacted the music of Beethoven?


Great question! He could have outlived Beethoven. I think it is hard to say since we cannot change history. Maybe Mozart could accelerate the development of the romantic era. I think he and Beethoven could be collaborative in certain composition and they could be new found best friends.

As an innovator, Mozart could invent new musical styles or evolved the symphonies and concertos. Too bad, Mozart was short lived and sadder than this is that we can only listen to the 600+ composition that he left us. We could have listen to a lot more!!!!


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## PlaySalieri

Woodduck said:


> Yeah, you're terrific too.
> 
> I never said that Mozart's Requiem was "stylistically and qualitively consistent throughout." But I do hold that the differences are slight enough that many Mozart lovers - including Beethoven - don't notice or care. If you do, or think you do, congratulations.
> 
> A statement such as "with his abilities there is absolutely nothing that could be discounted" isn't exactly evidence of good judgment, or any sort of judgment.


People with better knowledge and training than me disagree with you - and do notice.
Alfred Einstein has this to say after discussing the parts of the requiem that Mozart is known to have substantially composed:

"We need not concern ourselves with the rest of the work, since it originated with Sussmayr" he then goes on to criticise the latter's input "he then completely upset the proportions of the work."

Robbins Landon more recently said, in his book "Mozart's last year" - about the Sanctus:

"I myself am convinced Mozart would not have composed the Sanctus in that style. This is a mass of mourning ... Dazzling music is not what is wanted."

I also know of one person who I lent a copy of the requiem, this person not knowing the work - when I visited her some time later she declared that she turns it off after the Lacrimosa because the 2nd half is not so good!

As an unfinshed masterpiece I actually prefer the C minor mass - all is on the same lofty level of the best parts of the requiem which Mozart did compose.


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## PlaySalieri

Woodduck said:


> Yeah, you're terrific too.
> 
> I never said that Mozart's Requiem was "stylistically and qualitively consistent throughout." But I do hold that the differences are slight enough that many Mozart lovers - including Beethoven - don't notice or care. If you do, or think you do, congratulations.
> 
> A statement such as "with his abilities there is absolutely nothing that could be discounted" isn't exactly evidence of good judgment, or any sort of judgment.


I would just add about the requiem - do you know how many modern attempts there have been to correct sussmayr's technical and stylistic errors - at least a dozen if not more including Hogwood.


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## kyf

Woodduck said:


> Neither is a presage of Romanticism, which is what I was talking about.


You guys are disagreeing "across" each other. Woodduck seems to be of the "historical determinism" school. He seems to assume that Romanticism has to come in that way and some individual like Mozart can at best bring it about sooner or make it better. This seems to me a poor "romantic" assumption.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, Mozart's music changed after he discovered Bach & Handel in the 1780s in his twenties.

In our time, we tend to forget/not understand how poor & limited communication, memory, records, & possibly training was during the 18th/19th century. Even with all those sons (who were no Mozart), J.S. Bach was little known outside of Leipzig. It took Mendelssohn to try to popularize Bach in Europe in the 1830s because J.S. Bach was still little known outside of Leipzig then.

Probably J.S. Bach was too difficult for most composers (people even thought, incorrectly, that Schubert didn't know counterpoint techniques) to absorb & develop; even Mozart & Mendelssohn had to make an effort. But Mendelssohn also died young. Verdi's Falstaff definitely came out of those influences, eventually in 1894 when Verdi was 80 years old.

If Mozart (& Mendelssohn) had lived longer, J.S. Bach would have had greater influence on Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Verdi, and maybe even Wagner & co.


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## Magnum Miserium

kyf said:


> As I've mentioned elsewhere, Mozart's music changed after he discovered Bach & Handel in the 1780s in his twenties.
> 
> In our time, we tend to forget/not understand how poor & limited communication, memory, records, & possibly training was during the 18th/19th century. Even with all those sons (who were no Mozart), J.S. Bach was little known outside of Leipzig.


This is a myth. Bach's keyboard music was well known, at least throughout Germany, in his own time and afterwards, all the way up to the spurious "revival" by Mendelssohn - doubly spurious because the piece Mendelssohn "revived," the St. Matthew Passion, was never popular in the first place, _unlike_ the keyboard music. (Bach's church music was all much less well known than his keyboard music - possibly because at least some of the people who did know it thought he wasn't very good at it and should stick to the keyboard - which does give some credence to the story of Mozart being pleasantly surprised in Leipzig by a performance of "Singet dem Herren.")

As for Mozart's "discovery" of Bach, it may have been no discovery at all, but rather a new interest in a composer whose work (some of it) he already knew: https://books.google.com/books?id=BKMx7o0Gty4C&pg=PA52

Anyway, the change that happens in Mozart's music in the early 1780s - for example, the difference between the Vienna fortepiano concertos and the "Jeunehomme" concerto of 1777, itself already a masterpiece - seems to me to have more to do with his engagement with the mature style of Haydn, which was itself brand new, having just been revealed to the world in the Op. 33 string quartets published in 1781 - most obviously in the series of quartets that Mozart dedicated to the older composer.



kyf said:


> Probably J.S. Bach was too difficult for most composers (people even thought, incorrectly, that Schubert didn't know counterpoint techniques) to absorb & develop; even Mozart & Mendelssohn had to make an effort. But Mendelssohn also died young. Verdi's Falstaff definitely came out of those influences, eventually in 1894 when Verdi was 80 years old.


Why, because it ends with a pseudo-fugue? To paraphrase Shaw, there no evidence in any bar of "Falstaff" that Verdi ever heard a note of Bach's music.


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## kyf

Given what you yourself just said, a myth is too strong a word. Also, just because Shaw had to talk about it, shows that many important people thought so. And despite Mendelssohn's efforts, Verdi never heard a note of Bach's music? What does that say?

BTW, many of those keyboard pieces were meant to be basic instructional/drill pieces. People thought those pieces were better than the St. Matthew Passion & his church music was not popular? What does that say?

Almost certainly _Don Giovanni, Requiem_, and the _Mass in C minor_ came out of influences by J.S. Bach & Handel.


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## Magnum Miserium

kyf said:


> Given what yourself just said, a myth is too strong a word.


It's incorrect and lots of people believe it, so myth is exactly the right word.



kyf said:


> Also, just because Shaw had to talk about it, shows that many important people thought so.


Shaw didn't "have to" talk about Verdi and Bach. He didn't talk about Verdi and Bach at all. I was paraphrasing (and said so). Shaw was talking about Verdi and Wagner. That's what "many important people" were saying about "Falstaff" in the late 19th century: that it was influenced by Wagner. Which proves that many people can be wrong. (Surprise!)



kyf said:


> And despite Mendelssohn's efforts, Verdi never heard a note of Bach's music? What does that say?


I didn't say Verdi never heard Bach's music, I said there's no evidence _in Verdi's music_ that he ever heard Bach's music.

So, "What does that say?" Nothing, because Verdi almost certainly did hear Bach's music, and indubitably _knew about_ Bach's music, first because everybody did, second because he mentions Bach in his letters (for example, saying that it's fine for Germans, who are descended from Bach, to end up sounding like Wagner, but an affectation for Italians, who are descended from Palestrina).


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## Magnum Miserium

kyf said:


> BTW, many of those keyboard pieces were meant to be basic instructional/practice pieces. People thought those pieces were better than the St. Matthew Passion & his church music was not popular? What does that say?


Nothing. Though if YOU'RE saying you think "The Art of Fugue" and "The Well Tempered Clavier" are LESS great than the St. Matthew Passion, that does say SOMETHING, but not about 18th century of Bach reception.


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## Chronochromie

kyf said:


> And despite Mendelssohn's efforts, Verdi never heard a note of Bach's music? What does that say?


Something odd about Italy, possibly? Beethoven's Eroica didn't get its Italian premiere until 1867...


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## kyf

Magnum Miserium said:


> ..Shaw was talking about Verdi and Wagner...(Verdi) mentions Bach in his letters (for example, saying that it's fine for Germans, who are descended from Bach, to end up sounding like Wagner, but an affectation for Italians, who are descended from Palestrina).


Magnum Miserium reads a great deal and is a learned person. Perhaps the shouting is the cause of such great misery; because loud voices drown out even our own words and we fail to listen even to ourselves and think.


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## Woodduck

kyf said:


> Woodduck seems to be of the "historical determinism" school. He seems to assume that Romanticism has to come in that way and some individual like Mozart can at best bring it about sooner or make it better. This seems to me a poor "romantic" assumption.
> 
> If Mozart (& Mendelssohn) had lived longer, J.S. Bach would have had greater influence on Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Verdi, and maybe even Wagner & co.


I don't know what view you're expressing here, but I'm certain it's unrelated to anything I've said. I make no "Romantic assumptions." All I've said is that the existing work of Mozart, even his late work, was fundamentally 18th-century Classical in style and temperament, and that we therefore have no basis for asserting that he would have had any major influence on Romanticism, which would have happened without his existence and which in fact moved in directions antithetical, temperamentally and structurally, to the sort of music Mozart wrote. (We could discuss what "Romanticism" meant then and what it means to us in hindsight, but I don't need to do that to make my point.)

I'd also say that your second statement - that Mozart would have somehow infused more Bach into other 19th-century composers - is similarly unjustified.


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## Magnum Miserium

kyf said:


> One shouldn't shout so much; because loud voices drown out even our own words and we fail to listen even to ourselves and think.


So what exactly is your point here? That because Verdi knew who Bach was, therefore... Shaw didn't write what Shaw wrote?

Anyway, let's recap:

1. Bach was famous outside of Leipzig, in his own time and always after that.

2. Mozart probably knew Bach's music before 1782.

3. You said Verdi's "Falstaff" 'came out of those [Bach's] influences', but you haven't given a single example, which is just as well, because there aren't any.


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## EdwardBast

kyf said:


> If Mozart (& Mendelssohn) had lived longer, J.S. Bach would have had greater influence on Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Verdi, and maybe even Wagner & co.


Beethoven played the WTC from memory as a teenager. Whatever influence Bach was going to have on Beethoven, he had. Same is true of Brahms. Verdi? Schubert? Not really their thing.


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## Magnum Miserium

kyf said:


> Magnum Miserium reads a great deal and is a learned person. Perhaps the shouting is the cause of such great misery; because loud voices drown out even our own words and we fail to listen even to ourselves and think.


No, trust me, the misery comes from the learning.


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## Amadeus1994

Remember how Mozart was great at absorbing other musicians' styles (e.g. J.C Bach, Haydn, J.S.Bach) to develop his own. And he was always flexible and would adapt his music to all circumstances. Had he had full exposure to the romantic movement, I would imagine Beethoven having a seriously hard time to compete with him.


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## itarbrt

Well during that time we've got 3 wars for indipendence . Italia as nation born in 1861 and completed in 1870 ( 3 changing of capital city in 10 years Torino-Firenze-Roma ) . Italian romanticism so evolved , I feel , most in a patriotism way , less into neoclassicism .


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## PlaySalieri

Magnum Miserium said:


> It's incorrect and lots of people believe it, so myth is exactly the right word.
> 
> Shaw didn't "have to" talk about Verdi and Bach. He didn't talk about Verdi and Bach at all. I was paraphrasing (and said so). Shaw was talking about Verdi and Wagner. That's what "many important people" were saying about "Falstaff" in the late 19th century: that it was influenced by Wagner. Which proves that many people can be wrong. (Surprise!)
> 
> I didn't say* Verdi never heard Bach's music*, I said there's no evidence _in Verdi's music_ that he ever heard Bach's music.
> 
> So, "What does that say?" Nothing, because Verdi almost certainly did hear Bach's music, and indubitably _knew about_ Bach's music, first because everybody did, second because he mentions Bach in his letters (for example, saying that it's fine for Germans, who are descended from Bach, to end up sounding like Wagner, but an affectation for Italians, who are descended from Palestrina).


I'm not sure if Verdi listened to much from the germanic tradition at all - given that he referred to Mozart as a "quartet composer"


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## PlaySalieri

Woodduck said:


> I don't know what view you're expressing here, but I'm certain it's unrelated to anything I've said. I make no "Romantic assumptions." All I've said is that the existing work of Mozart, even his late work, was fundamentally 18th-century Classical in style and temperament, *and that we therefore have no basis for asserting that he would have had any major influence on Romanticism, *which would have happened without his existence and which in fact moved in directions antithetical, temperamentally and structurally, to the sort of music Mozart wrote. (We could discuss what "Romanticism" meant then and what it means to us in hindsight, but I don't need to do that to make my point.)
> 
> I'd also say that your second statement - that Mozart would have somehow infused more Bach into other 19th-century composers - is similarly unjustified.


and yet there are works that have a 19thC character such as the minor key sonatas, concerti - if beethoven had composed the c minor pc (ie k491) after his eroica - I doubt whether anybody would be questioning why beethoven reverted back to 18thc classical style. They would, I think - see the 2 outer movements as more evidence of Beethoven changing music.


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## kyf

Magnum Miserium said:


> So what exactly is your point here? That because Verdi knew who Bach was, therefore... Shaw didn't write what Shaw wrote?
> 
> 3. You said Verdi's "Falstaff" 'came out of those [Bach's] influences', but you haven't given a single example, which is just as well, because there aren't any.


 So, it's a fun discussion; then here we go...

1. It's _Bernard Shaw_; he probably would've been offended that somebody _abused_ his name and his words. 
2. Bernard Shaw is a literary figure; he was clearly having some fun with his fellow critics (and with Italian nationalists) who suggested that Verdi borrowed from Wagner. Here's the excerpt, judge for yourself what he said. Also keep in mind that he is known as a polemicist.

George Bernard Shaw _A word more about Verdi._ The Anglo-Saxon Review, March 1901, pp.133-146.

"But there is something else than Boito in Otello. In the third act there is amovement in six-eight time, which is utterly unlike anything in the Trovatore period, and surprisingly like a rondo in the style of Beethoven. That is to say, it is pre-Wagnerian; which at such a date is almost equivalent to anti-Wagnerian. In Falstaff, again, in the buck-basket scene there is a light-fingered and humorous moto perpetuo [perpetual motion] which might have come straight out of a Mendelssohn concerto.

Unfortunately it is ineffectively scored; for Verdi, brought up in the Italian practice of using the orchestra as pure accompaniment, was an unskilled beginner in German symphonic orchestration. These are the only passages m the later works which are not obviously the old Verdi developed into a careful and thoughtful composer under the influence of Boito and the effect of advancing age on his artistic resources. I think they would both be impossible to a composer who had not formed an affectionate acquaintance with German music.

But the music of Beethoven and Mendelssohn is the music of a Germany still under that Franco-Italian influence which made the music of Mozart so amazingly unlike the music of Bach. Of the later music that was consciously and resolutely German and German only; that would not even write allegro at the head of its quick, or adagio at the head of its slow movements, because these words are not German; of the music of Schumann, Brahms, and Wagner, there is not anywhere in Verdi the faintest trace. In German music the Italian loved what Italy gave. What Germany offered of her own music he entirely ignored."


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## kyf

itarbrt said:


> Well during that time we've got 3 wars for indipendence . Italia as nation born in 1861 and completed in 1870 ( 3 changing of capital city in 10 years Torino-Firenze-Roma )


 But we shouldn't make fun of the Italians, who clearly had their share of troubles. It's understandable that Verdi had to smooth over ruffled feelings by saying that he didn't learn from Bach like Wagner did; instead, as an Italian, he is descended from Palestrina.

However, it is clear that Verdi made an effort to incorporate the fugue. There were fugues in his Requiem (1874) & String Quartet (1873).

Perhaps some scholar can start a thread explaining to us the differences between Bach & Palestrina.  Also what is the supposed line from Palestrina to Verdi. That is, if not Bach, Mozart, & Beethoven's Grosse fugue, what motivated Verdi to learn & develop the fugue.


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## Magnum Miserium

kyf said:


> 2. Bernard Shaw is a literary figure; he was clearly having some fun with his fellow critics (and with Italian nationalists) who suggested that Verdi borrowed from Wagner.


Bernard Shaw, in addition to his other accomplishments, is generally considered to be the greatest music critic ever.

"having some fun with" - Meaning what, he didn't actually mean what he said? Yes he did.

What _Italian nationalist _'suggested Verdi borrowed from Wagner?


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## Magnum Miserium

kyf said:


> That is, if not Bach, Mozart, & Beethoven's Grosse fugue, what motivated Verdi to learn & develop the fugue.


Scarlatti. Next question. https://books.google.com/books?id=wKpapMfOp8kC&pg=PA92


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## kyf

*Surely you can't be serious...*


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## Magnum Miserium

Read the link, Kyf.


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## SONNET CLV

Woodduck said:


> I don't know what view you're expressing here, but I'm certain it's unrelated to anything I've said. I make no "Romantic assumptions." All I've said is that the existing work of Mozart, even his late work, was fundamentally 18th-century Classical in style and temperament, and that we therefore have no basis for asserting that he would have had any major influence on Romanticism, which would have happened without his existence and which in fact moved in directions antithetical, temperamentally and structurally, to the sort of music Mozart wrote. (We could discuss what "Romanticism" meant then and what it means to us in hindsight, but I don't need to do that to make my point.)
> 
> I'd also say that your second statement - that Mozart would have somehow infused more Bach into other 19th-century composers - is similarly unjustified.


Woodduck is certainly correct when he asserts: "Mozart, even his late work, was fundamentally 18th-century Classical in style and temperament, and that we therefore have no basis for asserting that he would have had any major influence on Romanticism, which would have happened without his existence and which in fact moved in directions antithetical, temperamentally and structurally, to the sort of music Mozart wrote." Romanticism as a movement in Arts derives muchly from philosophical concepts generated by the Age of Revolution, culminating, one might argue, in the French Revolution of 1789, which had further influences upon Romantic sensibilites, generating its own philosophers and philosophical viewpoints, all of which took some time to fester and develop. Mozart unfortunately would not see much time beyond that Revolution in France, and thus would not be too impacted by Romantic philosophical leanings.

This isn't to say he wouldn't have been had he lived longer, but all we can do is to speculate, and it seems to me this thread was for just that purpose: to speculate. As I see Mozart being a "perfector" artist (of his own "Classical Age") rather than an "innovator" artist, I could speculate that had Mozart continued on and heard/studied Beethoven and Berlioz and others he might have indeed contributed to the new philosophical movement musically. But he might not have done so with the same mastery of perfection that he achieved in Classicism. Rather, he might have been a poorer innovator, or one who simply got caught up in the "new thing" but had little new to offer and his later work might have proven on par with lesser "early Romantics" such as, say, Hummel or von Weber or Ferdinand Ries.

Now I happen to marvel at much of Hummel's music and often see him as a Romantic continuation of Mozart (much in the same way as I view Schubert), but Hummel (nor Weber and certainly not Ries) is a Beethoven, let alone a Wagner or Liszt. Still, it doesn't hurt to wonder, to speculate, to dream.

I lament that William Shakespeare ceased writing after _The Tempest_. Surely he had more to say. And he passed at what I in my current age consider a relatively young age. I lament the loss of Keats almost as I do of Mozart and Schubert. It is sad that some artists who have seemingly so much to offer are extinguished at such a youthful age. But I am also reminded of Wordsworth, one of the great founders of Romanticism and certainly an influence on composers and painters and philosophers following him in the Romantic period -- I am reminded that his early poetry, up to around 1800 (and certainly evident in the early _Lyrical Ballads_ of 1798) remains his great achievement and that several decades of poetry following was less than stellar.

Rossini, who may well have had a profound impact on a longer-living Mozart the opera writer (and who was certainly impacted himself by Mozart), bowed out of composing early. Perhaps he did not want to suffer the Wordsworthian curse; could he have been so prescient?

I would suggest that Haydn influenced Mozart, but that Haydn himself changed after hearing Mozart. Sometimes the teacher learns from the student who, earlier, learned from him. Beethoven certainly learned from Mozart; there is little reason to believe that Mozart, a great student of his art, would not have learned from Beethoven. Mozart would have been of a fitful age at the premier of the Ninth Symphony; what might he have taken away from that? (Of course, and perhaps it was the ever observant Woodduck who pointed this out earlier ... of course, Beethoven may have changed had Mozart continued living and composing and the Ninth Symphony might have never been what it currently is. What if the elder Mozart had set Schiller's "Ode" prior to Beethoven considering it? Perhaps Mozart's 69th Symphony would have rung with the strains of "Freude, schöner Götterfunken..."!)

Such speculation remains a game. One that proves ultimately meaningless, but one which is still more profitable than other games one might indulge in.

In the end I sigh. Alas. But I also smile. I have my Mozart and Beethoven collections to fall back on. I can listen to the music, and what came before and afterwards. And I can read the poetry and plays of Shakespeare, and ponder Keats and Shelley, and turn to that which came before and afterwards ... and know that I still will never be able to experience it all. So perhaps it is enough to have the Mozart 41 symphonies without having the additional ones or that number 69. Shakespeare, in his finite number of plays (as Beethoven and Mozart in their finite compilation of musical compositions) provides me with more than a lifetime of enjoyment and thought. And, yes too, speculation. I am the richer for that.


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## Kieran

Coming late to this, through a link in a different thread. Had Mozart lived longer....the speculations are endless. Would he have had any effect on Romantic music? Well, did he? The Romantics seem to have gotten a lot of their impressions off the side of one of them garish chocolate boxes that are so popular in Vienna. In other words, I'm not sure he was fully understood, or if he was, that he was fully appreciated. The quotes from many Romantic period composers seem to be more about a reductive stereotype, than anything to do with Mozart or his music.

But does this mean he had no effect? He surely had an effect on Schubert - his fifth symph is considered by some to be modeled on Mozart's 40th. Chopin adored Mozart and Bach above all other composers, and he certainly shows Mozart's crystalline beauty and restraint in a lot of his work.

Had Mozart lived longer, maybe it's safe to assume that he'd have continued composing in the vein of what would later be known as his middle period - the style of sparse and ethereal stuff he composed in his final couple of years. Would this have had an effect? Would he have been influenced by Beethoven? We can't tell, but we know from Beethoven's music that the influence of Mozart continued right up til the end. Imagine a Mozart who's composing German operas, strange symphonies and counter-revolutionary piano pieces, unaffected by the sentimental excesses of Romantic expression? It's not impossible to say he'd have had a huge effect, but I think his music may have gone through a stage of being misunderstood - as it was anyway - and the true greatness of it only being discovered long after the Romantic period ended - which is what happened, regardless...


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## eugeneonagain

Also Tchaikovsky was a huge admirer and from his letters and diaries it's clear he aimed for the same 'simplicity' and 'purity of expression' he thought were among Mozart's qualities. When he conducted his own Symphony no.6 in 1893 he insisted on pairing it on the bill with dances from Idomeneo...


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## Tallisman




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## eugeneonagain

What if Bach had been born in Cuba?


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## larold

I don't know why there is any question about it … since Mozart, while alive in the 18th century, "outBrahmsed" the famous Brahms requiem with his own requiem and outdid any other mass other than Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with his C minor mass. 

He also wrote better operas in the 18th century -- with enduring Romantic appeal such as Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro -- than anyone wrote up the time of Verdi and Wagner a century later.

Had Mozart been freed of the tyranny of royal servitude and been able to compose anything he wanted, he'd surely have adapted to the music of the early 19th century and created works greater than anyone in history.

I think the better question, had Mozart lived another 30-40 years, is what Beethoven would have become since he would have been the world's second-best composer to Mozart all his life.


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## EdwardBast

larold said:


> I don't know why there is any question about it … since Mozart, while alive in the 18th century, "outBrahmsed" the famous Brahms requiem with his own requiem and outdid any other mass other than Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with his C minor mass.
> 
> He also wrote better operas in the 18th century -- with enduring Romantic appeal such as Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro -- than anyone wrote up the time of Verdi and Wagner a century later.
> 
> Had Mozart been freed of the tyranny of royal servitude and been able to compose anything he wanted, *he'd surely have adapted to the music of the early 19th century* and created works greater than anyone in history.
> 
> I think the better question, had Mozart lived another 30-40 years, is what Beethoven would have become since he would have been the world's second-best composer to Mozart all his life.


Ah yes, the woulda coulda shoulda argument. 

Who do you think he would have been adapting to?


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## hpowders

What's more interesting to me is to surmise what Beethoven would have been composing if he lived another 30 years.

He may have been out Schoenberging Schoenberg in atonal masterpieces, given his Grosse Fuge and Hammerklavier fugue, straining tonality to its limits.

Mozart was no revolutionary. Beethoven? Astonishing what he could have come up with, given another 30 years.


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## Woodduck

larold said:


> I don't know why there is any question about it … since Mozart, while alive in the 18th century, "outBrahmsed" the famous Brahms requiem with his own requiem and outdid any other mass other than Beethoven's Missa Solemnis with his C minor mass.
> 
> He also wrote better operas in the 18th century -- with enduring Romantic appeal such as Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro -- than anyone wrote up the time of Verdi and Wagner a century later.
> 
> Had Mozart been freed of the tyranny of royal servitude and been able to compose anything he wanted, he'd surely have adapted to the music of the early 19th century and created works greater than anyone in history.
> 
> I think the better question, had Mozart lived another 30-40 years, is what Beethoven would have become since he would have been the world's second-best composer to Mozart all his life.


If Mozart could outBrahms Brahms with his requiem and outBach Bach with his mass, he would unquestionably have gone on to outBruckner Bruckner with his next symphony, outWagner Wagner with his next opera, and outTchaikovsky Tchaikovsky with his first ballet. All those guys would have realized they were licked and gone into more profitable fields like banking.


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## Bluecrab

larold said:


> I don't know why there is any question about it …


Because the remainder of your post consists of nothing more than your opinion. There is plenty of question about it, because not everybody shares your opinion of Mozart and what he might have composed had he lived longer. In my opinion, Beethoven vastly overshadows him. Of course, neither of us is objectively right.


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## jdec

Bluecrab said:


> Because the remainder of your post consists of nothing more than your opinion. There is plenty of question about it, because not everybody shares your opinion of Mozart and what he might have composed had he lived longer. In my opinion, Beethoven vastly *outlives* him. Of course, neither of us is objectively right.


I fixed that for you. You're welcome.


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## Bluecrab

jdec said:


> I fixed that for you. You're welcome.


 Wrong. You have "fixed" absolutely nothing, because there is nothing wrong in what I wrote.


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## jdec

hpowders said:


> *Mozart was no revolutionary.* Beethoven? Astonishing what he could have come up with, given another 30 years.


We'll never know. As larold said, "had Mozart been freed of the tyranny of royal servitude and been able to compose anything he wanted" (as Beethoven was able to), and taking all the time he wanted for that (as Beethoven was able to)....you get the point.


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## Guillet81

Obviously, all this speculation comes down to opinion. I would venture that, perhaps, there would have been little difference in what other great composers, such as Beethoven, would have produced, had Mozart lived longer. My reasoning is that Beethoven was shaped by many of the composers who knew Mozart very well, such that the enormous contribution to form that Beethoven would give to music in the 19th century would largely have been similar. Not to mention that in either scenario Beethoven had to, or would have had to, attempt to break from Mozart's style. It's quite possible that the opposite would have been true, of course. We cannot know definitively, only make informed guesses.

Part of Mozart's enduring charm, in a sense, is the tragedy of his early demise. But for me, he needed no more than that limited time to be the greatest of them all. A longer lifespan would have amounted to cheating, or rubbing it in, as it were. Perhaps God saw fit to recall his angel earlier than expected: Mozart was simply too good! :angel:


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## eugeneonagain

hpowders said:


> What's more interesting to me is to surmise what Beethoven would have been composing if he lived another 30 years.
> 
> He may have been out Schoenberging Schoenberg in atonal masterpieces, given his Grosse Fuge and Hammerklavier fugue, straining tonality to its limits.
> 
> *Mozart was no revolutionary*. Beethoven? Astonishing what he could have come up with, given another 30 years.


It's what so many Beethoven acolytes say and yet there are many examples of how Mozart actually _was_ revolutionary, but didn't shout about it. It's now a rather tired cliche to declare:

Beethoven = revolutionary
Mozart = safe and limited


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## KenOC

larold said:


> Had Mozart been freed of the tyranny of royal servitude and been able to compose anything he wanted, he'd surely have adapted to the music of the early 19th century and created works greater than anyone in history.


In fact Mozart was "freed of the tyranny of royal servitude" in 1781 and operated, like Beethoven did later, as a freelancer in Vienna. In 1787 he received an appointment from Emperor Joseph II that paid a good wage and required little composition. It appears that the emperor's main purpose was simply to keep Mozart in Vienna. Again, there is a parallel with the stipend Beethoven received in 1809, requiring no new compositions but merely to continue living in Vienna.


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## Woodduck

Mozart's future as an opera composer is for me the most interesting question. He said he wanted to write German opera, and for those of us who enjoy _Zauberflote_ more than the Da Ponte social comedies that's an intriguing prospect. Would he have had any interest in the essence of German Romanticism, the folkloric vein explored by Weber and Marschner? Perhaps a _Faust_ opera (Spohr wrote one and Beethoven considered it)?


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## Kieran

Woodduck said:


> Mozart's future as an opera composer is for me the most interesting question. He said he wanted to write German opera, and for those of us who enjoy _Zauberflote_ more than the Da Ponte social comedies that's an intriguing prospect. Would he have had any interest in the essence of German Romanticism, the folkloric vein explored by Weber and Marschner? Perhaps a _Faust_ opera (Spohr wrote one and Beethoven considered it)?


Goethe considered that Mozart was the ideal composer for Faust, alas the maestro was long gone. Goethe also began to write a sequel to The Magic Flute, so inspired was he. Mozart would most likely have preferred to compose German opera as he got older, and that's an enticing prospect for us all. But bear in mind he was due to go to London in 1792 - perhaps a Shakespeare opera could also have come down to us?


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## Larkenfield

I believe Mozart would have torn the house down with a series of impressive and imaginative works as the freedom of the romantic age unfolded and he could let it rip. He would have approached the piano sonata, his symphonies, and everything else, with unbridled inspiration and extended every form like Beethoven did. There would have been two giants during the early romantic period with the public teetering on the edge of their seats to hear what was going to happen next. I think it might have been sensational, with both composers becoming friends while still being friendly competitors. I can easily imagine them going over scores together and discussing philosophy as well as the entire history of music. But alas,  it was not meant to be because medicine was not as advanced as the fine arts.


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## jdec

KenOC said:


> In fact Mozart was "freed of the tyranny of royal servitude" in 1781 and operated, like Beethoven did later, as a freelancer in Vienna. In 1787 he received an appointment from Emperor Joseph II that paid a good wage and required little composition. It appears that the emperor's main purpose was simply to keep Mozart in Vienna. Again, there is a parallel with the stipend Beethoven received in 1809, requiring no new compositions but merely to continue living in Vienna.


It was not the kind of patronage like that received by Beethoven from the likes of Prince Lobkowitz, Prince Lichnowsky, Archduke Rudolph or count/prince Andreas Razumovsky, etc. Beethoven came to receive annual stipends of 4000 florins for years without significant conditionals.


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## Woodduck

Larkenfield said:


> I believe Mozart would have torn the house down with a series of impressive and imaginative works as the freedom of the romantic age unfolded and he could let it rip. He would have approached the piano sonata, his symphonies, and everything else, with unbridled inspiration and extended every form like Beethoven did. There would have been two giants during the early romantic age with the public teetering on the edge of their seats to hear what was going to happen next. I think it might have been sensational, with both composers becoming friends while still being friendly competitors.


This ointment needs a fly.


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## JAS

Woodduck said:


> This ointment needs a fly.


I think the real question should be, if Mozart lived long enough what would have been his impact on Disco?

(How's that for a fly?)


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## PlaySalieri

hpowders said:


> What's more interesting to me is to surmise what Beethoven would have been composing if he lived another 30 years.
> 
> He may have been out Schoenberging Schoenberg in atonal masterpieces, given his Grosse Fuge and Hammerklavier fugue, straining tonality to its limits.
> 
> Mozart was no revolutionary. Beethoven? Astonishing what he could have come up with, given another 30 years.


I think Beethoven had ample time, and security - to compose as he wished and complete what he had to say in his art. No Beethoven fan should be asking this question.

Mozart's final 3 sy show that he was moving into new territory with the form - with each new group of sy surpassing the previous group 30-24 35-38 39-41 - it's hard to deny that another 3 would not have broken new ground and after Zauberflote and K626 he was due to return to the symphony as his last 3 were composed 2 years previously. I can imagine that Beethoven in the late 90s would have been racking his brains for ideas in the face of formidable compositions and most likely - as he did with many of Mozart's great works - attempted to emulate. As the works become greater still - the eroica most likely never would have been composed.


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## KenOC

stomanek said:


> I think Beethoven had ample time, and security - to compose as he wished and complete what he had to say in his art. No Beethoven fan should be asking this question.


Disagree completely. When Beethoven died, he had an ambitious portfolio of projects. Further, his style had been changing for the past three years and would likely have continued on, exploring new directions.

I would say that Beethoven's approach to music was changing in his 56th year more than Mozart's was at the end of his short life.


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> Disagree completely. When Beethoven died, he had an ambitious portfolio of projects. Further, his style had been changing for the past three years and would likely have continued on, exploring new directions.
> 
> I would say that Beethoven's approach to music was changing in his 56th year more than Mozart's was at the end of his short life.


Completely agree. Beethoven's major works in the Opus 100s are startling, like nothing before or since. There's no reason to think he would have stopped questing.


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## jdec

Woodduck said:


> Completely agree. Beethoven's major works in the Opus 100s are startling, like nothing before or since. *There's no reason to think he would have stopped questing*.


EdwardBast: "Ah yes, the woulda coulda shoulda argument. "



But I agree too, he 'would have' continued questing... so would have Mozart.


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## Woodduck

jdec said:


> EdwardBast: "Ah yes, the woulda coulda shoulda argument. "
> 
> 
> 
> But I agree too, he 'would have' continued questing... as Mozart would have done so too.


I said nothing about Mozart, and I doubt that EdwardBast would have characterized as "woulda coulda shoulda" anything I said about Beethoven. I'm not engaging in fanciful speculation or wishful thinking. I'm merely pointing out that Beethoven was innovating radically when death interrupted him. Talk to stomanek, whose view of Beethoven's unfulfilled ambitions is apparently "wouldn'a couldn'a shouldn'a."


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## jdec

Woodduck said:


> ... and I doubt that EdwardBast would have characterized as "woulda coulda shoulda" anything I said *about Beethoven. *


Yeah, I doubt it too!


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## Euler

stomanek said:


> Mozart's final 3 sy show that he was moving into new territory with the form - with each new group of sy surpassing the previous group 30-24 35-38 39-41 - it's hard to deny that another 3 would not have broken new ground and after Zauberflote and K626 he was due to return to the symphony as his last 3 were composed 2 years previously.


Yes Mozart wrote 30-24 travelling backwards in time, genius beyond all measure! Beethoven only defied time's arrow when vomitting a dodgy meal. Plus Mozart composed 37 while inhabiting the body of Michael Haydn--easy for a divine spirit, but what happened when Beethoven tried this? Mickey H gave him a clip round the ear and insisted he was happily married.



stomanek said:


> I can imagine that Beethoven in the late 90s would have been racking his brains for ideas in the face of formidable compositions and most likely - as he did with many of Mozart's great works - attempted to emulate. As the works become greater still - the eroica most likely never would have been composed.


Well Mozart would've written it already right? In his head of course. He wouldn't waste trees committing such fecklessness to paper (Mozart would've invented eco-activism had he lived 2 days longer).

BTW have you noticed Beethoven's Serioso quartet is EXACTLY the same as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik if you remove some notes and insert some others? It's amazing what scholars miss in their deification of that swarthy vulgarian Ludwig.


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## Eusebius12

eugeneonagain said:


> What if Bach had been born in Cuba?


Gott in Himmel

What if Beethoven had a myna bird and a nagging wife?


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## Eusebius12

Euler said:


> Yes Mozart wrote 30-24 travelling backwards in time, genius beyond all measure! Beethoven only defied time's arrow when vomitting a dodgy meal. Plus Mozart composed 37 while inhabiting the body of Michael Haydn--easy for a divine spirit, but what happened when Beethoven tried this? Mickey H gave him a clip round the ear and insisted he was happily married.
> 
> Well Mozart would've written it already right? In his head of course. He wouldn't waste trees committing such fecklessness to paper (Mozart would've invented eco-activism had he lived 2 days longer).
> 
> BTW have you noticed Beethoven's Serioso quartet is EXACTLY the same as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik if you remove some notes and insert some others? It's amazing what scholars miss in their deification of that swarthy vulgarian Ludwig.


Somehow you are reminding me of the work of Rosemary Brown. Did you know that Mozart's String Quartets have exactly the same instrumentation as Beethoven's? That proves they are all the work of Luchesi (and you thought his career as a TC poster was amazing enough)


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## Eusebius12

Kieran said:


> Goethe considered that Mozart was the ideal composer for Faust, alas the maestro was long gone. Goethe also began to write a sequel to The Magic Flute, so inspired was he. Mozart would most likely have preferred to compose German opera as he got older, and that's an enticing prospect for us all. But bear in mind he was due to go to London in 1792 - perhaps a Shakespeare opera could also have come down to us?


Goethe liked a particular type of word setting, which left the text in clear relief. Mozart generally did this, whilst supplying greater and sweeter melodies than had hitherto been the domain of (Italian) opera. Mozart was very much concerned with the commercial aspects of music (as frankly all composers have been and certainly pre-20th century composers more so) and generally set to work on major projects with financial success in mind. Great poetry doesn't presume great music and vice versa. We see the song cycles of Schubert set to Mueller, and the very few decent operas or song settings based on Shakespeare.

Still the prospect of a successor to Zauberfloete is an enticing one.


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## Eusebius12

Larkenfield said:


> I believe Mozart would have torn the house down with a series of impressive and imaginative works as the freedom of the romantic age unfolded and he could let it rip. He would have approached the piano sonata, his symphonies, and everything else, with unbridled inspiration and extended every form like Beethoven did. There would have been two giants during the early romantic period with the public teetering on the edge of their seats to hear what was going to happen next. I think it might have been sensational, with both composers becoming friends while still being friendly competitors. I can easily imagine them going over scores together and discussing philosophy as well as the entire history of music. But alas, it was not meant to be because medicine was not as advanced as the fine arts.


Possibly, although Schubert was alive for most of Beethoven's career, and no such comparable competition occurred. Not that there wasn't influence. Beethoven was determined to follow his own star.


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## Larkenfield

If Mozart had lived a mere 200 years longer, he probably would have been the most highly paid composer in Hollywood and driven a top-of-the-line BMW because it was more sporty than a stodgy Mercedes-Benz. He could work fast and do the impossible to virtual perfection on the blockbusters and live like a king... Beethoven the same but with fewer projects because it took him longer to write. He could have done a great score to the son of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 because his writing extended into outer space anyway and it would have been a perfect fit... Imagine Jan Hammer having to compete with Mozart and Beethoven for gigs and getting stuck with nothing but Disney films because of the stiff competition. I would like to have seen that, and Beethoven would have been able to date Lady Gaga as his dearly beloved... Mozart would probably still be happy with Constanza, who owned her own publishing house, and able to support his gambling, family, and lavish lifestyle in splendor. Haydn could have rented Mozart’s guest house and lived to a comfortable old age with peace and security and writing more string quartets to recover from his exhaustion. Just one big happy family of mere immortals.


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## Eusebius12

Larkenfield said:


> If Mozart had lived a mere 200 years longer, he probably would have been the most highly paid composer in Hollywood and driving a top-of-the-line BMW because it was more sporty than Mercedes-Benz. He could work fast and do anything to virtual perfection on the block-busters and live like a king. Beethoven the same but with fewer projects bcause it took him longer to write. He could have done a great score to the son of Stanley Kubrick's 2001 because his writing extended into outer space anyway and it would have been a perfect fit. Imagine Jan Hammer having to compete with Mozart and Beethoven for gigs and getting stuck with nothing but Disney films because of the stiff competition. I would like to have seen that, and Beethoven would have been able to date Lady Gaga as his dearly beloved.


Yes except BMWs nowadays are terribly overrated 
Give me a top of the range Toyota over a Beemer anytime..


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## KenOC

Euler said:


> ...BTW have you noticed Beethoven's Serioso quartet is EXACTLY the same as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik if you remove some notes and insert some others? It's amazing what scholars miss in their deification of that swarthy vulgarian Ludwig.


And further, have you noticed that the _Serioso _uses *all twelve notes* of the scale? Arnold was, comparatively speaking, a come-lately!


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## Kieran

Eusebius12 said:


> Possibly, although Schubert was alive for most of Beethoven's career, and no such comparable competition occurred. Not that there wasn't influence. Beethoven was determined to follow his own star.


So was Schubert, I think. He forged his own path quite perfectly, while allowing the influences on him to work...


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## Eusebius12

KenOC said:


> And further, have you noticed that the _Serioso _uses *all twelve notes* of the scale? Arnold was, comparatively speaking, a come-lately!


Yes, but not in that order. Also, LvB wrote a music-drama, wrote a piece for eye-glasses, and used dissonance occasionally. He even used silence at times. Proto-Cage right there


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## Eusebius12

Kieran said:


> So was Schubert, I think. He forged his own path quite perfectly, while allowing the influences on him to work...


Definitely Schubert's work becomes sturdier and more sonorous and at times spiritual in response to Beethoven. The later symphonies and works such as the C Minor sonata and the String Quintet all show affinities with LvB. In some senses though the younger man went into deeper territory, as the G Major Quartet, the Bb sonata and the Schwanengesang demonstrate.


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## hpowders

Eusebius12 said:


> Yes except BMWs nowadays are terribly overrated
> Give me a top of the range Toyota over a Beemer anytime..


I have a BMW 2 Series and that car is not overrated as a BMW. For the rest of the models, BMW sold out to the yuppie crowd and is currently building German Lexus type vehicles-no steering feel, no fun to drive....but those yuppies wouldn't be caught dead in a BMW 2 Series.

Mozart was not a revolutionary, so I would have expected more of the same-piano concertos and operas, primarily over 30 more years.


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## Larkenfield

A


Eusebius12 said:


> Yes except BMWs nowadays are terribly overrated
> Give me a top of the range Toyota over a Beemer anytime.


Good point! Or he might have been better off being chauffeured around with a billiard table in his stretch limo. In his autobiography, _Life Beyond My Own Requiem_, with a preface by Andrea Luchesi, I would love to have read what he had to say about Wagner, Mahler, and Shostakovich - and I don't think it would have necessarily been bad, but he still might have had some suggestions anyway. He could also have included in the Appendix his own completion of his _ Requiem _after thanking Süssmayr for his attempt... So let's forget the terribly overrated BMW.


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## Machiavel

I think its really silly borderline dumb idiotic to think that had mozart lived 10-20 more years he could not have integrated Beethoven new ideas and form. I think he would likely eclipse the majority of masterpices of his contemporary. Maybe we would think about Mozart 50 symphony and not Beethoven 9, maybe we would think about 5-6 other great operas and almost forget about Wagner's ring. I think he would have made a run for all genres as the greatest composers.

MOzart not being able to adapt and produce masterpieces after masterpieces, I just can't see that. Only Schubert would have been a fair fight in my book no matter how giant BEethoven oeuvre is.


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## KenOC

I am less confident in Mozart's prospects had he lived a few decades longer. He did not and _could _not write music that fit the esthetics of the new age. By 1810, a few of his piano concertos survived in performance, but mostly people were only willing to listen to the C-minor and D-minor concertos and the "big" G-minor symphony - all minor key works that people could convince themselves were "Beethovenian." It took a full century after that for Mozart to start to recover the position in popular esteem that we, today, think is his due.

Certainly the best composers never lost sight of his genius, just as they carried old Bach forward in earlier days, but Mozart's music wasn't much of a factor among the broader public. If he had lived, we would likely see him today as a victim of changing fashion who, like Bach, awaited his resurrection by some latter-day Mendelssohn.


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## Woodduck

KenOC said:


> I am less confident in Mozart's prospects had he lived a few decades longer. He did not and _could _not write music that fit the esthetics of the new age. By 1810, a few of his piano concertos survived in performance, but mostly people were only willing to listen to the C-minor and D-minor concertos and the "big" G-minor symphony - all minor key works that people could convince themselves were "Beethovenian." It took a full century after that for Mozart to start to recover the position in popular esteem that we, today, think is his due.
> 
> Certainly the best composers never lost sight of his genius, just as they carried old Bach forward in earlier days, but Mozart's music wasn't much of a factor among the broader public. If he had lived, we would likely see him today as a victim of changing fashion who, like Bach, awaited his resurrection by some latter-day Mendelssohn.


Of the woulda coulda shouldas, this one seems sensible to me. Mozart's most starry-eyed devotees to the contrary, no artist is infinitely adaptable. That would be a negation of personal and artistic identity, and Mozart's identity was distinctive. We can hear it clearly in music he wrote in his teens - his adolescence even - and despite his brilliance in absorbing the techniques and even imitating the styles of other composers he remains quite recognizable throughout his career, showing no tendency to depart from a fundamentally Classical aesthetic, to deconstruct and reconstruct its characteristic forms as Beethoven does, or to loosen them in pursuit of a more discursive, personal form of expression like Schubert's. Speculation on what Mozart _could_ have done needs to be tempered by consideration of what he would have _wanted_ to do when surrounded by the radically different thinking of the young Romantics. Bach too absorbed easily the styles and techniques of his predecessors and contemporaries, but his late works are monuments to his heritage having nothing to do with the new tendencies the music of his sons would exemplify.


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## jdec

Machiavel said:


> I think its really silly borderline dumb idiotic to think that had mozart lived 10-20 more years he could not have integrated Beethoven new ideas and form. I think he would likely eclipse the majority of masterpices of his contemporary. Maybe we would think about Mozart 50 symphony and not Beethoven 9, maybe we would think about 5-6 other great operas and almost forget about Wagner's ring. I think he would have made a run for all genres as the greatest composers.
> 
> MOzart not being able to adapt and produce masterpieces after masterpieces, I just can't see that. Only Schubert would have been a fair fight in my book no matter how giant BEethoven oeuvre is.


My thoughts, exactly.


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## JAS

Woodduck said:


> Of the woulda coulda shouldas, this one seems sensible to me. Mozart's most starry-eyed devotees to the contrary, no artist is infinitely adaptable. That would be a negation of personal and artistic identity, and Mozart's identity was distinctive. We can hear it clearly in music he wrote in his teens - his adolescence even - and despite his brilliance in absorbing the techniques and even imitating the styles of other composers he remains quite recognizable throughout his career, showing no tendency to depart from a fundamentally Classical aesthetic, to deconstruct and reconstruct its characteristic forms as Beethoven does, or to loosen them in pursuit of a more discursive, personal form of expression like Schubert's. Speculation on what Mozart _could_ have done needs to be tempered by consideration of what he would have _wanted_ to do when surrounded by the radically different thinking of the young Romantics. Bach too absorbed easily the styles and techniques of his predecessors and contemporaries, but his late works are monuments to his heritage having nothing to do with the new tendencies the music of his sons would exemplify.


While I do not necessarily disagree with the statements made here, I do think I should point out how unfair it is to complain about the lack of adaptability of a composer once he or she is deceased.


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## CDs

I'm just amazed at what composers like Mozart (35), Schubert (31) and Mendelssohn (38) did in such a "short" amount of time. Compared to them Beethoven died at a ripe old age of 56.
If Beethoven would've died at the age Mozart did we wouldn't have his 5th Symphony or any symphony beyond that. So I'm just grateful for the works we do have by these great composers!


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> Of the woulda coulda shouldas, this one seems sensible to me. Mozart's most starry-eyed devotees to the contrary, no artist is infinitely adaptable. That would be a negation of personal and artistic identity, and Mozart's identity was distinctive...


I don't know about "infinitely" adaptable, but there have certainly been cases in the arts of old (often even extremely old) artists learning new tricks. A few years back I read through the Collected Poems of Geoffrey Hill, and he also had an extremely "distinctive" identity as a young poet, and then his late works--written after his late 60s--were completely different and show the influence of the experimental postmodernists like Ashbery. I can't imagine any critic reading Mercian Hymns in '71 predicting the same poet writing Speech! Speech! in 2000.

As for Mozart, I frankly hear enough of an evolution from his early to late works, and from their influence on early Beethoven to Beethoven's mature and early revolutionary works, to imagine Mozart writing closer to that idiom. He was clearly "romantic" enough for the likes of Schubert to borrow from, and more than once. I might add that I rarely hear clean breaks between classicism and romanticism; more often there's shared ground between the two. Yes, we might point to extreme examples in both cases--the programmatic works of Berlioz, Liszt, and even Beethoven with the Pastoral Symphony--but plenty of those in the romantic era were still making use of the classical forms while incorporating some (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) of the romantic innovations. I could easily imagine Mozart evolving into a kind of proto-Brahms or Schubert, and/or taking some influences from Beethoven. Could I imagine Mozart writing a Symphonie fantastique? No, that's more of a stretch. Really, I think this discussion is more a matter of degrees than anything.


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## EdwardBast

JAS said:


> While I do not necessarily disagree with the statements made here, I do think I should point out how unfair it is to complain about the lack of adaptability of a composer once he or she is deceased.


Certainly no more unfair than ascribing infinite adaptability after death?


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## Woodduck

JAS said:


> While I do not necessarily disagree with the statements made here, I do think I should point out how unfair it is to complain about the lack of adaptability of a composer once he or she is deceased.


Who's complaining (aside from those who think that Mozart would have written _Tristan und Isolde_ had he lived to 103)?


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## Woodduck

Eva Yojimbo said:


> I don't know about "infinitely" adaptable, but *there have certainly been cases in the arts of old (often even extremely old) artists learning new tricks.* A few years back I read through the Collected Poems of Geoffrey Hill, and he also had an extremely "distinctive" identity as a young poet, and then his late works--written after his late 60s--were completely different and show the influence of the experimental postmodernists like Ashbery. I can't imagine any critic reading Mercian Hymns in '71 predicting the same poet writing Speech! Speech! in 2000.
> 
> As for Mozart, I frankly hear enough of an evolution from his early to late works, and *from their influence on early Beethoven to Beethoven's mature and early revolutionary works, to imagine Mozart writing closer to that idiom. He was clearly "romantic" enough for the likes of Schubert to borrow from*, and more than once. I might add that *I rarely hear clean breaks between classicism and romanticism; more often there's shared ground between the two.* Yes, we might point to extreme examples in both cases--the programmatic works of Berlioz, Liszt, and even Beethoven with the Pastoral Symphony--but plenty of those in the romantic era were still making use of the classical forms while incorporating some (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) of the romantic innovations. I could easily imagine Mozart evolving into a kind of proto-Brahms or Schubert, and/or taking some influences from Beethoven. Could I imagine Mozart writing a Symphonie fantastique? No, that's more of a stretch. Really, I think this discussion is more a matter of degrees than anything.


Of course artists sometimes try on different styles. My question was whether Mozart's existing work suggests that he would want to "become a Romantic" with respect to anything that distinguishes Romantic from Classical style. I'm trying to speculate as little as possible and just look at what we have. I'm not sure, either, that literature is a good parallel to music. Can you name a first-rank composer before Beethoven whose work underwent a radical stylistic change in the course of his career? How many can you name even after Beethoven?

Why would Mozart's influence on Beethoven lead you to think that Mozart would take to writing more like Beethoven? And why does Mozart have to be "Romantic enough" - how much is enough? - for Schubert to borrow from him? That Romantic composers were still "making use of Classical forms" says little about the actual sound of the music they wrote. For example, the basic pattern of the symphony as exemplified in the late Classical era endured into the 20th century; the sonata-allegro idea in particular, with its possiblities of narrative elaboration and tonal drama, is just such fertile ground for expressive music-making that it transcends period. The difference between a Haydn and a Prokofiev symphony is all but total, but the difference between Mozart's "Jupiter" and Mendelssohn's "Scottish" is already astonishing.


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## PlaySalieri

KenOC said:


> I am less confident in Mozart's prospects had he lived a few decades longer.* He did not and could not write music that fit the esthetics of the new age. *By 1810, a few of his piano concertos survived in performance, but mostly people were only willing to listen to the C-minor and D-minor concertos and the "big" G-minor symphony - all minor key works that people could convince themselves were "Beethovenian." It took a full century after that for Mozart to start to recover the position in popular esteem that we, today, think is his due.
> 
> Certainly the best composers never lost sight of his genius, just as they carried old Bach forward in earlier days, but Mozart's music wasn't much of a factor among the broader public. If he had lived, we would likely see him today as a victim of changing fashion who, like Bach, awaited his resurrection by some latter-day Mendelssohn.


Mozart wrote to his father proudly that he can assimilate any style present and past - I fail to see why this should not apply to Beethoven's emerging voice.

He may not have felt aesthetically comfortable with the hammerklavier, for example - as he once wrote to his sister - "do not yield to fashion and maintain your quiet way of playing (the piano)". But I have little doubt, as he demonstrated after his readings of JS Bach - he would have learned from another great musical force and forged a new artistic path had he wished it to be so.

But as I have pointed out - we really dont know how the musical world would have evolved had Mozart lived longer. Whether any of Beethoven's great works would have been composed at all.


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## Larkenfield

What occasion had he not measured up to any creative challenge starting from the age of five? And he was composing some of his best work during his last year of life. The well was not running dry by any means. He had traveled widely and he was cosmopolitan. Mozart had the ability to assimilate any style he was interested in starting at a very early age when he was studying other composers, even copying them out, and he was able to assimilate those influences while remaining himself. I believe he had the kind of genius that would have never permitted him to become irrelevant, and no one knows for sure because this is all speculation, but I feel sure that he would have responded to the events around him that were threatening the aristocracy and while Napoleon was on the march and changing everything politically and culturally. He might have even welcomed that because of a new creative freedom, but it most certainly would have been a major adjustment in terms of his livelihood and the audience that would be changing, and he needed to continue to support his family by staying relevant to what was going on, to the changing times. I also like to imagine that Beethoven would have undoubtedly been there for him in some way to help him adjust to the changing times and public, if needed, now that there was a chance for them to finally meet... The great creators don’t change, but they evolve.


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## Eva Yojimbo

Woodduck said:


> Of course artists sometimes try on different styles. My question was whether Mozart's existing work suggests that he would want to "become a Romantic" with respect to anything that distinguishes Romantic from Classical style. I'm trying to speculate as little as possible and just look at what we have. I'm not sure, either, that literature is a good parallel to music. Can you name a first-rank composer before Beethoven whose work underwent a radical stylistic change in the course of his career? How many can you name even after Beethoven?
> 
> Why would Mozart's influence on Beethoven lead you to think that Mozart would take to writing more like Beethoven? And why does Mozart have to be "Romantic enough" - how much is enough? - for Schubert to borrow from him? That Romantic composers were still "making use of Classical forms" says little about the actual sound of the music they wrote. For example, the basic pattern of the symphony as exemplified in the late Classical era endured into the 20th century; the sonata-allegro idea in particular, with its possiblities of narrative elaboration and tonal drama, is just such fertile ground for expressive music-making that it transcends period. The difference between a Haydn and a Prokofiev symphony is all but total, but the difference between Mozart's "Jupiter" and Mendelssohn's "Scottish" is already astonishing.


Your "question" is only answerable if we carefully define what it means to "'become a romantic' with respect to anything that distinguishes Romantic from Classical." My approach was simply to look at the composers we consider Romantic and ask myself whether anything they did were beyond Mozart had he been exposed to Beethoven and/or other early romantics, and at least in some cases--aspects of Schubert and Brahms--I don't think so; I do not, however, think Mozart would've produced anything like Berlioz, Liszt, or Wagner, since it seems much further removed. Much of Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms, however, seems just a step--sometimes a half-step--beyond what Mozart was doing, so I see no reason he couldn't have gotten closer to that had he lived longer.

It's true that most composers do not have radical changes of style (though Stravinsky springs first to mind as an exception), but I also don't think Mozart doing some proto-romantic things would constitute a "radical change of style" either. Again, it depends on precisely what we're talking about.

What Mozart's influence on Beethoven tells me is that what Beethoven was doing, at least early on, was, again, a step or half-step beyond what Mozart was doing. I see no reason Mozart couldn't have made that step himself had he been exposed to Beethoven. If Schubert borrowed from Mozart, and we consider Schubert romantic, then that would have to mean that there's at least something in Mozart that isn't far off from Romanticism in at least some sense.

Like I said, this whole debate is really a matter of degrees: how much closer do we think Mozart would've gotten to the romantics had he lived longer (and, presumably, been exposed to Beethoven)? I say he could've produced some pieces that were a closer to the romanticism of some Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms; but I don't think he would've made it to Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz, etc. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that SOME evolution towards romanticism was possible, if not likely. I have a hard time imagining that Mozart's music would've remained static for, say, 20 more years given how much evolution there was in his short life already. Perhaps had he settled in one place, not been exposed to any new music in the romantic vein, and had a steady paying position that required him to produce work in his already-attained style, then I could imagine a few decades worth of work not too different than what he already produced. But, then again, Haydn had such a position and was still innovative and evolved, so there you go.


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## Woodduck

stomanek said:


> But as I have pointed out - we really dont know how the musical world would have evolved had Mozart lived longer. Whether any of Beethoven's great works would have been composed at all.


Beethoven wouldn't have been the only composer whose career was derailed by Mozart. Once the world realized that Mozart could write any kind of music better than anyone else, the Romantics would probably have given up altogether and the whole movement might have been delayed by forty or fifty years. Schubert would have succumbed to depression and become an organ grinder in the snow, Weber would have shot himself with a magic bullet, Mendelssohn would have whiled away the time in midsummer daydreams, Chopin would have joined the Polish military, Schumann would have formed a comedy team called Florestan and Eusebius and driven audiences crazy, Saint-Saens would have joined the carnival as an animal trainer, Brahms would have played gypsy music (among other things) in brothels, and Berlioz would have moved to Italy with Ferdinand Herold and opened a fantastic opium den. Romanticism would finally have gotten off the ground when King Ludwig II spent half the treasury of Munich to build a theater in Bayreuth, encouraging Wagner's belief that he could write rings around Mozart or anyone else.


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## PlaySalieri

A lot of the discussion going on in this thread is fuelled by an erroneous supposition. Namely that somehow Mozart's best music is lacking in someway - that great romantic music is essentially better than Mozart's great classical era pieces. I dont go along with that - a lot of his works have not been bettered by any era and I dont hold with the people that say - if only Mozart had lived longer - he could have matched Beethoven's achievements, for example. But I understand why some take that view.

Having said this - all Mozart's works are - by most standards of age, longevity - early works. As his been noted - there is a progression in style throught his short career. The rich orchestral textures in the mid to late Vienna years are far in advance of what he was doing at Salzburg. And there does seem to be, at times - evidence of a search for new ways of musical expression. In light of


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## Woodduck

stomanek said:


> A lot of the discussion going on in this thread is fuelled by an erroneous supposition. Namely that somehow Mozart's best music is lacking in someway - that great romantic music is essentially better than Mozart's great classical era pieces. I dont go along with that - a lot of his works have not been bettered by any era and I dont hold with the people that say - if only Mozart had lived longer - he could have matched Beethoven's achievements, for example. But I understand why some take that view.
> 
> Having said this - all Mozart's works are - by most standards of age, longevity - early works. As his been noted - there is a progression in style throught his short career. The rich orchestral textures in the mid to late Vienna years are far in advance of what he was doing at Salzburg. And there does seem to be, at times - evidence of a search for new ways of musical expression. In light of


I'm a little shocked by this. How many reasonably knowledgeable people think that Mozart's best music is "lacking"? Maybe I'm not following the thread closely enough, but if that were a widespread feeling then Mozart wouldn't be generally regarded as one of the greatest of composers, and by many as _the _greatest. There are always people who don't care for him and are eager to make that known, but the weight of opinion is surely not with them.

I must also take exception to any characterization of Mozart's works as "early." He was a prodigy and began his career early, and so might have been expected to mature as a composer early. There is nothing immature, nothing even indicative of a young person, about the music he was writing in his twenties and even his teens. The same can be said about that other prodigy, Mendelssohn. But even artists who are not child prodigies turn out masterly work in their twenties, and if they haven't done so by age 35 they are unlikely to later.


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## silentio

One thing I am pretty sure is that had Mozart lived longer; Bach would have been reintroduced to the western musical world even earlier than he was, through Mendelssohn and Schumann. "Late" Mozart was aware of Bach and Handel and began to incorporate Baroque elements to the Classical aesthetics. His compositions would probably continue on the trajectory of the Great Mass in C minor, _Jupiter_, or some fugal writings.

Mozart couldn't enjoy the longevity of a Brahms, who developed himself into a scholar of early music. It is possible that given enough time to acquire Bach's oeuvres, Mozart could have re-orchestrated (such as adding more woodwinds) to St. Matthew Passion, St. John Passion, several cantatas, or even the Art of the Fugue.

Another question is how the French Revolution would have impacted his worldview and aesthetics. Would he turn out to be an angsty artist, a more cycnicial commentator on human nature than he already was with his opera, or simply regress to a prolific opera-buffa composer to light up the days?


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## Gallus

KenOC said:


> He did not and could not write music that fit the esthetics of the new age. By 1810, a few of his piano concertos survived in performance, but mostly people were only willing to listen to the C-minor and D-minor concertos and the "big" G-minor symphony - all minor key works that people could convince themselves were "Beethovenian."


Don't these two sentences contradict each other? If the G-minor symphony was popular with the public of 1810, why couldn't Mozart have written more like that had he lived longer? And a handful of pieces being performed doesn't sound like many to us today, but of course 'classical music' as a concept didn't exist until Beethoven was canonised after his death by the Germans; there was no repertory; the idea that you would want to listen to something composed 20 years ago rather than commission a new piece was quite unusual in itself. In the middle of the 19th century Mendelssohn had to revive some of even Beethoven's works, like the violin concerto!

And of course you're leaving out the late operas, which were the most popular (hundreds of stagings in the 1810s and 20s) and I'd say the most _Romantic_ of Mozart's work.  I suspect Beethoven's symphonies would have pushed Mozart to develop further in his native genre.



KenOC said:


> Certainly the best composers never lost sight of his genius, just as they carried old Bach forward in earlier days, but Mozart's music wasn't much of a factor among the broader public. If he had lived, we would likely see him today as a victim of changing fashion who, like Bach, awaited his resurrection by some latter-day Mendelssohn.


I don't think the Bach comparison works in this instance, because Bach was working for the Church and self-consciously carrying to its conclusion the tradition of an ancient style of sacred polyphony stretching back centuries, writing music to glorify God and not (just) to satisfy the public, especially in Bach's later years when he went back to Palestrina for inspiration and his style became more antique. Mozart on the other hand was writing commissions to please the Viennese public, so the pressures would have been completely different. A better comparison might be Handel, who was a popular composer able to integrate much of the new emerging style into his own and with it achieving more acclaim than ever.


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## Gallus

Interestingly, I've stumbled across this review of a revival staging of Figaro in London, 1812:



> The works of Mozart, which have long lain dormant, and enjoyed repose due to so many of our living manufacturers of music, have at length shone forth from the obscurity in which jealousy and bad taste had involved them. Till the last two or three years this great genius has been known chiefly as an instrumental writer, and might still have remained so, had not a society of amateurs, who were capable of perceiving where true merit was to be found, laudably exerted themselves to diffuse the delight his vocal works had given themselves. With this view, and aided by some tasteful professors, they brought forward the Opera of Don Giovanni, and followed it up successively with the performances of two of his other productions, which required only to be heard, to ensure them a high reputation. Till they had gained this, none of the Opera Performers thought of reviving them, and of the four which have been performed at the King's Theatre, only one has been produced by the Manager - so little have the public to thank Mr. Taylor for his endeavours on their behalf. The last which has been produced, Le Nozze di Figaro, is perhaps, altogether, the finest of his works. The subject is taken, with little alteration, from Beamarchais' celebrated comedy of 'La Folle Journee', and, in quick succession of incident, gives full scope to the fancy, which teemed with delightful combinations of sound, and sprung from subject to subject with inexhaustible freshness, vigour, and originality. Every air, and almost every close, has strong character of novelty, and seems carefully to shun resemblance to other authors; for even when the passages seem to lead to something we have heard before, a dexterous turn or an unexpected change redeems them from all charge of plagiarism. This attempt at constant novelty would be dangerous in unskillful hands, and might repress merit, or draw it into passages only original for their extravagance. Here, Beethoven, with all his gigantic powers, his wonderful harmony, and splendid effects, seems to have failed; and without possessing the charms of melody that play so perpetually through the works of Mozart, he sacrifices our pleasure to our astonishment; gaining in novelty what he loses in feeling, and speaking to the ear rather than to the heart.


Doesn't sound to me like a composer who would have been considered 'old hat' had he lived longer.


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## DavidA

I think there's a whole lot of nonsense written about Mozart'S so-called ' lack of adaptability.' While it is true he wrote in a classical style we can see in many of the later pieces a development of style. Of course that style had very little chance to develop as it was cut off by Mozart's untimely death. I think those people who suggest Mozart's lack of adaptability are comparing him with their own musical minds which are (like the rest of us) tiny by comparison with this towering genius. This to me is a foolish thing to do as we have no idea of how Mozart would've developed. One thing we do know, that the man who was probably the greatest musical talent who ever lived would have written some astonishing stuff. Oh that he had given us another 10 years


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## PlaySalieri

Gallus said:


> Interestingly, I've stumbled across this review of a revival staging of Figaro in London, 1812:
> 
> Doesn't sound to me like a composer who would have been considered 'old hat' had he lived longer.


Very interesting - and written in 1812 at the height of Beethoven's fame.


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## Woodduck

DavidA said:


> I think there's a whole lot of nonsense written about Mozart'S so-called ' lack of adaptability.' While it is true he wrote in a classical style we can see in many of the later pieces a development of style. Of course that style had very little chance to develop as it was cut off by Mozart's untimely death. I think those people who suggest Mozart's lack of adaptability are comparing him with their own musical minds which are (like the rest of us) tiny by comparison with this towering genius. This to me is a foolish thing to do as we have no idea of how Mozart would've developed. One thing we do know, that the man who was probably the greatest musical talent who ever lived would have written some astonishing stuff. Oh that he had given us another 10 years


Who is writing "a whole lot of nonsense" about Mozart's lack of adaptability? And what commentators are comparing Mozart's mind with their own?

It's pretty easy to set up straw men and knock them down, or create imaginary foes and vanquish them.

Mozart was probably as "adaptable" a composer as ever lived, and he would unquestionably have gone on writing great music in various genres. None of this addresses the question of how he would have impacted the Romantic era or been impacted by it. Unfortunately for our attempts to answer these questions, he didn't live long enough to write any Romantic music.


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## Woodduck

Gallus said:


> And of course you're leaving out the late operas, which were the most popular (hundreds of stagings in the 1810s and 20s) and I'd say the most _Romantic_ of Mozart's work.


When Mozart's operas are called "Romantic," the reference is almost always to the penultimate scene of _Don Giovanni,_ in which the statue of the commendatore sends the Don to hell, along with the bits in the overture that refer to it. In the context of what is basically a comic opera, the dark power of this scene stands out. But is it "Romantic"?

The early Romantics were fascinated by the darker emotions, by the spooky and the diabolical, but they certainly didn't invent them. What was new in Romantic art was a willingness to dwell on and delight in aspects of the mind and emotions that had not previously been considered worthwhile or legitimate subjects to contemplate for their own sake, but would more likely have been viewed as abnormal, frightening, taboo or merely unimportant unless presented in a proper, "rational" context. A brief episode in an opera presenting a ghost and the flames of hell is not necessarily a Romantic conception, especially if it's followed by a scene in which the horrors are viewed in a moral perspective and "normality" is restored. In a three-hour opera, the damnation scene lasts about seven minutes, and the moment the Don disappears into the underworld all the other characters rush onto the stage to frame the spectacle and restore reason and decorum in good Enlightenment fashion.

Is the music of the scene Romantic? Despite the terror evoked by its dark colors, forceful declamation and modulatory freedom, structurally it exhibits Classical ideals of thematic consistency, development and symmetry. It's an 18th-century image of chaos, threatening but suitably contained, rather like Haydn's strikingly chromatic introduction to his _Creation._ Arguably, that very containment serves only to increase its emotional pressure, an effect not inevitable but well within Mozart's power to achieve. I suspect that when people talk about Mozart being Romantic they are simplistically equating Romanticism with emotional expression while misunderstanding the Classical style, underestimating its essential expressive capabilities.

All of that said, the Romantic movement in literature had begun by the time Mozart died. _Don Giovanni _was quickly dubbed a "Romantic" opera - the term was already in use - and its final scene was generally omitted in 19th-century performances so that the audience could walk out of the theater still shuddering in ecstatic terror from the spectacle of a rebellious anti-hero being dragged down to hell while defying Enlightenment propriety to his last breath. Allowing the opera to end with its moral order nominally restored but not emotionally affirmed shifted the balance toward the future, and helped prepare the world for Weber's Wolf's Glen and Wagner's Flying Dutchman, condemned by Satan for his hubris and forced to wander the earth in search of a woman's redeeming love.


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## Eusebius12

Jean-Fery Rebel's Elements might strike us as Romantic, or even very post tonal, as might the opening of Mozart's Dissonance Quartet. In the penultimate scene of Don Giovanni, the 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysiac' elements are in conflict, and there is a threat of break down. _But this never happens_. I can't really add much more to Woodduck's excellent post, a lot of fine points eloquently made. It is also fair to say that both Beethoven's and Weber's 'Dionysiac' tendencies are still held back by a certain respect for form and rarely beset by a lack of control. These monikers 'romantic' and 'classical' are ultimately not fixed, they are suggestive and instructive but in no way absolute.


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## DavidA

I do think people of a certain personality type who prefer to live their life within certain defined parameters (nothing wrong with that - just reflects their personality) have a problem in seeing how someone like Mozart could develop in his music. I think if we're not careful we can read our own limitations into a genius like Mozart without realising the potential that was there and which was cut off by his early death. It's interesting for me to look back on my own very modest giftings in certain areas and note how they have developed over the years. With a genius like Mozart the development may have been exponential.


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## Eusebius12

DavidA said:


> I do think people of a certain personality type who prefer to live their life within certain defined parameters (nothing wrong with that - just reflects their personality) have a problem in seeing how someone like Mozart could develop in his music. I think if we're not careful we can read our own limitations into a genius like Mozart without realising the potential that was there and which was cut off by his early death. It's interesting for me to look back on my own very modest giftings in certain areas and note how they have developed over the years. With a genius like Mozart the development may have been exponential.


Mozart's development is plain to see. It is an 'unknown unknown' exactly how that might have progressed. We see the 'progress' of music as somehow inevitable. Mozart grew artistically all his life, but the exact form of that growth of Mozart the putatively 36+ aged composer is entirely moot. I feel like Woodduck that the strictness of his training in the rococo style would have prevented any great rebelliousness from that general idiom. Haydn didn't alter stylistically all that much; he progressively deepened in form and content, absorbed influences here and there, whilst remaining true to himself. Would we expect Mozart to be much different from that?


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## Larkenfield

Mozart and Haydn existed entirely within the classical era and there was no need for them to set out on a dramatically different change of direction, as they seemed very content with what they were doing because of their numerous successes. But Mozart was only 35 when he died, not 95, and had he lived, there would have been plenty of time to respond to the new fashions in music that Beethoven and Weber represented and set a new course for himself. Schiller’s Ode to Joy was written in 1785, certainly related more to the growing romantic movement than the classical era, and Mozart was likely to come to notice the growing change in direction that music was taking and that Beethoven would eventually be a dramatic part of. I cannot imagine for a moment that Mozart would have continued creating as if the classical era was going to continue forever rather than thinking that he needed to set a new course of direction for himself. He might have written more for the common man without sacrificing his aesthetic standards. He was not an old man. Thirty-five is not even considered middle-age by some, plus he had a young wife and family. But 40 certainly is and he wasn’t there yet. One can only be grateful, at least those who care about him, for what he left behind in his relatively short number of remarkable years.


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## Guillet81

Larkenfield said:


> One can only be grateful, at least those who care about him, for what he left behind in his relatively short number of remarkable years.


Indeed. I often experience a profound sense of not only wonder, but also gratitude, upon listening to Mozart. More so than with other great composers, Bach included.


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## Steve Mc

Just a comment that may have been made before, but the slow movement of the Mozart's 23rd Piano Concerto is really on the very verge of romanticism. That operatic melody...


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## Tallisman

jdec said:


> We'll never know. As larold said, "had Mozart been freed of the tyranny of royal servitude and been able to compose anything he wanted"


I think he was happy in his idiom. Royal servitude is a limit on what could have been performed, not what could have been composed. He was miraculously quick and prodigious in his creativity - there wasn't a royal official checking through his private manuscripts and censoring any of his possible experimental dissonances.


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## Aloevera

Mozart would regularly purchase the scores of his contemporaries and study the scores extensively if the music interested him. If there were elements that interested him, no doubt he would have been able to adopt to it. He also has shown that he is able to depart from standard classical style music if he pleases.











The question like some have said is would he have wanted to. My guess is that he would take in some romantic elements here and there but his continuation would be more similar to the way that we seem him progressing. Probably writing a romantic style song here and there just to show that hes able to while reverting to his own style. By his own style I mean the style we see developing in the later portion of his life.

So yes, I think he would be fine although maybe less so when piano virtuosity starts taking the more dominant role over musicality. Id imagine his skills in this area would be less satisfiable to the audience who may have been more looking to be wowed by finger movement. I dont think Mozart would have the developed skill for this type of music but also my guess would find it distasteful as it makes every note seem a bit disposable. Even in his day, Clementi was a better pianist than him and he said some nasty things about him.

That is all assuming that musical history isn't altered


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## jdec

Aloevera said:


>


I have always thought that it sounds like early Beethoven. From 2:28 to 2:43 there is some resemblance with the introduction of the Pathetique sonata, 16 years earlier.


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## Eusebius12

jdec said:


> I have always thought that it sounds like early Beethoven. From 2:28 to 2:43 there is some resemblance with the introduction of the Pathetique sonata, 16 years earlier.


Something of romantic abandon might have entered into Mozart's improvisations. The 3 fantasias (or 4, however the fantasia in C Minor k475 is more tightly structured perhaps, and is linked with the sonata k457) are quite improvisatory in feel. Quite a lot of diminished 7ths. If you want to call this romanticism, I can see your point, although this is only incipient romanticism at this stage. I don't see it as particularly 'Beethovenian'; in any case, the borrowings were all in one direction. Beethoven is often (especially early in his career) quite Mozartean; the reverse is obviously impossible for practical reasons.


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## Woodduck

Eusebius12 said:


> Something of romantic abandon might have entered into Mozart's improvisations. The 3 fantasias (or 4, however the fantasia in C Minor k475 is more tightly structured perhaps, and is linked with the sonata k457) are quite improvisatory in feel. Quite a lot of diminished 7ths. If you want to call this romanticism, I can see your point, although this is only incipient romanticism at this stage. I don't see it as particularly 'Beethovenian'; in any case, the borrowings were all in one direction. Beethoven is often (especially early in his career) quite Mozartean; the reverse is obviously impossible for practical reasons.


You're being generous. There was "Romantic" abandon in Baroque fantasias too. Fantasias are improvisatory in feel more or less by definition. Diminished sevenths and chromaticism are not intrinsically Romantic. I hear absolutely nothing Romantic in Mozart's fantasias, not even incipiently. Figuration, phrase structure, texture, rhetoric: Classical all the way. Any time Mozart wasn't being Classical he was imitating Bach.


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## PlaySalieri

Aloevera said:


> Mozart would regularly purchase the scores of his contemporaries and study the scores extensively if the music interested him. If there were elements that interested him, no doubt he would have been able to adopt to it. He also has shown that he is able to depart from standard classical style music if he pleases.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The question like some have said is would he have wanted to. My guess is that he would take in some romantic elements here and there but his continuation would be more similar to the way that we seem him progressing. Probably writing a romantic style song here and there just to show that hes able to while reverting to his own style. By his own style I mean the style we see developing in the later portion of his life.
> 
> So yes, I think he would be fine although maybe less so when piano virtuosity starts taking the more dominant role over musicality. Id imagine his skills in this area would be less satisfiable to the audience who may have been more looking to be wowed by finger movement. I dont think Mozart would have the developed skill for this type of music but also my guess would find it distasteful as it makes every note seem a bit disposable. *Even in his day, Clementi was a better pianist than him and he said some nasty things about him.*
> 
> That is all assuming that musical history isn't altered


Not sure what you mean by this - better pianist? By what measure?


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## Larkenfield

Eusebius12 said:


> Something of romantic abandon might have entered into Mozart's improvisations. The 3 fantasias (or 4, however the Fantasia in C Minor k475 is more tightly structured perhaps, and is linked with the sonata k457) are quite improvisatory in feel. Quite a lot of diminished 7ths. If you want to call this romanticism, I can see your point, although this is only incipient romanticism at this stage. I don't see it as particularly 'Beethovenian'; in any case, the borrowings were all in one direction. Beethoven is often (especially early in his career) quite Mozartean; the reverse is obviously impossible for practical reasons.


What an epic journey is K475. The beginning in C minor is as dark and enigmatic as I've ever heard him, and I think this great work is as probing, personal, and introspective as anything ever written during the Romantic era while retaining its classical clarity and its excursions into major keys too, and I very much like the nooks and crannies of sound that Uchida found the patience to explore... Once again, Mozart's great Fantasia shows, in my opinion, his ability to plummet the same depth of emotions as anyone did during the Romantic period... Mozart's was a tremendous flight of imagination and exploration in navigating through his personal underworld. I find it impossible not to speak in superlatives. He might have easily made his transition into the Romantic era.


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## Enthusiast

Mozart's musical development was moving fast when he died. We can't anticipate where it would have taken him but it seems likely to me that he would have produced music that would have influenced the younger composers of his time and that their music would have influenced him. We think of him as a (the?) pinnacle of Classicism - and indeed he was - but I feel that within his musical makeup he had plenty of qualities that would have responded to and pushed forward the new Romanticism. Not that these patterns had names or were recognised so clearly at the time. Trying to imagine early Romanticism in Mozart's divine and distinctive voice is beguiling.


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## DavidA

Eusebius12 said:


> Mozart's development is plain to see. It is an 'unknown unknown' exactly how that might have progressed. We see the 'progress' of music as somehow inevitable. Mozart grew artistically all his life, but the exact form of that growth of Mozart the putatively 36+ aged composer is entirely moot. I feel like Woodduck *that the strictness of his training in the rococo style would have prevented any great rebelliousness from that general idiom*. Haydn didn't alter stylistically all that much; he progressively deepened in form and content, absorbed influences here and there, whilst remaining true to himself. Would we expect Mozart to be much different from that?


Sorry but this is absolutely wrong. Mozart would probably have used the strictness of his training to branch out, as indeed he was doing. Us lesser mortals might have been restricted by our training. Mozart probably wouldn't have been as his sheer genius would have burst out of it.


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## Eusebius12

Yes an intrinsically improvisatory style might be implicit in the word 'Fantasia', although in time the word more or less meant whatever the composer felt, hence Brahms' Fantasias. By the 20th century the 'fantastic style' was pretty meaningless in respect of quite a lot if not most famous composers, at least as far as this ear can detect.


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## Eusebius12

Larkenfield said:


> What an epic journey is K475! The beginning in C minor is as dark and mysterious as I've ever heard him, and I think this great work is as probing, personal, and introspective as anything that was ever written during the Romantic era while retaining its classical harmonies and clarity and its excursions into major keys too, at least the way it's played here, and I very much like the nooks and crannies of sound that she found the patience to explore... Once again, Mozart's great Fantasia certainly shows, in my opinion, his ability to plummet the same depth of emotions as anyone ever did in the Romantic period.... Mozart's was a tremendous flight of imagination and exploration in navigating through his personal Underworld. I find it difficult not to speak so highly of it. He might have easily made his transition into the Romantic era.


Yes this is Mozart's magnum opus for solo piano, placing Mozart squarely amongst the greatest writers for solo keyboard. Some of the chord changes are prophetic and incredibly inspired, but even so there is classical restraint in the curves of the central slow section, and the balanced leaps of the last little intermezzo before the restatement of the main theme. It is also classically restrained in terms of sheer sonority, although I believe that the fortissimi in this piece are real and not Dresden China. A powerful work worthy of Mozart's greater genius.


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## Eusebius12

DavidA said:


> Sorry but this is absolutely wrong. Mozart would probably have used the strictness of his training to branch out, as indeed he was doing.


How? I don't see it. I see a deepening, a broadening, but not a 'romantic-ing'. Why is k595 more romantic than k466? Why is The Magic Flute more romantic than Don Giovanni? There is a lateness about the music of Mozart's final year and a bit, but this is not romantic in feel but more a feeling of being conscious of mortality, a serenity and pathos that are sublimely spiritual. Except not always. Mozart in every period is multi-faceted, and writes in different styles for different occasions, whilst always remaining in contact with his overarching Mozarteaness. It is within the confines of rococo that Mozart injects his own self and fashions glorious music, he did not need to branch out in any way. There is no sign of anarchic rebellion in his music from any period, even the penultimate scene of Don Giovanni. He wrote music like that within the confines of 'classical'. Why is it inevitable that composers follow fashion? Mozart could have followed that fashion no doubt had he wanted to. Would that have 'improved' his music? Would Bach have been improved by a greater degree of galanterie?



> Us lesser mortals might have been restricted by our training. Mozart probably wouldn't have been as his sheer genius would have burst out of it.


Mozart was an incredible genius, but he was still a human being. I don't propose to enter the world of blind hagiography and sheer prophecy.


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## PlaySalieri

Eusebius12 said:


> How? I don't see it. I see a deepening, a broadening, but not a 'romantic-ing'. Why is k595 more romantic than k466? Why is The Magic Flute more romantic than Don Giovanni? There is a lateness about the music of Mozart's final year and a bit, but this is not romantic in feel but more a feeling of being conscious of mortality, a serenity and pathos that are sublimely spiritual. Except not always. Mozart in every period is multi-faceted, and writes in different styles for different occasions, whilst always remaining in contact with his overarching Mozarteaness. It is within the confines of rococo that Mozart injects his own self and fashions glorious music, he did not need to branch out in any way. There is no sign of anarchic rebellion in his music from any period, even the penultimate scene of Don Giovanni. He wrote music like that within the confines of 'classical'. Why is it inevitable that composers follow fashion? Mozart could have followed that fashion no doubt had he wanted to. Would that have 'improved' his music? Would Bach have been improved by a greater degree of galanterie?
> 
> Mozart was an incredible genius, but he was still a human being. I don't propose to enter the world of blind hagiography and sheer prophecy.


I agree with you more or less. Mozart's work was not becoming more romantic. You only have to listen to relatively early minor key pieces such as K397 and K310 - pieces that people sometimes mistake for Beethoven - to understand this. As others have noted Mozart was not alone in creating deceptively forward looking minor key pieces - though of course his are the best for that era. He summoned up the music he needed for the overture and stone guest scene for Don Giovanni - but the rest of the opera sits within his his musical comfort zone - thank goodness for that.


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## DavidA

Eusebius12 said:


> How? I don't see it. I see a deepening, a broadening, but not a 'romantic-ing'. Why is k595 more romantic than k466? Why is The Magic Flute more romantic than Don Giovanni? There is a lateness about the music of Mozart's final year and a bit, but this is not romantic in feel but more a feeling of being conscious of mortality, a serenity and pathos that are sublimely spiritual. Except not always. Mozart in every period is multi-faceted, and writes in different styles for different occasions, whilst always remaining in contact with his overarching Mozarteaness. It is within the confines of rococo that Mozart injects his own self and fashions glorious music, he did not need to branch out in any way. There is no sign of anarchic rebellion in his music from any period, even the penultimate scene of Don Giovanni. He wrote music like that within the confines of 'classical'. Why is it inevitable that composers follow fashion? Mozart could have followed that fashion no doubt had he wanted to. Would that have 'improved' his music? Would Bach have been improved by a greater degree of galanterie?
> 
> *Mozart was an incredible genius, but he was still a human being. I don't propose to enter the world of blind hagiography and sheer prophecy.*


You just have by what you have said. But all is speculation. We simply don't know for sure.


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## Eusebius12

DavidA said:


> You just have by what you have said. But all is speculation. We simply don't know for sure.


It isn't sheer prophecy to plot what Mozart did before and propose that he would have continued somewhere along that arc. But pretty well everything in this thread is speculative of course.


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## Enthusiast

Mozart was gone before Romanticism got up in the air so it is no wonder he didn't produce any distinctive Romantic works. I mean he was one of the very few absolute greatest but showing quite how far the Classical could be taken was achievement enough for that time. If he had lived on long enough he would have heard the early glimmers of Romanticism and would have felt the wider world that gave birth to Romanticism. I don't think Romanticism was started with a manifesto or a clear articulation of new ideals, was it? I, anyway, have no doubt that he would have been influenced by the new _possibilities_ and musical ideas. There was a lot in his musical nature that would have felt a response to early Romantic music, possibilities and interests. I do not think he would have stuck his compositional head in the sand as, perhaps, the aging Haydn did. He was younger than Haydn, and he had a bigger or more overt ego. It is tormenting to imagine how his Romantic compositions would have sounded. They would have been in his voice so they would not have sounded anything like any of the famous early Romantics. His influence on them would also have been substantial.


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## PlaySalieri

Enthusiast said:


> Mozart was gone before Romanticism got up in the air so it is no wonder he didn't produce any distinctive Romantic works. I mean he was one of the very few absolute greatest but showing quite how far the Classical could be taken was achievement enough for that time. If he had lived on long enough he would have *heard the early glimmers of Romanticism *and would have felt the wider world that gave birth to Romanticism. I don't think Romanticism was started with a manifesto or a clear articulation of new ideals, was it? I, anyway, have no doubt that he would have been influenced by the new _possibilities_ and musical ideas. There was a lot in his musical nature that would have felt a response to early Romantic music, possibilities and interests. I do not think he would have stuck his compositional head in the sand as, perhaps, the aging Haydn did. He was younger than Haydn, and he had a bigger or more overt ego. It is tormenting to imagine how his Romantic compositions would have sounded. They would have been in his voice so they would not have sounded anything like any of the famous early Romantics. His influence on them would also have been substantial.


He would have seen the early glimmers

or - he would have heard the early murmurings.


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## Enthusiast

^^^ Yes, murmurings - that was the word I was looking for! But what murmurings would he have heard? I can think of little of much import. Beethoven, for example, started off with fairly Classical works - certainly no more Romantic than much late Mozart until the start of the 19th century (by which time Mozart was dead) and even these (Eroica etc) are generally considered transitional.


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## Woodduck

stomanek said:


> He would have seen the early glimmers
> 
> or - he would have heard the early murmurings.


He might have sheard the early glurmers.


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## hammeredklavier

Euler said:


> while inhabiting the body of Michael Haydn


I'm convinced that a large part of the reason why people associate Mozart with proto-Romanticism is the "theatrical" qualities, and the change of character that comes with the minor tonality in his music, (with a "sense of pacing/breathing" greatly different from the Baroque) in his _native_ idiom, which he had developed back in his years in Salzburg. But I think people who insist that Mozart was proto-Romantic are neglecting the historical context in which he wrote his music.
We must remember Mozart would probably have written a lot more Catholic music had he lived longer - months before death, he applied for the kapellmeister position at the St. Stephens cathedral in Vienna, and was accepted by the city council to succeed the then-ailing incumbent, L. Hofmann (1738-1793). 
"On 9 May 1791, at his own request, Mozart was appointed assistant-Kapellmeister to Hofmann, an unpaid position. At the time Hofmann was ill and Mozart anticipated becoming Kapellmeister upon Hofmann's death. However, Hofmann survived Mozart and kept his post as Cathedral Kapellmeister until he died."

I posted and listened to the credo movement (4:55~10:33, which "stands out" for its "darker colors") of this in another thread, and as I was doing it I thought about what kind of idiom Mozart would have written in if he lived past 1800. It would have been something along the lines of this, in terms of idiom (it gives us a glimpse, at least). Is this stuff completely Classical? (I think it is), if so, why wouldn't stuff like K.616, K.626 also be? (notice the bit of tempo Rubato incorporated at around 7:20~7:26, which probably "reflects" the time period):


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## Ethereality

No more grave is death than in the world of art. Not only was Wolfgang half of a composer, but humanity is without ever knowing the Amadeus or Mozart behind the myth, as the first half of creation only tends the eutrophic plot, like the lining of our atmosphere. Tragedy, or metaphorical mercy? and on who's behalf?

Given that Classical giants already considered him the very benchmark, a pre-destined death where else a light that humanity and the man himself may not have been able to endure; and so did death kill the light, or light arouse the death. How does one define lifelong illness, without a budding expertise on the specified subject?


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## Kreisler jr

Ethereality said:


> No more grave is death than in the world of art. Not only was Wolfgang half of a composer, but humanity is without ever knowing the Amadeus or Mozart behind the myth, as the first half of creation only tends the eutrophic plot, like the lining of our atmosphere.


Sorry, but what is this? Mozart was in no way "half a composer". That's just nonsense. And "humanity" has enough music and biographical data to not be content with the "Amadeus myth" you apparently want to perpetuate.


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## SanAntone

I doubt Mozart could have had more of an impact than he has already had. My gosh, how much is enough for you?


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## Forster

I expect he would have composed more music...continued to find money difficult to hold on to...etc

In other words, who can say? Perhaps he and LvB might have fought a duel over which of them was the greatest.


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## Kreisler jr

I also think that aMozart living another 20-30 years (more seems very optimistic) would not have that much more influence. Instead of wild speculation we could just look at the additional 18 years Haydn lived, at Salieri (1750-1825) or Cherubini (1760-1842). Sure, Mozart was a greater composer but he did have influence and composed about 15 years on a very high level, it's not like Arriaga or even Schubert where one could speak of a seriously stunted career.
However, I think there are two or three exceptions where I can see more influence of Mozart. Or if not particularly influential, I think these are the fields where I'd expect some possible changes in history

- Choral music, especially church music if he had spend some years at St. Stephan. Seems kind of obvious and it is also the field where we basically have only two mature works, both fragmentary. There would probably also have been more masonic choral music and if in the alternate timeline Haydn writes his oratorios, Mozart might have added to this genre as well. However, I doubt that this would have changed the course of musical history as these genres are comparably marginal in the 19th century. (This was not really changed by the re-discovery of Bach's choral music or the faible for Palestrinian church music in some quarters etc., so I don't think a dozen of "late" Mozart masses would have changed that much.)

- German opera. That could have been big. The Magic Flute is a great work (and IMO underrated by some) but still a bit of a cobbled together silly fairy tale. 2,3, or half a dozen mature German operas, even including some silly libretti would very probably have gone further beyond Singspiel and have been huge for Beethoven, Weber, later Wagner and might in fact have had a different impact on history as Abduction and esp. Magic Flute did in their limited way.

- a more general classicist "Mozart-Mendelssohn-axis" bridging/avoiding early 1800s romanticism with another 2 decades of extraordinary classicist instrumental works NOT by Beethoven. This is of course rather vague and speculative. I think Mozart would have been out of fashion (and playing technique) as a pianist, unless he could have kept up with the new generation of virtuosi (Clementi, Hummel, Beethoven, Weber) and their style but he could have written for other pianists or stuck with chamber music and symphonies. Of course, such a body of work could also have exhausted classical forms to such an extent so that we would not get Mendelssohnian romantic classicism in the 1830s and later as this would all have been "covered" already by WAM in the 1800s-1810s. It could also have stifled Beethoven or pushed him into another direction or whatever. 
TBH I'd rather have musical history as it was instead of 1800s Mozart but not middle/late period Beethoven...


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Seems kind of obvious and it is also the field where we basically have only two mature works, both fragmentary.










Saying that these are not mature works is like saying K.364 and Idomeneo are not.

"We know that Mozart held his Vespers in high regard since he once asked his father, in a letter dated 12 March 1783, to send the two works to him in Vienna so that he could show them to Baron Gottfried van Swieten." (baerenreiter)


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## hammeredklavier

And again, opera and liturgical music (which includes the oratorio) were very closely related genres in terms of vocal writing and expressive devices (a composer good at one of them had high chance of also being good at the other), especially when the Neapolitan style of juxtaposing arias and ensembles came along. Anyone who denies this is not understanding cultural, social functions of 18th century music properly. (eg. Underrated or little-know operas that you like.)

"Wagner's life-long admiration included an encounter in the mid-to late 1820s that 'formed the starting point of my enthusiastic absorption in the works of that master [Mozart]' and contemplations of it late in life as well; Anton Rubinstein, Mahler Richard Strauss, Stanford and Rimsky-Korsakov all conducted it, Rimsky-Korsakov also quoting extensively from the Introit in the final section of Mozart and Salieri. Described in 1902 as one of Mozart's works that 'speaks persuadingly to every generation . . . [through which] Mozart's influence still persists and must be reckoned with as a factor in the complexus of forces which is moulding the music of the new century', it had similar exposure among twentieth century composers. Bartok used examples from the Requiem in his teaching; Szymanowski wrote of its 'divine grief', the most powerful 'eruption' of the 'grim, powerful call from a world beyond ours' in Mozart's late music; Janecek conducted a highly successful performance of it in Brno in the late 1870s and another in the memory of Smetana in Prague in 1916; the fifteen-year-old Walton sang a solo part in a performance at Christ Church, Oxford, in December 1917; Britten considered it an important historical precedent for the modern-day composer in writing his own War Requiem (1961-2), subsequently reacting profoundly to conducting Mozart's work (1971)."
< Mozart's Requiem: Reception, Work, Completion / Simon P. Keefe / P. 6 >


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## Ethereality

Kreisler jr said:


> Sorry, but what is this? Mozart was in no way "half a composer". That's just nonsense. And "humanity" has enough music and biographical data to not be content with the "Amadeus myth" you apparently want to perpetuate.





SanAntone said:


> I doubt Mozart could have had more of an impact than he has already had. My gosh, how much is enough for you?


I think you're highly confused. You most certainly either lack study, or the ear, to comprehend the world's most creative and influential musical mastermind (or at least Western composers'.)


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> I also think that aMozart living another 20-30 years (more seems very optimistic) would not have that much more influence. Instead of wild speculation we could just look at the additional 18 years Haydn lived, at Salieri (1750-1825) or Cherubini (1760-1842). ...
> ... However, I doubt that this would have changed the course of musical history as these genres are comparably marginal in the 19th century. ...


"In his earlier critiques he (Berlioz) takes care to stress the difference between the two: after commenting on *****'s obsolete style he speaks of Mozart as 'full of passion and gloominess'. But later he tends to amalgamate the two into one entity, embodying all those features of scholarly Classicism that the Romantic spirit of Berlioz had sworn to overcome and to surpass."
"The intimate and fervent religiosity of this short masterpiece (Ave verum corpus, K. 618) seems to conform precisely to Berlioz's ideal of religious music. 'This is not just religious music, it is really divine and worthy of the dwellers of Heaven. It is the ideal manifestation of pious serenity, of mystical love, of ecstasy. God dictated it; an angel wrote it.'" 
-seriously, why does Mozart sound like this? I think this is not something to be taken lightly (by simply pigeonholing certain styles and genres the way you do). We need to look beyond the "physical surface elements", and for the "essence". (hint: Post#152)


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## Kreisler jr

Ethereality said:


> I think you're highly confused. You most certainly either lack study, or the ear, to comprehend the world's most creative and influential musical mastermind (or at least Western composers'.)


You are most certainly confused if you think Mozart was but "half a composer" when he died. This is seems a very gross underestimation of a great composer in favor of speculation.


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## Kreisler jr

Hammeredklavier, you are a bit tiring. If you seriously believe that in the 19th century (and this whole speculation is about Mozart living until about 1810-20 and impacting the 19th century, not about the 18th), liturgical music or even semi-secular oratorio like Haydn's was as relevant as opera (or symphonies, tone poems) I don't know what to say. 

Just look at the WORKS that were composed and still played decades or centuries later, not at some cherry-picked quotes. Wagner has one choral work (Liebesmahl) nobody knows vs. 10 major operas, Verdi has a Requiem and some shorter pieces vs more than a dozen famous operas, Rossini Stabat mater vs. several dozen operas, Berlioz has almost as much religious choral as opera but overall it seems that his most successful music is neither. Similarly for Schumann; Mendelssohn is an exception but he didn't need Mozart with the Bach etc. he got via Zelter and his large oratorios have not really aged well either.

Furthermore, we don't know exactly how Mozart would have composed sacred music. If rather conservative like the c minor mass, I doubt that this would have made any difference to choral composers in the 1830s. 

What do you think would have happened if Mozart had written a dozen or more great liturgical works in the 1790s or 1800s? I.e. imagine all of Haydn's late choral stuff instead by Mozart (we could Haydn let die 1791 in the alternative timeline) and even a bit more? What would Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Verdi have done they didn't in fact do on the basis of having Mozart's Requiem, late Haydn, some Handel and Bach? Would Beethoven have written mostly Masses and Stabat maters instead of symphonies and quartets? Wagner Psalms instead of operas? Does anyone think this likely?

More interesting could have been a (possibly even secular) oratorio by Mozart for the likes of Mendelssohn or Schumann (but who does nowadays really care for Paradies und die Peri?). I am open to entertaining such ideas; Mozart could have written more dramatic oratorios like Handel instead of more "pastoral" ones like Haydn but why should he not write (German) operas instead? Handel had to go for (English) oratorios because his (Italian) opera style fell out of fashion but I thought one major point of our speculative exercise is having the greatest opera composer of his time live another 20-25 years and push opera forward... because we think that he could have done this unlike Salieri and more than Cherubini who both did live long.

Cherubini wrote his most famous opera (Medée) when he was a year older than Mozart at his death, he was basically put in the shade when Rossini became famous in the 1810s. He composed loads of liturgical music (who cares about the pieces now? They are not forgotten, but they are not like Freischütz or Elisir d'amore or Symphonie Fantastique or Winterreise... they were admired but had hardly any lasting impact on later 19th century music) He lived until 1842!!! While he didn't semi-retire like Rossini, he's another example that a long life does not mean a lot of productivity in the later years.


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Hammeredklavier, you are a bit tiring. ...


The point is that, the thing (in Mozart) that appealed to the Romantics like Berlioz, "being full of passion and gloominess", most probably originates from his _native_ idiom (ie. Salzburg liturgical music, fundamentally) and the practice of using inner harmonies for expression, and even when composers like Mozart weren't writing liturgical music, but say, opera, the expression was still there, and this element still existed as the "essence", formed the "core" of expression. (The titles, libretti of works "the physical surface elements" may change or they may take different physical forms or shapes, but the "essence" is still there, and we can still tell by it that "it is Mozart, not Salieri"). And I'm saying that this is not something to be taken lightly by simply pigeonholing or dismissing the genre or style as outdated or stuffy, since it can help us understand _why_ the composers sound the way they do. Gosh. Why am I in this way even trying to convince a person who says things like "Handel's expressive chromaticism and dissonant harmonies is at least as or sometimes more effective than Bach's"; my bad. I'll stop. No more spoon feeding. Good day to you, Mr. Kreisler. 
"Also significant is an application to the Emperor in May 1790 for the post of assistant Hofkapellmeister under Salieri, in which Mozart recommended himself above all as a composer of church music." (christermalmberg)


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## Phil loves classical

Here are the possible scenarios and my estimation of the probability of each.

#1: He would continue to explore the darker emotions like in his Piano Concerto 20, and 24, Symphony #40, K516 Quintet (which are generally considered the more Romantic precursors in his output), develop a more 'fiery and emotional' language and go on to be a major figure in the Romantic movement. Probability: 10%. Explanation: The mood in some of his later published works was more subdued. It was not in his DNA, and he would not let go of the more Classical formalism.

#2: He would become a recluse, writing music that was not with the times, Constanze would leave him, being low on finances, and him not a major figure in Music. He would have committed suicide at some point or drank himself to death. Probability: 25.

#3: He would have maintained popularity writing the same style as before his death, but his later output would not be considered as influential as his previous having passed the torch on, but still able to please the public (similar to Beethoven in his late style piano sonatas and quartets). Probability: 65%.

Conclusion: there is a 90% chance he would not have influenced or impacted the Romantic Era any more than he had already done.


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## Ethereality

Kreisler jr said:


> You are most certainly confused if you think Mozart was but "half a composer" when he died. This is seems a very gross underestimation of a great composer in favor of speculation.


Sorry but you're the only one clearly underestimating and speculating. Mozart IS half a composer and that's a _fact_, probably even less than half. What's your issue? He composed for half a composer's normal, developed compositional years--the first half, but furthermore, we can trace his arc of growth and it's the highest we've ever seen.


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## Forster

Ethereality said:


> Sorry but you're the only one clearly underestimating and speculating. Mozart IS half a composer and that's a _fact_, probably even less than half. What's your problem? He composed for half of a composer's normal, developed compositional years--the first half.


Well ofcourse...he could hardly have lived the second half and died young!:lol:


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## Red Terror

Mozart died at the appointed time and left us with many masterpieces. Asking "what if" is pointless.


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> We must remember Mozart would probably have written a lot more Catholic music had he lived longer


Inasmuch as Mozart can be said to have written mediocre music-for Mozart-it was by in large in his liturgical music (with the exception of his Mass in c (in which he lost interest?) and his Requiem (which he had ample time to complete if he hadn't found, arguably, other musical projects like La Clamenza di Tito far more compelling). That said, while the Requiem marked a profound turning point in his liturgical production, I somewhat doubt Mozart would have lasted long as Cathedral Kapellmeister, and would have bridled at the usual conservative preferences of liturgical tastes. I know we disagree, but my own view is that Mozart's heart was never that into liturgical music. He was no Bach in that sense. He was an extrovert, loved high-society and drama.

As for how he would have impacted the Romantic Era. I find that a fascinating question and often think about it. He would have greatly altered Beethoven's output, at least initially. He would very likely have finally made it to London and surely would have produced a raft of symphonies and possibly an opera in English. His operatic style either would have probably fallen out of favor by the 1800s or he would have continuously adapted-incomparable genius that he was. He would have altered the compositional careers, at least at the outset, of a great many early neo-classical/Romantic composers. His music would have been the music to model. It would have taken Beethoven longer to appear out from under that shadow but he would have.


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## hammeredklavier

vtpoet said:


> Inasmuch as Mozart can be said to have written mediocre music-for Mozart-it was by in large in his liturgical music...


All this is a combination of typical weird stereotypes Mozart, his life and work, + your wild imaginations + wishful thinking. Btw, I think it's been like 3~4 times in the past several weeks you've repeated the same accusation against Mozart's liturgical music. (And you confessed the reason for doing it; "My perspective has probably been poisoned by my near-absolutist and cult-like love of Bach." -vtpoet). I'm disappointed.



> my own view is that Mozart's heart was never that into liturgical music.


"According to his first biographer, Franz Xaver Niemetschek, who is generally an accurate witness:
Church music . . . was Mozart's favourite form of composition. But he was able to dedicate himself least of all to it." <The Cambridge Companion to Mozart, edited by Simon P. Keefe, P. 127>
"Mozart wrote the Vesperae de Dominica in Salzburg in 1779, the same year as the Coronation Mass - a work, which the composer himself held in high esteem. It was no doubt this work that Mozart presented to Baron van Swieten when he later sought to introduce himself to the Viennese musical world as a composer of church music in the serious stile antico." (stretta-music)

And I repeat; "opera and liturgical music (which includes the oratorio) were very closely related genres in terms of vocal writing and expressive devices (a composer good at one of them had high chance of also being good at the other), especially when the Neapolitan style of juxtaposing arias and ensembles came along. Anyone who denies this is not understanding cultural, social functions of 18th century music properly." [Post#159]
Again, we need to look beyond what's obvious on the surface, like titles, libretti, formalities of works, and look at the _essence_. It doesn't matter what genre he wrote; his _native_ idiom would have been shown in anything he did - that's what was most important.



> I somewhat doubt Mozart would have lasted long as Cathedral Kapellmeister, and would have bridled at the usual conservative preferences of liturgical tastes.


The stuff Mozart wrote as "liturgical music"; no one in Mozart's time actually treated it like Brahms' critics would have done Brahms' music. Professional composers, musicians in Mozart's time (eg. G.B. Martini, M. Stadler) actually called it "modern music". And the Classicism in it is easily identifiable. I discussed it in https://www.talkclassical.com/73105-eccentric-art-3.html#post2167170



> He would very likely have finally made it to London and surely would have produced a raft of symphonies and possibly an opera in English.


On what grounds? (What sort of fantasy daydream is this? lol) A far more plausible scenario would be; he stayed in Vienna (with occasional visits to Prague), fulfilled his duty as a kapellmeister at the cathedral, and while doing so, received commissions for, and wrote dramatic works. His acquaintances in Salzburg, such as Georg von Pasterwitz actually did work under these conditions.


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> I think it's been like 3~4 times in the past several weeks you've repeated the same accusation against Mozart's liturgical music. (And you confessed the reason for doing it; "My perspective has probably been poisoned by my near-absolutist and cult-like love of Bach." -vtpoet). I'm disappointed.


All true. And I can treat my opinions with a sense of humor and still hold them. Have you acknowledged your fetish for pre-classical liturgical music? You're like a clucking hen every time the subject comes up. Posts on this genre should come with a Hammeredklavier trigger warning. But I do enjoy your appreciation of this niche. As for Mozart, even his (for Mozart) mediocre works were works of genius. So, I'm not the one saying he didn't produce works of genius in liturgical music, but prior to the Mass in c and the Requiem, his liturgical works are comparable to his early string quartets. He didn't add anything to the genre until those later works. He just did it _better_.



hammeredklavier said:


> "According to his first biographer, Franz Xaver Niemetschek, who is generally an accurate witness: Church music . . . was Mozart's favourite form of composition. But he was able to dedicate himself least of all to it." <The Cambridge Companion to Mozart, edited by Simon P. Keefe, P. 127>


Yeah, but as Wikipedia cites: "Niemetschek claimed to have had a long association with Mozart, but the lack of direct quotations or citings of personal conversations leads some scholars to doubt his claims."

Wates, Roye E. (2010). Mozart: An Introduction to the Music, the Man, and the Myths. Amadeus Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-1574671896. "Niemetschek... implies that he knew Mozart... [His] future wife ... fashioned hats for Constanze Mozart... [He] himself never saw the composer... didn't move to Prague until 1793."

See? I can color my fonts too. And I'm sure that at one point Mozart enthused over liturgical music just as when he wrote his father that writing stage soundtracks (König in Ägypten) was the future of classical music (he was right by the way)-and never wrote another work in that genre again. Mozart also called the Organ "in my eyes and ears… the king of instruments" and you can count his works for organ on one hand. One moment he was head-over-heels in love with one Weber sister, and the next he was in love with and married the other. Mozart's final statement as regards music is in his music.

And I'm sure the fantasy that Mozart would have been happy being a Catholic Kapellmeister, living out the last decades of his life writing devout vespers and masses warms the cockles of your heart like no other, but there's zero evidence for that in Mozart's musical production or life up to that point. The more likely explanation for Mozart's job application was that he was looking for any opening whatsoever, for any sort of steady income and for something like stability and connections. There was a good job opening for a composer and he took it. There were probably other positions he would rather have had.



hammeredklavier said:


> And I repeat; "opera and liturgical music (which includes the oratorio) were very closely related genres in terms of vocal writing and expressive devices (a composer good at one of them had high chance of also being good at the other), especially when the Neapolitan style of juxtaposing arias and ensembles came along.


Right, but that has zero, I repeat, zero to do with Mozart's likely predilections. Based on his output, one gets the sense that Mozart naturally respected liturgical music for its tradition and as a great musical genre, but opera was what got his blood flowing. There is no raucous applause after the performance of a Mass. That's not what a mass is about. Judging by his letters, nothing juiced Mozart like Don Giovanni's reception in Prague. He was an extrovert who loved being in the public sphere (read secular) and no genre put him there more so than opera (or the piano concerto).



hammeredklavier said:


> On what grounds? (What sort of fantasy daydream is this?


Evidently you don't know much about Mozart. On the grounds that Haydn had written Mozart, urging him to come to London; and that he would be treated like a King if he came to London. If Mozart had lived, Haydn would no doubt have continued to press Mozart to visit London. I would be surprised if Mozart didn't eventually visit with enough incentive and given Haydn's success as an example. For a visit. Not to live there. For a visit.



hammeredklavier said:


> A far more plausible scenario would be; he stayed in Vienna (with occasional visits to Prague), fulfilled his duty as a kapellmeister at the cathedral, and while doing so, received commissions for, and wrote dramatic works.


Yes, he loved Vienna and would have stayed there, would have visited Prague again, but I'm fairly certain that if a better job than Catholic Kapellmeister had presented itself, he would have taken it. That said, and if he had lived, it's anyone's guess how long he would have held the position. As his fame spread as a composer of opera, as more requests from Prague and other cities started pouring in, as requests for symphonies, concertos, string quartets and chamber music increased, was he really going to take the time to compose yet another Catholic mass? I doubt it. Very, very much. Odds are, they would have quietly asked someone like a Süssmeyr to fill in for him, would have politely complained, would have nagged, and either Mozart would have produced their Mass or the whole matter would have come to a head (as in Salzburg).


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## SanAntone

> pre-classical liturgical music


Considering this phrase could describe the music of roughly 1,000 years, you might want to be more specific.


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## fbjim

Phil loves classical said:


> #3: He would have maintained popularity writing the same style as before his death, but his later output would not be considered as influential as his previous having passed the torch on, but still able to please the public (similar to Beethoven in his late style piano sonatas and quartets). Probability: 65%.


This is total speculation based on nothing, but is there any sort of pattern with child prodigies and later development? Saint-Saens and Mendelssohn were two of the "canonical" great child prodigies of music post-Mozart, and while we don't have much "late Mendelssohn" since he also died young, Saint-Saens particularly was considered to be lacking in artistic growth in his later years- Korngold's early work, I believe, is also considered more interesting though that's more because of his change of genres.


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## hammeredklavier

vtpoet said:


> Right, but that has zero, I repeat, zero to do with Mozart's likely predilections. Based on his output, one gets the sense that Mozart naturally respected liturgical music for its tradition and as a great musical genre, but opera was what got his blood flowing. There is no raucous applause after the performance of a Mass. That's not what a mass is about. Judging by his letters, nothing juiced Mozart like Don Giovanni's reception in Prague. He was an extrovert who loved being in the public sphere (read secular) and no genre put him there more so than opera (or the piano concerto).


More absurd assertions. There was no single genre that made his "blood flow"; he was happy with anything as long as it gave/secured him financial profit. The romanticized fantasies are making me cringe a little.

http://www.choirs.org.uk/prognotes/Mozart Cornonation Mass.htm
"Even as early as the 19th Century the mass was already popularly referred to as the "Coronation Mass". The nickname grew out of the misguided belief that Mozart had written the mass for Salzburg's annual celebration of the anniversary of the crowning of the Shrine of the Virgin. The more likely explanation is that it was one of the works that was performed during the coronation festivities in Prague, either as early as August 1791 for Leopold II, or certainly for Leopold's successor Francis I in August 1792. (There is a set of parts dating from 1792, and the same parts were probably used the year before.) It seems that Mozart must have seen the chance to be represented at the coronation festivities in 1791, not only with La clemenza di Tito, but also with a mass composition: he wrote from Prague requesting that the parts for his old Mass in C be sent to him there. He was held in very high regard in Prague: The Marriage of Figaro had been a smash hit there, and they had commissioned Don Giovanni. It seems likely therefore that the city would have taken on the mass as its own, and the nickname would have grown from there.
Certainly the music itself is celebratory in nature, and would have fitted a coronation or Easter Day service perfectly. The soloists are continually employed either as a quartet, in pairs or in solo lines that contrast with the larger forces of the choir. The most stunning examples are the central hushed section of the Credo, and later when the Hosanna section of the Benedictus is well under way, the quartet begins the piece again, seemingly in the wrong place! Perhaps the most obvious reason for the mass's popularity in Prague in 1791/2 was the uncanny similarity between the soprano solo Agnus Dei and the Countess's aria Dove sono from Figaro which had been so successful there in the 1780's."

Also follow the link to the book, which I posted. Niemetschek wasn't the only one who thought that way about Mozart. Otto Biba also did.


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## vtpoet

SanAntone said:


> Considering this phrase could describe the music of roughly 1,000 years, you might want to be more specific.


It could, but it's actually a real term: https://www.freemusicdictionary.com/definition/pre-classical/


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## hammeredklavier

Why not claim, his search for masonic truths, secrets or whatever would have led him to follow/accompany Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. LOL


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## jdec

fbjim said:


> This is total speculation based on nothing, but is there any sort of pattern with child prodigies and later development? Saint-Saens and Mendelssohn were two of the "canonical" great child prodigies of music post-Mozart, and while we don't have much "late Mendelssohn" since he also died young, Saint-Saens particularly was considered to be lacking in artistic growth in his later years- Korngold's early work, I believe, is also considered more interesting though that's more because of his change of genres.


Saint-Saens and Korngold ain't no Mozart.


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> More absurd assertions. There was no single genre that made him "blood flow"; he was happy with anything as long as it gave him financial profit. The romanticized fantasies are starting to cringe me a little.


The utter absurdity of your belief that Mozart would have been just as happy being a Catholic Kapellmeister as a composer of operas _because he wrote for money_ and was indifferent to what he composed displays a real ignorance not only of Mozart's biography but his musical catalog. It's a full-on cringe for me. It surprises me what nonsense you will pedal for the sake of your beloved pre-classical liturgical fixation. It's no wonder you bridle at the mere mention of Bach.



hammeredklavier said:


> It seems that Mozart must have seen the chance to be represented at the coronation festivities in 1791, not only with La clemenza di Tito, but also with a mass composition: he wrote from Prague requesting that the parts for his old Mass in C be sent to him there.


Interesting that you should quote this as it reaffirms what I wrote in the comment to which you're responding. That "he was an extrovert who loved being in the public sphere (read secular) and no genre put him there more so than opera (or the piano concerto)."

The Coronation Mass was a public and secular spectacle, which is why he was requesting it for Prague. As to Mozart's duties at St Stephens. He apparently worked there for seven months and there's no trace of his activities:

"The nature of Mozart's duties in the seven months he held the post is unknown; the composer made only one cryptic reference to the Cathedral and Hofmann in his surviving letters (Briefe, iv:133-34), and no trace of his activities has yet been found in the diocesan and Cathedral archives, nor in the (mostly destroyed) music archive of St. Stephen's. Mary Novello, recording her interviews with Constanze, wrote that Mozart played the organ of the Cathedral and was apparently engaged in directing music there (Novello 1955, 95, 113). It is possible that Mozart had the Cathedral in mind when composing Ave verum corpus, K. 618, or the fragmentary Kyrie, K. 323 (?1791)." https://sites.google.com/site/mozartdocuments/documents/1791-hofmann

And as to the condition of the organs at the cathedral:

"St. Stephen's boasted four organs in Mozart's time, of which only two were in anything like playable condition: the choir organ (Ferdinand Josef Römer, 1701) and the organ on the so-called "Füchsel" baldachin, next to the sacristy (Burchhard Tischlinger, 1507 and many later alterations), although the latter was also in decline. The great organ at the west door (Riesenorgel, Ferdinand Josef Römer, 1720) was never fully satisfactory: it was repaired in 1730 and again around 1770, and in 1779 Joseph Ogesser reported that because it had not turned out as well as hoped, it was no longer played (Lade 1990, 214)."

And yet this is where you think Mozart would have ended up in some alternative reality. LOL. I mean, what else is there to say to fantasies like this? The best that can be said is that the job seemed to offer a high salary for its day, which is probably the reason Mozart applied for the job; and not for any love of liturgical music.

And besides this, what would Mozart have done by the time the Pope's decree made it to Austria, such that Mozart would have had to choose between Catholicism and Free Masonry? It's unlikely Mozart would have put up with that for long.


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## Bwv 1080

Mozart would have composed whatever interested him and made the most money, either large commissions or popular works like The Magic Flute. How well did the Church pay for masses or motets?


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## hammeredklavier

Bwv 1080 said:


> Mozart would have composed whatever interested him and made the most money, either large commissions or popular works like The Magic Flute. How well did the Church pay for masses or motets?


He shouldn't have written the Requiem from commision then. Royal courts also commissioned masses and motets, that's how Haydn's late pieces and also the Salzburg Haydn's late extended works, Missa hispanica (which I think is a masterpiece), Missa sanctae Theresia came into being. Operas, on the other hand, could only be written when there were suitable libretti to be set into them. That's why there are fairly substantial periods in Mozart's life where he's not working substantially on opera, (ie. There weren't guys like Da Ponte to collaborate with him). Some people in this thread are making logical fallacies, baseless assumptions based on what Mozart mostly did in his final 10 years of life, even though it doesn't even give us enough a clue what he would have done or not done had he lived up to 60.
"Also significant is an application to the Emperor in May 1790 for the post of assistant Hofkapellmeister under Salieri, in which Mozart recommended himself above all as a composer of church music." (christermalmberg)


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## Bwv 1080

hammeredklavier said:


> He shouldn't have written the Requiem from commision then. Royal courts also commissioned masses and motets, that's how Haydn's late pieces and also the Salzburg Haydn's late extended works, Missa hispanica (which I think is a masterpiece), Missa sanctae Theresia came into being. Operas, on the other hand, could only be written when there are suitable libretti to be set into them. That's why there are fairly substantial periods in Mozart's life where he's not working substantially on opera, (ie. There weren't guys like Da Ponte to collaborate with him). Some people in this thread are making logical fallacies, baseless assumptions based on what Mozart mostly did in his final 10 years of life, even though it doesn't even give us enough a clue what he would have done or not done had he lived up to 60.
> "Also significant is an application to the Emperor in May 1790 for the post of assistant Hofkapellmeister under Salieri, in which Mozart recommended himself above all as a composer of church music." (christermalmberg)


The Requiem was a decent commission from what I understand


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## vtpoet

Bwv 1080 said:


> The Requiem was a decent commission from what I understand


Yes it was, and it was only paid in half. The rest was intended to follow when Mozart completed the Requiem, which is partly why Costanze worked so hard to see it completed.

If Mozart had lived, he probably would have had bounteous opportunities to write more operas, especially with Shickaneder as a ready librettist and collaborator. Mozart had already collaborated with other composers in that circle (Der Stein der Weisen) and Shickaneder was likely already working on a sequel to the Magic Flute (which Mozart very likely would have composed). As far as that goes, Das Labyrinth, Shickaneder's actual sequel to the Magic Flute, was put to music by Peter von Winter in 1798.

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


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## Kreisler jr

Ethereality said:


> Sorry but you're the only one clearly underestimating and speculating. Mozart IS half a composer and that's a _fact_, probably even less than half. What's your issue? He composed for half a composer's normal, developed compositional years--the first half, but furthermore, we can trace his arc of growth and it's the highest we've ever seen.


This is clearly nonsense. Your just fantasizing and speculating (whereas my position is based on the actually existing Mozart). 
Which other composer, except maybe Schubert and Mendelssohn produced such an amount of great works between ca. 18 and (almost) 36? And in the case of Mendelssohn we can already see some stagnation.
A lot of composers who were very productive up to Mozart's age basically stagnated or retired early, even if they kept composing. (Rossini, Korngold). Or cf. Cherubini I mentioned above. 
And there are late bloomers but this was obviously not the case for Mozart. Even for composers who kept going fairly strong into an advanced age (like Bach, Handel, Haydn) we usually have a decline in productivity, if not in quality. One should not abuse statistics but I think it is pretty established that most creative artists and often also scientists are at their most productive between their early 20s and early 40s.


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## Kreisler jr

Unfortunately the usual suspect managed to turn this thread into the least interesting direction, namely imaginary liturgical music in the olden Salzburg style dominating European music of the 1800-30s because of Divine Cantor St. Mozart of St. Stephan... Just another small point why this is absurd: Napoleon, 1806 and the end of the Holy Roman Empire, secularization and further loss of influence of the Church. As vtpoet pointed out, it could well have been that for Mozart personally a distancing would have occurred earlier if he had had to decide between Masonry and the Church.

phil_loves_classical has an interesting point in #165 but I think it is a bit too pessimistic. We know that Mozart was extremely flexible when he had to adapt to e.g the Parisian taste or later to some moods of the Viennese (I think the two rondos he probably wrote as replacement finali for concerti suck compared to the originals, so this was not always the best direction to be pulled/pushed towards.) So I'd mostly discount the "recluse" option. I would not discount the "burnt out", mostly retired like Rossini or died still not very old, say ca. 10 years later as Mozart seemed often to be a) burn on both ends and b) experience strong mood swings, down to depression and inactivity.

For me the most interesting direction is German opera (and maybe secular oratorio). Mozart was perfectly placed for this, the Magic Flute was a huge success and some of the very factors that made liturgical music (and the late Italian opera seria) wane would have favored German opera. There are 30 years between Magic Flute and Freischütz (with only/mainly Fidelio as another serious attempt by a major composer) and if Mozart had lived only 20 of these years and written more operas it might have changed opera history, "speeding up" at least Weber and maybe also the following (like Spohr and Marschner) before Wagner or pushing it all into a somewhat different direction with more and better comical operas than what Lortzing and others wrote a generation later.


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## Kreisler jr

vtpoet said:


> And yet this is where you think Mozart would have ended up in some alternative reality. LOL. I mean, what else is there to say to fantasies like this? The best that can be said is that the job seemed to offer a high salary for its day, which is probably the reason Mozart applied for the job; and not for any love of liturgical music.


Yes. I also think that hammeredklavier is deluded here (If Mozart loved liturgical music so much why could he not even be bothered to finish the c minor mass in almost 10 years or write any other large scale piece between it and the Requiem. Almost the same could be said for Haydn who took a huge break in liturgical until the 6 late masses.) 
But taking the job for money does not mean that Mozart would not have produced a bunch of amazing masterpieces, roughly finished/improved versions of Requiem and c minor mass. It seems very likely that he would have done this, despite not thinking twice about leaving/neglecting the post for an opera commission or a better position. My point above was rather that a bunch of late Mozart masses would not really have changed his influence on the early 19th century music because of the general course of history at that time.


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Yes. I also think that hammeredklavier is deluded here (If Mozart loved liturgical music so much why could he not even be bothered to finish the c minor mass in almost 10 years or write any other large scale piece between it and the Requiem. Almost the same could be said for Haydn who took a huge break in liturgical until the 6 late masses.)


You still haven't understood anything I've said. After my last post to you in this thread, I decided to try to ignore you, but you saying that I'm deluded made me change my mind.

-We all know, in his final 10 years, Mozart was always looking for a position of stable employment, but was unable to find one. And as I said, his acquaintances (like Pasterwitz, Gatti, etc) were also under similar conditions of working as kapellmeisters in churchs or courts and also receiving commissions for, and writing dramatic works. And all the sources corroborate that Mozart primarily identified himself as a _Kirchenkomponist_; you and Vtpoet haven't given me a single viable source to refute that. Haydn's oratorios are only few, (which you obsess over and always describe as a "newly-fashioned genre of the time" for some reason. And somehow when Bach wrote his oratorios, they somehow weren't a "newly-fashioned genre of the time", according to you), and there were vast lengths of time between the periods of their composition, also.

-Beethoven thought of his Missa solemnis as his greatest work, Berlioz considered his Messe de morts as his most important, Verdi's Requiem was called his greatest opera, etc. Just because you choose to view differently today (and people in general enjoy their other works more) still _doesn't change the fact._ And the practice of "spiritual expressions" still lived on, in the form of secular music (eg. Parsifal, Mahler's 8th) as well (that was the mindset Beethoven had while composing the 9th symphony or the slow movement of Op.132, for instance). The changes in society, culture, and political systems may have affected the attitude and practice of composing, (valuing the Romantic ways "artist imagination" over the pre-Romantic ways of "procedural know-hows and craftsmanship"), but again, simply dismissing the stuff as "stuffy" is uninsightful.
You've talked (in various threads) as if when Beethoven wrote the 9th symphony (even though the subsequent new schools tended to avoid writing symphonies), it became some sort of a "culmination" that opened the gate to a whole new world of musical expression, but when Mozart wrote his Requiem and Ave verum corpus (which proved to be significantly inspiring to the later generations of composers [#159]), you talk like he was simply being "stuffy". All these double standards are amusing.

-Again I ask; why obsess so much over what genre he wrote? I think the noticeable pattern/tendency in people (even in this thread) is that the more they're unable to see the "essence", the more they obsess over the "physical surface elements". (At least Vtpoet, in another thread, admitted the reason/motivation for his repeated denigration of Mozart's liturgical stuff: "My perspective has probably been poisoned by my near-absolutist and cult-like love of Bach." -vtpoet). 
Think about what I wrote in [#152, #161]; again, why does Mozart _sound_ the way he does, in works like Rondo in A Minor, K. 511? [#164]. (But it maybe is pointless to ask this to a person who says things like "Handel's expressive chromaticism and dissonant harmonies is at least as or sometimes more effective than Bach's").



Kreisler jr said:


> For me the most interesting direction is


We're not talking about what works or doesn't work _for you_. (Right, that's how you base all your views around, isn't it?) This is not a "what's your favorite" thread.


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## hammeredklavier

There is a 10-year period of low productivity in Beethoven's life (around the 1810s). I guess if he died right after that period, we would have guessed Beethoven wouldn't have composed anything significant even if he lived up to 70?



hammeredklavier said:


> Described in 1902 as one of Mozart's works that 'speaks persuadingly to every generation . . . [through which] Mozart's influence still persists and must be reckoned with as a factor in the complexus of forces which is moulding the music of the new century', it had similar exposure among twentieth century composers.


"Liszt improvised memorably on it in Fribourg in 1836, published a transcription of the Confutatis and Lacrymosa, came to consider the work 'hackneyed' towards the end of his life on account of such frequent performances, and played it for the Paris-based painter Mihály Munkácsy early in 1886 as Munkacsy contemplated his picture The Death in a mood of "ecstatic reverie';"
"Mozart's Requiem is become hackneyed , Cherubini's is too formal , and Berlioz's too difficult . So : Viva Verdi ! He possesses the double merit of being a sincere composer and a profitable one !" <Revolution and Religion in the Music of Liszt - P.140 - Paul Merrick · 1987>.

Remember Tchaikovsky; "take Mozart's operas, two or three of his symphonies, his Requiem, his six string quartets dedicated to Haydn, and the C minor quartet. Do you really not find anything beautiful in all this?" "It is to Mozart that I am obliged for the fact that I have dedicated my life to music. He gave the first impulse to my musical powers and made me love music more than anything else in the world." "Generally speaking, it seems to me that in an artist's soul his creative faculty is quite independent of his sympathies for this or that master. For example, one can love Beethoven but still be closer to Mendelssohn by nature."


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> And all the sources corroborate that Mozart primarily identified himself as a _Kirchenkomponist_; you and Vtpoet haven't given me a single viable source to refute that.


"_True church music is to be found only in attics and in a worm-eaten condition_."

~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vienna, 12 April 1783

"_*Writing operas is now my one burning ambition*_, _but they must be French rather than German, and Italian rather than either_.

~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mannheim 7 February 1778

How's Mozart as a source? Good enough? But Mozart could have identified himself as a peanut vendor for all that matters. The OPs question is not how Mozart wished to identify himself (he expressed a great many musical ambitions that didn't include being a catholic kapellmeister) though you've proven your cherry picking abilities on that score. The question is how Mozart would have impact4ed the romantic era and Mozart, though not you apparently, saw that there was no future in church music or even "true church music". That era was bankrupting churches and municipalities even in Bach's lifetime, and much to Bach's chagrine.

Would Mozart have written more Masses and possibly an Oratorio? Very likely. But like Haydn and Beethoven, under secular auspices, not as a church composer. Beethoven may have thought of his Miss solemnis as his greatest work, but that has nothing to do with Mozart or how he might have impacted the Romantic Era except to say that Mozart, like Beethoven and Haydn, probably would have been commissioned to write a Mass from time to time. What kind of impact would Mozart's Masses have had on the Romantics? Probably not much. Were they proud of their liturgical works? Sure. The works that an individual artist may favor among their own works is by no means the work or works that will be the most impactful.

What Berlioz thought of his Messe de morts or Verdi of his Requiem is irrelevant as regards the public's perception of these composers and their most significant and impactful compositions. Few think of Berlioz's mass when they think of Berlioz or consider Verdi a liturgical composer because he wrote a Requiem. Nobody, even in Mozart's own day, thought of him as a Church composer. Mozart was a great composer of Opera, Concertos and Symphonies who also wrote a great Requiem.



hammeredklavier said:


> (At least Vtpoet, in another thread, admitted the reason/motivation for his repeated denigration of Mozart's liturgical stuff: "My perspective has probably been poisoned by my near-absolutist and cult-like love of Bach." -vtpoet).


Yes, because, until the Mass in c and the Requiem, very little compares to the liturgical works of Bach or Händel. They were derivative works, largely backwards looking, steeped in the baroque tradition. They were the product of an incomparable musical genius, but so were his early string quartets (before he encountered Haydn's quartets) and those are rarely played and only intermittently recorded.

Mozart's impact on the Romantics, had he lived, wouldn't have been through Hammeredklavier's imaginary golden-age revival of liturgical music with Mozart leading the way as a Catholic Kapellmesiter (the absurdity cracks me up just writing that) but primarily as a composer for the public stage (which is precisely what happened).

Even Mozart recognized that church music was a dead end fit for worms and attics.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> "True church music is to be found only in attics and in a worm-eaten condition."
> 
> ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Vienna, 12 April 1783. ...
> 
> Would Mozart have written more Masses and possibly an Oratorio? Very likely. But like Haydn and Beethoven, under secular auspices, not as a church composer.


Was Mozart devaluing church music or bewailing its decline? An ambition of his was to be named Kapellmeister of St Stephen's; late in his life he became assistant to the then-current Kapellmeister, who outlived him. So had he lived beyond 1793 Mozart would have become a church composer.

As for the OP, a counterfactual situation that nobody can answer.


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## vtpoet

Mozart was sarcastically bewailing its decline. Which is part of the point I was making. There was little future in liturgical music and he knew it. That was the case in 1783 and even more so had he lived into the early 19th century. If you were looking for public acclaim and success, Opera was where it was at and Mozart knew it.


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## hammeredklavier

vtpoet said:


> .......
> ...
> Even Mozart recognized that church music was a dead end fit for worms and attics.
> until the Mass in c and the Requiem, very little compares to the liturgical works of Bach or Händel. They were derivative works, largely backwards looking, steeped in the baroque tradition. They were the product of an incomparable musical genius, but so were his early string quartets (before he encountered Haydn's quartets) and those are rarely played and only intermittently recorded.


Now, you're taking quotes out of their context. I hate to say it, but Mozart's panis vivus from K.243 (although Classical in terms of expressive devices) is a bit like an improvement on Handel's (colorless) "Ev'ry valley", and certain "gloria patri" recapitulations in Mozart's vespers are of the (repetitive) "Hallelujah", the salus infirmorum from K.195 is of the "He hath borne our griefs". And there's no evidence Mozart encountered Haydn's Op.20 set before he wrote K.334. 
Wagner (who called Mozart "a great Chromatiker" according to Cosima) was particularly fond of the Recordare in Mozart's Requiem. Chopin always kept a pocket-sized score edition of Mozart's requiem, and requested it be played in his funeral. See all these great musical minds were more concerned of the "essence". Who made a fuss like "Mozart wrote a requiem instead of an oratorio, so he was being stuffy!".


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## Kreisler jr

I can hardly add anything to what vtpoet wrote wrt to church music.
What hammeredklavier does not even realize that I am half on his side. I do believe that Mozart would have written a bunch of great church music if he had become the main St. Stephan Domkapellmeister. I actually put this as MY FIRST bulletpoint in the "As-if-speculation. So I am not neglecting this aspect at all. Nevertheless, I think it is ridiculous to take cherry-picked quotations over the music composers ACTUALLY composed. Mozart composed in almost every imaginable genre between 1782 and his final year and overall these were the most fruitful years of his life and he wrote almost no church music. He did write stuff that was a hard sell, like string quintets, so it might as well have taken this time instead to finish the c minor mass or compose another one IF this was so important to him.

And above all, a dozen late masses by Mozart would hardly have changed early romanticism at all. Not more than the Requiem did, maybe less because one work with a mysterious legend tops ten of a genre that has lost most of its importance.

Same with Beethoven. Sure, the Missa is a candidate for his greatest work but both of his masses are almost irrelevant in impact because liturgical music was already becoming a niche apart from the main streams of music. If anything (semi)secular non-liturgical oratorios became the replacement in the 19th century, like Mendelssohn's, Schumann's, Liszts (and even here it seems to me that they didn't age that well and had faded already in the late 19th century). And they took very little inspiration from Mozart and a bunch of secular or biblical à la Handel oratorios would have been more relevant than masses and vespers.

Why I am coming back to my other speculation is not an odd favorite of mine (although this would of course be every bit as justified as bringing an obsession with liturgical music into almost every other debate) but that German opera was a field where none less than Emperor Joseph had supported Mozart and others and where Mozart had had immense success, especially with The Magic Flute. It is also the field that rose from such comparably humble beginnings to Wagner and Strauss what many consider the greatest musical dramas ever. So a Mozart living until 1815-20, almost up to Weber's Freischütz that is widely considered the foundation of German romantic opera and writing several German operas with similar success or maybe more serious subject matter could have had a major impact, IMO a totally different ballgame than another two dozen of Vespers and Litanies or even another dozen of symphonies, concertos and quintets. 
The contemporary Germans Schiller and Goethe wrote the plays I Masnadieri, Luisa Miller, Joan of Arc, Maria Stuarda, Don Carlo, Guillaume Tell, Faust are based on (or share the subjects with). Goethe (who sketched a sequel to The Magic Flute and said that Mozart should have composed an opera on his Faust) also wrote an Iphigenie in Tauris. It would not be totally bizarre to imagine Mozart in the early 1800s "updating" some of the classical themed tragedies/dramas of Gluck or beating Rossini etc. to the historical subjects such William Tell.


----------



## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> Now, you're taking quotes out of context.


You opined that Mr Vtpoet hadn't given you "a single viable source to refute that..." So, I sourced Mozart himself. Obviously deflated, you're left insinuating that Mozart's comments mean something other than what they obviously mean. That's called moving the goalposts in other circles.



hammeredklavier said:


> Sorry, but Mozart's panis vivus from K.243 (although Classical in terms of expressive devices) is a bit like an improvement on Handel's (colorless) "Ev'ry valley", and certain "gloria in patri" recapitulations in Mozart's vespers are of the (repetitive) "Hallelujah", the salus infirmorum from K.195 is of the "He hath borne our griefs".


The general and scholarly consensus on Mozart's earlier liturgical works is in and fairly united. That you think this or that piece is superior to Händel is a matter of legitimate subjective debate but that's all. That there are far more recordings of Händel's operas Passions and oratorios as opposed to Mozart's Litaniae de venerabili alteris sacramento speaks for itself.



hammeredklavier said:


> And there's no evidence Mozart encountered Haydn's Op.20 set before he wrote K.334.


There was no liturgical equivalent to Haydn's Op. 20 or 33. It wasn't until the Requiem that Mozart shook himself free from the Baroque.



hammeredklavier said:


> Wagner (who called Mozart "a great Chromatiker" according to Cosima) was particularly fond of the Recordare in Mozart's Requiem. Chopin kept a pocket score edition of Mozart's requiem in his pocket, and requested it be played in his funeral. See all these great musical minds were more concerned of the "essence". Who made a fuss like "Mozart wrote a requiem instead of an oratorio, so he was being stuffy!". Only lesser minds would have done that.


And Wagner wrote operas, not Masses and Vespers, and Chopin wrote Preludes and Piano Concertos, not Masses and Vespers. Did Romantic composers respect and enjoy the liturgical works of earlier composers? Yes. Did that prompt a resurgence in liturgical composition? No.


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## hammeredklavier

Yes, he did complete K.427 in the form of K.469 and made money off it in 1785. I don't understand all these obsessive allegeric reactions some members here are displaying against a genre from a period (which no one considered stuffy in its time). Whatever.. Indulge in your wet dreams (modern-day prejudices and misconceptions) all you want. No one from that time period would have agreed with what you say.



hammeredklavier said:


> For instance, the Dies irae movement of this (6:26~13:39) is a wonderful example of operatic drama contained in formal design. Listen to how the character central aria section is transformed in the later section (consisting more of choruses and ensembles) and the drama ensues as the themes are recapitulated:
> 
> 
> 
> (at 12:12, the theme from the beginning, 6:26 is recapitulated, and at 12:41, the theme from 7:00 is recapitulated).





hammeredklavier said:


> For instance, this contains all the "traits of Classicism" I described earlier ("Mood shifts within a single movement, Classical style orchestration/instrumentation, sections/phrases cleanly-cut with cadences, and through-composition, etc"):
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (listen to the mood shifts at 5:32, 5:47, 6:30; it even reminds me of Mozart's K.543/i)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (13:13, 13:55; the "patrem omnipotentem" is derived from the "quoniam" of the previous movement).
> Likewise, the concluding fugues also have their own "expositions" and "developments" in them;
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (10:17; listen to the harmonies)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (19:52; actually the buildup to all this starts from 16:18)


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> Whatever.. Indulge in your wet dreams (modern-day prejudices and misconceptions) all you want. No one from that time period would have agreed with what you say.


Music was discussed then as it is now and you frankly have far too little knowledge of the period to make a sweeping claim like that.



hammeredklavier said:


> Yea. It's worth noting that some people (in Bach's time) complained that Bach was too complex, but no one in his time actually called him "old-fashioned".


None other than JC Bach himself considered him old fashioned. He was said to have called his father "the old wig", a nice dig at not only JS Bach's Lutheranism (JC converted to Catholicism) but also his music. JS returned the favor by saying of JC that "The boy progresses surely by his stupidity." _Der Jürge kömmt gewiss durch seine Dummheit fort!_

As far as the eccentricity of JS Bach's music goes, none other than CPE Bach praised his father's ability to shape the most eccentric and unexpected themes into profound music. So great was Bach's reputation in that regard that Frederic the Great (some reputedly say with the assistance of WF Bach) challenged Bach with the most eccentric theme he could contrive (The Musical Offering)-demanding first a three part, then a six part improvisation.

Consider too that Mozart referred to _CPE Bach's_ music as "old fashioned":

"_When Mozart visited Leipzig a few years before his death, he had passed through Hamburg shortly before, and there he had taken pains to visit Bach, by then already advanced in years; he heard Bach improvise a few times on his Silbermann instrument. During a musical soirée at the home of Doles Mozart was asked by his host for his opinion of Bach's playing, as the conversation was entirely concerned with such matters. The great man replied with his characteristically Viennese candour and directness; He is the father, we are the children. Those of us who know anything at all learned it from him; anyone who does not admit this is a ……(this last word seemed to be connected in some way that I did not understand). *What he did, Mozart continued, would be considered old fashioned now*; but the way he did it was unsurpassable. He preferred to hear me play on the organ, although I have long since been out of practice. He didn't mind that; and so he embraced me over and over again, until I almost cried out._"

If Mozart referred to CPE Bach's music as "old fashioned", only the most stubbornly willful would maintain that JS Bach's music wasn't also considered and referred to as old fashioned by his peers and later. The author Edmund Morris, in his book ""Beethoven: The Universal Composer" states that Bach was considered "passé even in his own lifetime".



hammeredklavier said:


> What's also interesting is the fact that (contrapuntal) liturgical music of the Classical period was considered "modern music" of its time by its contemporaries, contrary to how some people today think. (Although to discuss its "Classical elements" would be the topic for another thread.)





hammeredklavier said:


> I don't understand all these obsessive allegeric reactions some members here are displaying against a genre from a period (which no one considered stuffy in its time).


I mean, both those assertions are just embarrassingly wrong. The greatest example of a man who considered liturgical music stuffy, outmoded and passé was none other than the ruler Prussia-Frederick the Great. His entire court and retinue was *explicitly* instructed to not write "church music". There's no question but that Frederick the Great considered Bach's music "old fashioned", out and out called his learned style "church music" and further forbade any of his retinue from engaging in anything that savored _of the church_. And he explicitly put it in those terms. He detested both the church and liturgical music. I mean, if that's not a man who considered liturgical music stuffy, Frederick the Great of all people, then your goalpost is somewhere in Iberia. Frederick helped define the North German School and it very much considered the learned style of liturgical music to be stuffy and old fashioned, the opinions of CPE and Quantz not withstanding.


----------



## 59540

vtpoet said:


> If Mozart referred to CPE Bach's music as "old fashioned", only the most stubbornly willful would maintain that JS Bach's music wasn't also considered and referred to as old fashioned by his peers and later.


Errr, not really:


> Mozart played without previous announcement and without compensation on the organ of the church of St. Thomas. He played beautifully and artistically before a large audience for about an hour…. Doles [Johann Friedrich Doles, a former student of Bach's who had succeeded him as the church's music director] was utterly delighted with his playing and thought that old Sebastian Bach … had been resurrected. With good taste and with the greatest ease Mozart employed all the arts of harmony and gloriously improvised upon the themes, among others of the chorale 'Jesu, meine Zuversicht'…."
> 
> "At the instigation of Doles, the cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, the choir surprised Mozart by performing the motet for double choir, 'Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied,' by the patriarch of German music, Sebastian Bach. As soon as the choir had sung a few bars, Mozart started; after a few more he exclaimed: 'What is that?' And now his whole soul seemed to be centered in his ears. When the song was ended, he cried out with delight: 'Now, here is something one can learn from!'
> 
> "He was informed that this school, where Sebastian Bach had once been cantor, possessed a complete collection of his motets, which were preserved as if they were a saint's relics. 'That is right, that is fine,' he exclaimed. 'Let me see them' There was, however, no complete score of these songs. He therefore took the separate parts, and then, what a pleasure it was for the quiet observer to see how eagerly Mozart sat down, the parts all around him, held in both hands, on his knees, on the nearest chairs. Forgetting everything else, he did not stand up again until he had looked through all the music of Sebastian Bach. He asked for copies….


https://thelistenersclub.com/2017/11/13/the-bach-motet-that-inspired-mozart/


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## hammeredklavier

vtpoet said:


> Music was discussed then as it is now and you frankly have far too little knowledge of the period to make a sweeping claim like that.


And you're on again about Frederick the Great, W.F. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Quantz, the Bendas... Oh no!!! Not again!!!.. (It seems like you do this everytime you come back to this forum).



> None other than JC Bach himself considered him old fashioned. He was said to have called his father "the old wig", a nice dig at not only JS Bach's Lutheranism (JC converted to Catholicism) but also his music. JS returned the favor by saying of JC that "The boy progresses surely by his stupidity." _Der Jürge kömmt gewiss durch seine Dummheit fort!_


Sorry, "the old wig" just implies a bewigged, aged composer. It's no different from Haydn being called "Papa" in his time. J.S. just meant his son progressed in his musical abilities. Here's btw, "churchy counterpoint" by the boy, who "progressed by his stupidity" according to his father: 




The idea that 18th century composers actually had choices themselves to be "old-fashioned" or "newly-fashioned" in their time, like those of the later centuries would have, is just silly (what's even sillier is the idea that they ridiculed others for being "outdated in their time", or bragged about themselves being "newly-fashioned"). Music was their trade (usually passed down through generations), and they wrote it because there was demand, in the context of their profession. And as long as there was demand for it, it wasn't outdated in their time. Just like your wet dreams; 'it was Mozart's passion for opera that made him continue his career as a composer' (or something to the effect); these are all romanticized fantasies conceived by modern minds who project Romantic ideas into their conception of 18th century music, and don't understand its social, cultural function and the role of a composer properly. And so gross misinterpretation of quotes by the Bachs happened there. It's a logical fallacy of "making the conclusion first and then interpreting the facts based on it".



> Consider too that Mozart referred to _CPE Bach's_ music as "old fashioned":


Yes, many of C.P.E.'s concertos composed in the 1740~50s were "old-fashioned" from the perspective of Mozart (living in the 1780s), just as Telemann's cantatas and Handel's oratorios so _dreadfully_ stuck in the Baroque aesthetics of the _Doctrine of the Affections_ (I'm not even sure if you understand the concept in the context of our discussion, by this point) were. Not just J.S. Bach's music. 



 Even the British only performed Handel (and did it sparingly) in the "Concerts of *Antient Music*", in the later half of the 18th century.

"Mozart wrote to his father on 29 March 1783 about the musical gatherings in the apartments of Baron van Swieten: "we love to amuse ourselves with all kind of masters, ancient and modern." So music was the main object of these Kenner's interest - provided it was masterful. Occasionally, one of the other of the composers Mozart and his colleagues studied in these sessions is mentioned in the Mozart correspondence by name: Johann Ernst Eberlin, for instance, or Georg Friedrich Handel, or J.S. Bach and his sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Phillp Emmanuel, or Michael Haydn. Some of these were still among the living; the works Mozart and his colleagues examined were written for the most part in the first half of the eighteenth century. Nonetheless, some of the composers were already considered to be "old," or, to put it another way, "not modern." <Ulrich Konrad>



> As far as the eccentricity of JS Bach's music goes, none other than CPE Bach praised his father's ability to shape the most eccentric and unexpected themes into profound music. ......


So? What point are you trying to make? And when are you going to stop taking things out of their context for goodness' sake. Here's the full context of the quote which you _dreadfully_ took out of context ("True church music is to be found only in attics and in a worm-eaten condition." [Post#188]). I was going to ignore it, but you made me change my mind:

"When the weather gets warmer, please make a search in the attic under the roof and send us some of your own church music. You have no reason whatever to be ashamed of it. Baron van Starzer know as well as you and I that musical taste is continually changing- and, what is more, that this extends even to church music, which ought not to be the case. Hence it is that true church music is to be found only in attics and in a worm-eaten condition . . ." -Mozart, in letter to his father, 12 April 1783.
So apparently, your citation of this quote backfired on you, cause it proves Mozart believed he was writing for the style and taste of his own time in his church music.

Btw, your discussion and citation of sources on the condition of organs in St. Stephen's cathedral in Mozart's time [Post#178], which I don't get the point of, are even more baffling. Loading irrelevant texts just makes things confusing to read.



> The author Edmund Morris, in his book ""Beethoven: The Universal Composer" states that Bach was considered "passé even in his own lifetime".


Ok, show me an actual example of actual people from the 18th century thinking that way. Not any of these dreadfully clichéd statements by modern day critics who can't back up their "speculative" claims with evidence.



> I mean, both those assertions are just embarrassingly wrong. The greatest example of a man who considered liturgical music stuffy, outmoded and passé was none other than the ruler Prussia-Frederick the Great.


Frederick the Great did not represent the entirety of 18th century musical taste; he was just one of the multitudes of patrons at the time. Yes, there was a divergence of styles leading to a greater variety of stylistic options, but no one explicitly said "churchy counterpoint is not the way to compose, _because it's old_!" He just didn't like the style, that's all. He would have hated stuff like Mozart's symphony in D, K.504 or symphony in C, K.551 as well, which were apparently "outdated in its time" with 18th century style, over-wrought counterpoint according to people like you, with your bizarre criteria, which you can't even explain yourselves because they're apparently too full of contradictions. When Latin Ordinary/Proper text is added to the music, that's when it becomes "outdated in its time", Riiiight. (I've never understood Kreisler's weird logic either.) Try explaining why and how Beethoven's FUGAL works were not outdated in Beethoven's time, please?

Btw, "Franz Joseph Aumann (1728~1797) was an Austrian composer. Before his voice broke, he sang in the same Viennese choir as Michael Haydn and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, composers with whom he later in life traded manuscripts. Aumann was ordained a priest in the Augustinian Order in St. Florian in 1757, essentially staying there for the rest of his life. He wrote many mass settings.
*Aumann's music was a large part of the repertoire at St. Florian in the 19th century*, and Anton Bruckner availed himself of this resource for his studies of counterpoint. Bruckner focused a lot of his attention on Aumann's Christmas responsories and an Ave Maria in D major. Bruckner, who liked Aumann's coloured harmony, added in 1879 an accompaniment by three trombones to his settings of Ecce quomodo moritur justus and Tenebrae factae sunt.
Aumann's oeuvre also includes instrumental music, such as some of the earliest string quintets."

Want other examples?

The numerous settings of liturgical texts in German, the secular German part-songs and Lieder, together with his expanding sphere of influence as a teacher of composition in the 1790s, place Michael Haydn in a position of importance in the early history of both German sacred music and German song. One of his students Georg Schinn (1768-1833), left Salzburg in 1808 to take a position in the *Munich Hofkapelle, where Michael Haydn's Latin and German sacred music was performed frequently throughout the 19th century.*" <Michael Haydn and "The Haydn Tradition:" A Study of Attribution, Chronology, and Source Transmission / Dwight C. Blazin / P.28>

"However, according to Hübner, the chief factor was Archduke Ferdinand of Tuscany, who became elector in Salzburg following the French occupation which ended with the Treaty of Lunéville on 2 September 1801 - Ferdinand had an immense appreciation for Michael Haydn's music. Hübner states that Ferdinand saw to it that Haydn's future in Salzburg improved with regard "to salary, respect, and distinction.
*By April 1803 additional commissions for church works arrived from Vienna*, and he completed a Te Deum for the Empress by September 1803 (MH 829). Her request for a Mass for Emperor Leopold's name-day (MH 837)..." <P.31 from the same source as above>

So what's the basis for claiming that Mozart wouldn't have got commissions for church music had he lived past 1791?

Mozart Misericordias domini in D minor K.222 (1775) - G.B. Martini calls it Modern Music in his letter to Mozart-
Mozart: "A few days before my departure the Elector expressed a desire to hear some of my contrapuntal compositions. I was therefore obliged to write this motet in a great hurry, in order to have time to have the score copied for his Highness and to have the parts written out and thus enable it to be performed during the Offertory at High Mass on the following Sunday."
Martini: "Together with your most kind letter, which reached me by way of Trent, I received the Motet… It was with pleasure that I studied it from beginning to end, and I can tell you in all sincerity that I was singularly pleased with it, *finding in it all that is required by Modern Music*: good harmony, mature modulation, a moderate pace in the violins, a natural connexion of the parts and good taste. I am delighted with it and rejoice that since I had the pleasure of hearing you at Bologna on the harpsichord you have made great stride in composition, which must be pursued ever more by practice, for Music is of such nature as to call for great exercise and study as long as one lives."





"Even during [Michael Haydn's] early student years, he composed small-scale Masses, litanies, hymns, Salve Reginas, etc., which, *because of their correct setting and pleasing modern taste, were accepted by everyone with great approval.*" 
-Maximilian Stadler (1748~1833), Materialien zur Geschichte der Musik, P.135
("Schon während seine frühen Studienjahren komponirte er kleinere Messen, Litaneyen, Hymnen, salve regina usw., welche wegen richten Satz und dem angenehmen neuern Geschmack von jedermann mit größten Beyfall aufgenommen wurden.")

-----

(580) Mozart to the Archduke Francis

[Autograph in the Mozarteum, Salzburg] 
VIENNA, during the first half of May, 1790

YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS,

I make so bold as to beg your Royal Highness very respectfully to use your most gracious influence with His Majesty the King with regard to my most humble petition to His Majesty. Prompted by a desire for fame, by a love of work and by a conviction of my wide knowledge, I venture to apply for the post of second Kapellmeister, particularly as Salieri, that very gifted Kapellmeister, has never devoted himself to church music, *whereas from my youth up I have made myself completely familiar with this style.* https://archive.org/stream/lettersofmozarth000640mbp/lettersofmozarth000640mbp_djvu.txt


----------



## Sawbones

I think speculation on this theme is not very useful. Who knows what could have happened? Maybe Mozart may have done what Rossini did---retire early and live almost another 40 years?


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## jdec

Sawbones said:


> I think speculation on this theme is not very useful. Who knows what could have happened? *Maybe Mozart may have done what Rossini did---retire early and live almost another 40 years?*


Very unlikely. Mozart was a different kind of specimen. His creative powers seemed inexhaustible at least until the end of his life.


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## Rogerx

Sawbones said:


> I think speculation on this theme is not very useful. Who knows what could have happened? Maybe Mozart may have done what Rossini did---retire early and live almost another 40 years?


I agree on the other hand he could have written much more wonderful music .
Welcome by the way.


----------



## vtpoet

dissident said:


> Errr, not really:
> 
> https://thelistenersclub.com/2017/11/13/the-bach-motet-that-inspired-mozart/


Mozart, as they all did in his generation, considered the learned style (and by implication JS Bach's music) old fashioned, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have been greatly impressed by it and wouldn't have learned from it. It would be old fashioned to write like Keats or Shakespeare, but I still sit and read them every day. Mozart once remarked, rather defensively, that he enjoyed perusing Gluck's operas but not, he emphasized, for ideas.


----------



## 59540

vtpoet said:


> Mozart, as they all did in his generation, considered the learned style (and by implication JS Bach's music) old fashioned, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't have been greatly impressed by it and wouldn't have learned from it. It would be old fashioned to write like Keats or Shakespeare, but I still sit and read them every day. Mozart once remarked, rather defensively, that he enjoyed perusing Gluck's operas but not, he emphasized, for ideas.


No you imply that Mozart and his generation regarded Bach's music as some musty old outmoded relic, which is simply not true. The "Bach was completely forgotten probably even before his death" myth is one that dies hard.


----------



## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> And you're on again about Frederick the Great, W.F. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Quantz, the Bendas... Oh no!!! Not again!!!.. (It seems like you do this everytime you come back to this forum).


You're confusing me with other members again. I think I might have only mentioned Benda once or twice, and when I've discussed CPE it was to agree with your estimation of him. Ironically.



hammeredklavier said:


> Sorry, "the old wig" just implies a bewigged, aged composer.


"aged composer" I mean, you just said it yourself, all while denying it means that. 



hammeredklavier said:


> The idea that 18th century composers actually had choices themselves to be "old-fashioned" or "newly-fashioned" in their time, like those of the later centuries would have, is just silly...


Frederick the Great's whole musical court was predicated on just that choice. His composers could either write in the new style or, if they insisted on bringing "the church" into Sans Souci (his words) they could see themselves out the door. There's just no way around this despite all your huffing and puffing. There really isn't. You wrote that nobody considered liturgical music stuffy (do I need to quote you?) and you were wrong. Dead wrong.



hammeredklavier said:


> "Mozart wrote to his father on 29 March 1783 about the musical gatherings in the apartments of Baron van Swieten: "we love to amuse ourselves with all kind of masters, ancient and modern." So music was the main object of these Kenner's interest - provided it was masterful. Occasionally, one of the other of the composers Mozart and his colleagues studied in these sessions is mentioned in the Mozart correspondence by name: Johann Ernst Eberlin, for instance, or Georg Friedrich Handel, or J.S. Bach and his sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Phillp Emmanuel, or Michael Haydn. Some of these were still among the living; the works Mozart and his colleagues examined were written for the most part in the first half of the eighteenth century. Nonetheless, some of the composers were already considered to be "old," or, to put it another way, "not modern." <Ulrich Konrad>


I'm not even sure what point you're making. They studied masters "ancient and modern". That alone confirms what I've been telling you. Mozart and his peers absolutely thought of musical styles in terms of modernity, ancient or old fashioned. I mean, Mozart used the words himself when discussing CPE and others (see below).



hammeredklavier said:


> Here's the full context of the quote which you _dreadfully_ took out of context ("True church music is to be found only in attics and in a worm-eaten condition." [Post#188]). I was going to ignore it, but you made me change my mind:
> 
> "When the weather gets warmer, please make a search in the attic under the roof and send us some of your own church music. You have no reason whatever to be ashamed of it. Baron van Starzer know as well as you and I that musical taste is continually changing- and, what is more, that this extends even to church music, which ought not to be the case. Hence it is that true church music is to be found only in attics and in a worm-eaten condition . . ." -Mozart, in letter to his father, 12 April 1783.
> So apparently, your citation of this quote backfired on you, cause it proves Mozart believed he was writing for the style and taste of his own time in his church music.


As I wrote just a few comments earlier, the comment was sarcastic. Tastes in liturgical music were changing. The very fact that Mozart urges his father not to be "ashamed" of his compositions tells you all you need to know. "Taste is continually changing" and so "true church music is to be found only in attics and in worm-eaten condition..."

In Robert L. Marshall's book "Mozart Speaks", he puts it this way:

"_The [extracts from letters) that follow testify among other things to Mozart's dismay about declining standards both in the performance and in the composition of church music-the latter, for him, evidently tantamount to an abandonment of a noble and venerable musical tradition and, we may presume, of a cherished religious heritage. His conservative taste with respect to church music is in stark contrast to his modern predilections in most other musical matters. His characterizations, for example, of the otherwise respected composer Jommelli and of the "Tartini" school of violin playing as "old fashioned" were clearly not intended as praise._"

Two points: First, Marshall's own characterization of Mozart's frustration with the decline of liturgical composition and his implication that composing "true church music" was a dead end fit for attics and worms. Take it up with Marshall if you don't like that reading of history. Second, Mozart's reference to Jommelli and Tartini's violin playing as "old fashioned". Mozart's own words once again. And yet I wonder if you will continue with your inane insistence that no one ever characterized music as being "old fashioned" in Mozart's day?



hammeredklavier said:


> Btw, your discussion and citation of sources on the condition of organs in St. Stephen's cathedral in Mozart's time [Post#178], which I don't get the point of, are even more baffling. Loading irrelevant texts just makes things confusing to read.


The deteriorated condition of the instruments at St Stephen's testifies to the declining state of music in liturgy. The era was ending even in Bach's time. There was no future for Mozart there. The secular stage represented the future of music-Opera foremost.



hammeredklavier said:


> Ok, show me an actual example of actual people from the 18th century thinking that way.


I just did, in this post and earlier, from Mozart's own letters.



hammeredklavier said:


> Frederick the Great did not represent the entirety of 18th century musical taste; he was just one of the multitudes of patrons at the time.


Yeah, okay, and this is what you originally wrote, emphasis mine:

"I don't understand all these obsessive allegeric reactions some members here are displaying against a genre from a period (*which no one considered stuffy in its time*)."

Asides from Frederick the Great, the King Prussia, you mean to say, and the wholesale rejection of the "learned style" of church music shared by his contemporaries. I mean, besides that.



hammeredklavier said:


> He just didn't like the style, that's all. He would have hated stuff like Mozart's symphony in D, K.504 or symphony in C, K.551 as well, which were apparently "outdated in its time" with 18th century style, over-wrought counterpoint according to people like you, with your bizarre criteria, which you can't even explain yourselves because they're apparently too full of contradictions. When Latin Ordinary/Proper text is added to the music, that's when it becomes "outdated in its time", Riiiight. (I've never understood Kreisler's weird logic either.) Try explaining why and how Beethoven's FUGAL works were not outdated in Beethoven's time, please?


What rubbish. I mean, the scenario that you're painting as a feverish absurdity actually happened. Mozart was made to rewrite the final movement of his piano concerto K 175 precisely because the movement was too over-wrought and contrapuntal. By the time Mozart wrote his last symphonies and the Haydns were writing fugal finales, tastes were once again changing. Would critics at the time have conflated this reintroduction of counterpoint with "church music" the way Frederick did? Possibly, but by that point counterpoint seems to have largely liberated itself from its liturgical associations and connotations.



hammeredklavier said:


> Btw, "Franz Joseph Aumann (1728~1797) was an Austrian composer. Before his voice broke, he sang in the same Viennese choir as Michael Haydn and Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, composers with whom he later in life traded manuscripts. Aumann was ordained a priest in the Augustinian Order in St. Florian in 1757, essentially staying there for the rest of his life. He wrote many mass settings....





hammeredklavier said:


> Want other examples?[/COLOR]


Of what? A defense of Liturgical Music? That's not what this thread is about. It's about what Mozart's impact might have been on the Romantics had a lived into the 19th century. Are you saying that there were Romantics who esteemed liturgical music? I don't disagree. Does that mean Mozart would have settled down to life as a Catholic Kapellmeister? Wouldn't I love to bet my life savings against that...



hammeredklavier said:


> So what's the basis for claiming that Mozart wouldn't have got commissions for church music had he lived past 1791?[/COLOR]


I never wrote that. I wrote that he probably would have received more commissions for liturgical music but that such works would have represented a small portion of his total output, probably similar in proportion to what he'd already composed during the last ten years of his life. Unless he was going to squirrel himself away like Herr Aumann, in some Augustinian order, you're delusional if you think the greatest composer in Europe was going to be commissioned to primarily compose masses and vespers.



hammeredklavier said:


> Mozart Misericordias domini in D minor K.222 (1775) - G.B. Martini calls it Modern Music in his letter to Mozart-


How does this in any way undermine what I've been writing? First of all, that was *Padre* Martini. I wouldn't expect him to share the same aesthetics as the era's secular audience. Secondly, the very fact that he would refer to a piece as "modern" tells you that there were obviously liturgical compositions he would have considered "old fashioned". You wrote that people during that time didn't think in those terms and even your own selection of quotes contradicts you.



hammeredklavier said:


> I make so bold as to beg your Royal Highness very respectfully to use your most gracious influence with His Majesty the King with regard to my most humble petition to His Majesty. Prompted by a desire for fame, by a love of work and by a conviction of my wide knowledge, I venture to apply for the post of second Kapellmeister, particularly as Salieri, that very gifted Kapellmeister, has never devoted himself to church music, *whereas from my youth up I have made myself completely familiar with this style.* https://archive.org/stream/lettersofmozarth000640mbp/lettersofmozarth000640mbp_djvu.txt


Yes, the petition was a draft that Mozart never actually submitted. That in itself is telling. What's so interesting is that the future so clearly went Salieri's way-not in terms of his own reputation but in terms of music's future. Salieri could have written liturgical music, but typified the future as a famed composer of operas. Mozart probably would have gotten his job as Catholic Kapellmeister but there was little future for him there and whatever impact he would have had on the Romantics, in that regard, would have been respectful but limited.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> Two points: First, Marshall's own characterization of Mozart's frustration with the decline of liturgical composition and his implication that composing "true church music" was a dead end fit for attics and worms.


If Mozart thought church music was such a "dead end", why was he seeking employment as a church Kapellmeister? "A dead end fit for attics and worms" are your words, not Mozart's. Could it possibly be that Mozart was getting a little jaded with all that Italian opera he had been churning out to make a living? By the way,


> Possibly, but by that point counterpoint seems to have largely liberated itself from its liturgical associations and connotations.


Counterpoint in itself is not strictly liturgical from which it had to be "freed". Even Mozart's earlier piano sonatas feature counterpoint. It was always around.


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## Kreisler jr

Beethoven's instrumental fugues don't sound anything like Mozart's Salzburg church music. 
And neither does the Jupiter finale or the Haydn 70 finale or similar movements. They might be technical similarities in some passages but such will be found almost anywhere. Almost all of these are "modern" (i.e 1780s) sonata movements with some dense counterpoint passages. But the overall organizing principle is clearly sonata form, not any church or baroque style. 

The replacement Rondo Mozart wrote for the K 175 only about 7-8 years later show how fast tastes could change. Or that the young Beethoven, only 15 years younger supposedly found Mozart's piano playing out of fashion already in the late 1780s. 
Or how Cherubini and others fell out of favor with the public when Rossini came around; they didn't vanish completely, of course and Berlioz or Beethoven certainly preferred Cherubini to Rossini but it shows how fast developments could be.

Of course, there was a certain breadth and also differences between regions. And Mozart could admire Bach all day and play a few pieces during an afternoon of specialists. But had he encountered a Bach keyboard concerto he would never have had the idea to play it publicly. And if any piece of the 1720-40s would have been given in public it would have been thoroughly overhauled like Mozart did with Messiah etc. This changed only in the 1830s when Mendelssohn played Bach's double and triple keyboard concertos frequently. (Again some other pieces, like the St Matthew would hardly be recognizable to us, severely cut, clarinets and other re-instrumentations etc. Even Furtwängler in the 1950s conducted St Matthew cut to shreds although this practice was waning then.)


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## Kreisler jr

dissident said:


> If Mozart thought church music was such a "dead end", why was he seeking employment as a church Kapellmeister? "A dead end fit for attics and worms" are your words, not Mozart's. Could it possibly be that Mozart was getting a little jaded with all that Italian opera he had been churning out to make a living?


If Mozart was ever churning out music to make a living, it was the Salzburg church music. All of his mature Italian operas (except maybe Tito because Magic Flute was his main concern then) were big deals, not even close to churning out three per year like Handel or Rossini did.

We know that Mozart was sometimes rather desperate to secure any lucrative position (partly because of his extravagant lifestyle). While I can imagine him spending several years at St Stephan I'd take anything he wrote/claimed for self promotion for such a position with a grain of salt.

BTW I think vtpoet means *any* church music was basically a dead end in the 1790s. Mozart's imagine late masses of the late 1790s would have been a great dead end, but nevertheless mostly irrelevant for his impact on the 19th century.


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## 59540

Kreisler jr said:


> And Mozart could admire Bach all day and play a few pieces during an afternoon of specialists. But had he encountered a Bach keyboard concerto he would never have had the idea to play it publicly.


Bach probably wouldn't have chosen Froberger or Pachelbel to play at Zimmermann's coffee house either. But that doesn't mean he hadn't absorbed those influences, or considered their work hopelessly passé.


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## 59540

Kreisler jr said:


> If Mozart was ever churning out music to make a living, it was the Salzburg church music. All of his mature Italian operas (except maybe Tito because Magic Flute was his main concern then) were big deals, not even close to churning out three per year like Handel or Rossini did.


If that were the case then being a Kapellmeister would've been the last thing he wanted.


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist

Probably pretty minimally. Music is driven by culture; the effects of individual musicians on the course of the development of music are - as a general rule - grossly overstated.


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## Kreisler jr

But culture is mainly the sum total of what all individual musicians do! Of course, some are going to be quite influential and others less. The Magic Flute was a huge step for German opera. With only small scale Singspiele Beethoven or Weber would have had much less to build upon, maybe they would have leaned more on French or Italian models (as they did to some extent as well).


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> No you imply that Mozart and his generation regarded Bach's music as some musty old outmoded relic, which is simply not true. The "Bach was completely forgotten probably even before his death" myth is one that dies hard.


No I don't and didn't. Feel free to cite any links proving otherwise.

Also, we're in agreement as to the "myth" that Bach was completely forgotten (and I've said so in previous posts).


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## vtpoet

dissident said:


> If Mozart thought church music was such a "dead end", why was he seeking employment as a church Kapellmeister?


There's no definitive answer to that question. It could be because he genuinely wanted the opportunity to compose liturgical pieces, but it could also be because it was simply an opportunity for needed and stable income.



dissident said:


> "A dead end fit for attics and worms" are your words, not Mozart's.


Yes, Mozart's words were: "Hence it is that true church music is to be found only in attics and in a worm-eaten condition." So, if Mozart believed that, why would he want to undertake a career in writing "true church music"?



dissident said:


> Could it possibly be that Mozart was getting a little jaded with all that Italian opera he had been churning out to make a living?


Yes, that's likely. I think he would have preferred to write more German operas and probably _would_ have with Schikaneder, especially given The Magic Flute's success.



dissident said:


> By the way, Counterpoint in itself is not strictly liturgical from which it had to be "freed". Even Mozart's earlier piano sonatas feature counterpoint. It was always around.


No, of course not, but that's how it was viewed by many at the time, Frederick the Great most notably.


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## Forster

> Yes, Mozart's words were: "Hence it is that true church music is to be found only in attics and in a worm-eaten condition." So, if Mozart believed that, why would he want to undertake a career in writing "true church music"?


Maybe he wanted to bring it out of the attic...make it modern and interesting again?


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> Beethoven's instrumental fugues don't sound anything like Mozart's Salzburg church music.
> And neither does the Jupiter finale or the Haydn 70 finale or similar movements. They might be technical similarities in some passages but such will be found almost anywhere. Almost all of these are "modern" (i.e 1780s) sonata movements with some dense counterpoint passages. But the overall organizing principle is clearly sonata form, not any church or baroque style.


The first movement of K.195 clearly has a slow introduction - exposition - development - false recapitulation - recapitulation.
Beethoven's works from the 1820s of course sound far more different from the music of the 1740s than Mozart's works from the 1770s do. The fact still remains no one in that time would have agreed with anything you and Vtpoet say regarding this issue.
Also, the concluding fugues in the Salzburg Haydn's Missa sancti Hieronymi is reminiscent of his symphonic fugal finales.


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## hammeredklavier

Kreisler jr said:


> If Mozart was ever churning out music to make a living, it was the Salzburg church music.


You actually don't appreciate this sort of works (masses, litanies, vespers) generally. Your occasional criticism of Bach's B minor mass, "Bach uses the choir like a soloist", sort of explains why. But the chromaticism in the stuff is not something to be dismissed as "potboilers".




It's kind of funny though, the two people who denigrate Mozart's Catholic music in this thread; one of them does it because he is indifferent to Bach, the other does it because he loves Bach.


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## vtpoet

Forster said:


> Maybe he wanted to bring it out of the attic...make it modern and interesting again?


Yes. And he was the one to do it.

Sadly, as his sarcastic comment suggests, there was no longer a demand for that sort of thing. Musical patronage had moved from the sacred to the secular. The maintenance of the kind of musical establishment that Bach partially enjoyed at Leipzig (and that Mozart's father benefited from in Leipzig) was exhausting both church and municipal reserves. They simply couldn't afford it. Bach complained about it but the era was ending. Besides that, the history of liturgical music was usually one of innovation pitted against the natural conservative inclinations of ecclesiastical authorities. Colloredo was no exception and part of the reason that Mozart fled Salzburg in disgust.


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> The fact still remains no one in that time would have agreed with anything you and Vtpoet say regarding this issue.


To be honest, I don't even know what point you're making when you write this.

The best that I can do is to source comments made from those who did live "in that time" and those comments flatly contradict your own sweeping generalizations-your comments, for example, that nobody thought liturgical music was stuffy or that no one thought in terms of "modern" or "old fashioned" even while composers and critics were explicitly using those very terms.


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## Kreisler jr

hammeredklavier said:


> It's kind of funny though, the two people who denigrates this genre in Mozart in this thread; one of them does it because he is indifferent to Bach, the other does it because he loves Bach.


If you keep spreading such silly lies about me, I will eventually complain to a moderator. (Not drooling from the mouth about every grace note by Bach does not mean that one does not love his music.)

Keep believing that with your cherry-picking you'll be certain to find cherry's supporting your positions. Hardly anybody loves the Salzburg church music as much as you do. Just look in any Mozart biography.

But this is all beside the point. Let 1770s church music be great music, no problem. The point you cannot grasp because of your cherry-picking (and you are really doing this all the time, regardless if it is older post from me, remarks from composers or wikipedia) is that stuff like the Salzburg church music, or any liturgical music, even Mozart's Requiem or Cherubini's or Beethoven's masses was de facto of almost no importance for early-mid 19th century music. You can cherry pick all day, Hoffmann dreaming of Palestrina-a-cappella-revival, Berlioz praising his own Requiem etc. It's just words, not music with a great impact on the musical culture of the time that had turned secular. Especially after 1806 the institutional power of the Church was mostly gone and church music was a niche. And later on with Liszt and Wagner music itself turned to ersatz religion.

10 years and dozens of late liturgical pieces by Mozart would have changed almost nothing in the history of music. Two or three German operas, especially more serious and less Singspiel-like ones might have changed it considerably.


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## vtpoet

Kreisler jr said:


> 10 years and dozens of late liturgical pieces by Mozart would have changed almost nothing in the history of music. Two or three German operas, especially more serious and less Singspiel-like ones might have changed it considerably.


Sums it up. Couldn't agree more.

Other than that, my own views are more nuanced than a debate in a discussion forum generally allows (the over-simplified pigeon-holing and straw man fallacies that inevitably arise). The question the OP asks is fascinating (to me) because of the nuanced and scholarly knowledge needed as a basis for conjecture. This whole debate over the status of liturgical music during the pre-classical and classical period is an example of that. We just scratch the surface.


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## 59540

vtpoet said:


> Yes. And he was the one to do it.
> 
> Sadly, as his sarcastic comment suggests, there was no longer a demand for that sort of thing. Musical patronage had moved from the sacred to the secular. The maintenance of the kind of musical establishment that Bach partially enjoyed at Leipzig (and that Mozart's father benefited from in Leipzig) was exhausting both church and municipal reserves. They simply couldn't afford it. Bach complained about it but the era was ending. Besides that, the history of liturgical music was usually one of innovation pitted against the natural conservative inclinations of ecclesiastical authorities. Colloredo was no exception and part of the reason that Mozart fled Salzburg in disgust.


I don't think Mozart's remark was as much "sarcastic" as it was wistful. As far as working with music in the Church is concerned, it doesn't appear to have been that much of a dead end for Franck and Bruckner. Not everyone wanted to be an isolated iconoclast in the Beethoven mold. I think that image colors a lot of the "what if Mozart had lived longer" speculation.


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> I don't think Mozart's remark was as much "sarcastic" as it was wistful.


And again, Vtpoet took the portion of the quote out of its context to distort it to his liking:


hammeredklavier said:


> Here's the full context of the quote which you _dreadfully_ took out of context ("True church music is to be found only in attics and in a worm-eaten condition." [Post#188]). I was going to ignore it, but you made me change my mind:
> "When the weather gets warmer, please make a search in the attic under the roof and send us some of your own church music. You have no reason whatever to be ashamed of it. Baron van Starzer know as well as you and I that musical taste is continually changing- and, what is more, that this extends even to church music, which ought not to be the case. Hence it is that true church music is to be found only in attics and in a worm-eaten condition . . ." -Mozart, in letter to his father, 12 April 1783.
> So apparently, your citation of this quote backfired on you, cause it proves Mozart believed he was writing for the style and taste of his own time in his church music.


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## Bwv 1080

hammeredklavier said:


> And again, Vtpoet took the portion of the quote out of its context to distort it to his liking:


Sound like maybe he was just flattering his father, saying that while Leopold's secular music was hopelessly out of date, his liturgical music still had value


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> And again, Vtpoet took the portion of the quote out of its context to distort it to his liking:


Treating Mozart's comment as a sarcastic commentary on the state of liturgical music during his lifetime doesn't originate with me, but evidently Hammeredklavier will continue to pose and posture as though it did.


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## vtpoet

Bwv 1080 said:


> Sound like maybe he was just flattering his father, saying that while Leopold's secular music was hopelessly out of date, his liturgical music still had value


I think you're right. The comment was self-evidently sarcastic (Hammeredklavier, after so much posturing. still hasn't declared what he thinks Mozart meant). The comment also suggests how his father's generation of church music was considered (old-fashioned dare we say?-musty?-fit for attics and worms?) and reflects Mozart's opinion of how "true church music" was then being received. Not well.


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## 59540

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


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## hammeredklavier

dissident said:


> As far as working with music in the Church is concerned, it doesn't appear to have been that much of a dead end for Franck and Bruckner.


I agree.



Kreisler jr said:


> And they took very little inspiration from Mozart and a bunch of secular or biblical à la Handel oratorios would have been more relevant than masses and vespers.


What I still don't get are these double standards and subtle attempts at history distortion. If you intend to discuss objectively and want to be taken seriously, you should at least try to treat all the works equally by the same fair criteria, regardless of whether you appreciate them or not. Oratorios using Biblical text were not any more secular or "relevant to the public" (I'm not even sure what this means) than Catholic music of the Latin Ordinary/Proper (and German text of the Bible) that were similarly commissioned/performed under secular context in the 18th, 19th centuries. Please quit trying to make it seem like they were. Berlioz never really cared for Handel, calling him "a tub of pork and beer" (for a good reason). What's the basis for claiming Handel's stuff was more relevant to the development of music in the 19th century than Mozart's was? I think you're just exhibiting your personal obsession/favoritism for the colorless Messiah again.
By the logic "popularity=greatness", Faure's Requiem, for instance, is far more popular than Mendelssohn's Elijah, (which no one really cares for that much except maybe ORigel even on this forum). And I'm sorry to say it, I don't think a person really understands music history and how the use of expressivity in the inner voices (in terms of chromaticism and stuff) was passed on through history if he says things like "Handel is sometimes even more effective than Bach" in that regard.


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> What's the basis for claiming Handel's stuff was more relevant to the development of music in the 19th century than Mozart's was? I think you're just exhibiting your personal obsession/favoritism for the colorless Messiah again....


As you do with me, you're twisting Kreisler's comment into a straw man assertion he never made. He didn't write that "Handel's stuff was more relevant to the development of music in the 19th century than Mozart's was". That's quite easy to knock down. What he wrote was that Handel's Oratorios had more influence than Mozart's masses and vespers. And he's right.

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

There wasn't probably a single Romantic composer who thought of Mozart's "Davide penitente" when thinking of Oratorios. Mozart himself was asked to re-orchestrate Händel's Messiah, Alexander's Feast, Ode to St Cecelia's Day, and possibly (recently proposed) Judas Maccabaeus and even CPE Bach's Auferstehung. These were commissioned by van Swieten. You didn't see van Swieten commissioning Mozart for re-orchestrations of this or that Catholic Mass. Later Haydn was commissioned to write _The Creation_ and _The Seasons_-both of which were directly inspired by Händel's oratorios.

When it came to Masses among the early Romantics, it was Bach and Micheal Haydn who's name came first.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/741017










Schubert was the only Romantic composer who possibly drew inspiration directly from Mozart's earlier masses (along with Micheal Haydn's). Beethoven's Mass in C was inspired by Joseph Haydn's Masses, not Mozart's:

"On accepting the prince's commission Beethoven had praised Haydn's masses, calling them "inimitable masterpieces." Beethoven meant it. He clearly studied Haydn's masses while composing his own, no doubt for reasons far beyond the fact that the Esterházys had commissioned it, as we see from his sketches for the Gloria. The sketches include two passages copied from the Gloria of Haydn's Schöpfungsmesse ("Creation Mass"), one of four late Haydn masses easily available to Beethoven in published editions."

Beethoven's Missa Solemnis draws parallels with Micheal Haydn's Masses rather than Mozart's:

"Musicologist Michael Spitzer writes, "Gregorian melodies, of course, continued to be used in the Mass throughout the eighteenth century; but by Beethoven's time they were relatively rare, especially in orchestral Masses. The one composer who still used them extensively is Michael Haydn, in his a cappella Masses for Advent and Lent. It is significant that in some of these he limits the borrowed melody to the Incarnatus and expressly labels it 'Corale'. In the Missa dolorum B. M. V. (1762) it is set in the style of a harmonized chorale, in the Missa tempore Qudragesima of 1794 note against note, with the Gregorian melody (Credo IV of the Liber Usualis) appearing in the soprano. I have little doubt that Beethoven knew such works of Michael Haydn, at that time the most popular composer of sacred music in Austria."[8] Similarities between the "Et Incarnatus est" sections from Michael Haydn's Missa Sancti Gabrielis, MH 17 (1768) and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis can be found."

And on Bach's influence on Beethoven:

"On several occasions Lockwood highlights Beethoven's desire to seek out the music of Bach for himself, specifically the Mass in B minor, as he approached the period of composition for the Missa Solemnis. He also focuses on Beethoven's use of fugue throughout his later period. For in this 'late' period (with Beethoven still in his 40s!) it would appear he looked back at Bach for further inspiration, writing complicated but incredibly expressive fugues at key points in his music." ~ https://arcana.fm/2020/03/04/2020-beethoven-routes-bach/

So, as it is, Kreisler is right as concerns Mozart. Had Mozart lived another ten or twenty years, then maybe that would be different. Certainly Mozart would have written at least one or more great Masses and Oratorios (since the latter were in demand) but, again, there's no reason to think these pieces would have increased in proportion to his other works-Opera, Concerti, Chamber Music, etc.... Apart from obscure composers who dedicated themselves solely to liturgical composition (Bruckner is famous for his symphonies) liturgical composition represented a fairly small percentage of any given composer's total output *with the onset of the 19th century*. Simply in terms of demand, there's no reason to think Mozart would have been an exception. The general public was far more interested in Opera, Concertos, Symphonies, Chamber Music, piano sonatas and songs (think of all the arrangements of Scottish tunes by Haydn and Beethoven). That's where the money was. The demand for liturgical music was comparatively slim, if not negligible.


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## hammeredklavier

vtpoet said:


> As you do with me, you're twisting Kreisler's comment into a straw man assertion he never made. He didn't write that "Handel's stuff was more relevant to the development of music in the 19th century than Mozart's was". That's quite easy to knock down. What he wrote was that Handel's Oratorios had more influence than Mozart's masses and vespers. And he's right.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oratorios


Kreisler still implied it though; he can explain himself maybe. Why are you citing the "List of oratorios" wikipedia page? It doesn't prove anything with regards to your claims. 
I could argue most audiences today want Handel "cut to shreds" (something certain someone only accuses Bach of) and don't care for 90% of Handel's churned-out vocal stuff, except maybe some aria excerpts, btw. But again, someone with his usual double standards will always regard it as "underrated", "underappreciated through history".
("In its orginal form "Radamsisto" is one of Handel's longest operas, "four hours of not always inspired music," according to Simon, whose first task was to put together an edition suitable for today's audiences. "The biggest problem for today's audiences. "The biggest problem was trying to restrain one's self-indulgence, and not be seduced by the lesser material," explained Simon, who pared the opera down to 2 1/2 hours and reduced its three acts to two.")



> Mozart himself was asked to re-orchestrate Händel's Messiah, Alexander's Feast, Ode to St Cecelia's Day, and possibly (recently proposed) Judas Maccabaeus and even CPE Bach's Auferstehung. These were commissioned by van Swieten.You didn't see van Swieten commissioning Mozart for re-orchestrations of this or that Catholic Mass.


C.P.E. Bach conducted a performance of his own magnificat and his father's B minor mass in a concert sponsored by van Swieten in 1786, Hamburg.



> When it came to Masses among the early Romantics, it was Bach and Micheal Haydn who's name came first.


You're right about that about Michael Haydn, but it's more because he worked as a cathedral kapellmeister for a far longer period than Mozart did. If Mozart lived longer and had a career as a Viennese kapellmeister, things might have been different.



> Schubert was the only Romantic composer who possibly drew inspiration directly from Mozart's earlier masses (along with Micheal Haydn's). Beethoven's Mass in C was inspired by Joseph Haydn's Masses, not Mozart's:
> Beethoven's Missa Solemnis draws parallels with Micheal Haydn's Masses rather than Mozart's:


Beethoven's Missa solemnis classifies as a "credo-messe" (which was probably "pioneered" by J.J. Fux), containing the characteristic repeated two-note motif gesture "credo, credo" and is in tradition with Mozart's K.192, especially K.257. I'm not sure if Michael Haydn wrote one, since not all his works have been recorded. The famous "Ode to Joy" in Beethoven's 9th symphony (which he referred to as a "pious song in a symphony") most likely derives from Mozart's Misericordias domini in D minor, K.222.
Also, look at [ Beethoven and Mozart's Requiem: A New Connection | Bathia Churgin (Beethoven's precis and analysis of the Kyrie fugue from Mozart's Requiem, K. 626, on a sketchleaf containing a draft for the Credo fugue,.) https://www.jstor.org/stable/763840 ]



> So, as it is, Kreisler is right as concerns Mozart. Had Mozart lived another ten or twenty years, then maybe that would be different. Certainly Mozart would have written at least one or more great Masses and Oratorios (since the latter were in demand) but, again, there's no reason to think these pieces would have increased in proportion to his other works-Opera, Concerti, Chamber Music, etc....


Ok. Whatever. But the fact remains that Mozart's Requiem was more influential than the colorless Messiah (you say Kreisler was not trying to argue the opposite, but you're still trying to prove it?). I still think that the less a person is able to recognize the more important aspects like expressive harmonic depth and style, the more he obsesses over minor things. Just look back at all the successive posts you and some other person have made in this thread, repeating the same point over and over, ignoring the point I made in https://www.talkclassical.com/47729-if-mozart-lived-longer-11.html#post2171799 . Sorry, but it's starting to look rather _worrisome_. Are there some burning desires for personal vendettas against Catholicism and its music or something?

"Wagner's life-long admiration included an encounter in the mid-to late 1820s that 'formed the starting point of my enthusiastic absorption in the works of that master [Mozart]' and contemplations of it late in life as well; Anton Rubinstein, Mahler Richard Strauss, Stanford and Rimsky-Korsakov all conducted it, Rimsky-Korsakov also quoting extensively from the Introit in the final section of Mozart and Salieri. Described in 1902 as one of Mozart's works that 'speaks persuadingly to every generation . . . [through which] Mozart's influence still persists and must be reckoned with as a factor in the complexus of forces which is moulding the music of the new century', it had similar exposure among twentieth century composers. Bartok used examples from the Requiem in his teaching; Szymanowski wrote of its 'divine grief', the most powerful 'eruption' of the 'grim, powerful call from a world beyond ours' in Mozart's late music; Janecek conducted a highly successful performance of it in Brno in the late 1870s and another in the memory of Smetana in Prague in 1916; the fifteen-year-old Walton sang a solo part in a performance at Christ Church, Oxford, in December 1917; Britten considered it an important historical precedent for the modern-day composer in writing his own War Requiem (1961-2), subsequently reacting profoundly to conducting Mozart's work (1971)."
< Mozart's Requiem: Reception, Work, Completion / Simon P. Keefe / P. 6 >



> Apart from obscure composers who dedicated themselves solely to liturgical composition (Bruckner is famous for his symphonies) liturgical composition represented a fairly small percentage of any given composer's total output with the onset of the 19th century.


Ok. But also, we shouldn't concern ourselves with what one-trick ponies like Stamitz did or didn't do. Many of them don't have that much relation to Mozart compared to guys like Naumann, Aumann, Brixi, Hasse, F.X. Richter, Pasterwitz, L. Mozart, Albrechtsberger, Adlgasser, Holzbauer, Gatti, Vogler, Knecht, Weinrauch, Angerer, etc, etc. And Bruckner's symphonies are nothing like 18th century symphonies either. (SanAntone made this point in another thread, and I agree completely.) He is heavily inclined towards liturgical and organ music in terms of expression.

A composer Mozart mentions in one of his letters to his father: "Peter von Winter (1754-1825), born in Mannheim, joined the Mannheim orchestra as violinist in 1775. In 1794 he became Vice- Kapellmeister to the Munich court orchestra, and in 1798 Kapellmeister. From 1793 to 1797 he had nine operas performed at the Burgtheater and Schikaneder's theatre in Vienna. He also composed a great deal of church music. He was in Vienna during the winter of 1781 for the production of three ballets, for which he had written the music."



> The general public was far more interested in Opera, Concertos, Symphonies, Chamber Music, piano sonatas and songs (think of all the arrangements of Scottish tunes by Haydn and Beethoven). That's where the money was. The demand for liturgical music was comparatively slim, if not negligible.


Ok, but we also have to look at case by case basis. Compare this situation

"On 8 May, Mozart briefly returned to Leipzig, where on 12 May he gave a concert at the Gewandhaus. The concert program consisted entirely of Mozart's music: the piano concerti K. 456 and K. 503, two scenas for soprano (K. 505, K. 528) performed by Josepha Duschek, the fantasy for piano solo K. 475, and two unidentified symphonies. Following a custom of the time, the first of the symphonies was split, the first two movements being played at the opening of the concert and the second two before the intermission.
The concert, organized on short notice, apparently was not well attended. Mozart writes back home, that "*from the point of view of applause and glory this concert was absolutely magnificent but the profits were wretchedly meager*" (letter, 16 May 1789)."

with


hammeredklavier said:


> "However, according to Hübner, the chief factor was Archduke Ferdinand of Tuscany, who became elector in Salzburg following the French occupation which ended with the Treaty of Lunéville on 2 September 1801 - Ferdinand had an immense appreciation for Michael Haydn's music. Hübner states that Ferdinand saw to it that Haydn's future in Salzburg improved with regard "to salary, respect, and distinction.
> *By April 1803 additional commissions for church works arrived from Vienna*, and he completed a Te Deum for the Empress by September 1803 (MH 829). Her request for a Mass for Emperor Leopold's name-day (MH 837)..." <P.31 from the same source as above>


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## hammeredklavier

Bruckner Requiem in D Minor, WAB 39: "There is clear influence of Mozart throughout the work.
[There] are many passages reminiscent of what was even then, in 1848/49, a past age (the very opening points irresistibly to Mozart's Requiem in the same key), and though the very inclusion of a figured bass for organ continuo strikes one as backward looking, there are already several flashes of the later, great Bruckner to come.
[Despite it] is by no means a perfect masterpiece... [it] can be said to be the first full demonstration that the young man was a composer of inestimable promise. ... [The] expressively reticent opening of the opening of the Requiem, with his softly shifting syncopations in the strings ... already faintly anticipates one or two of his own symphonic passages in the two earlier D minor symphonies, for instance Nos. '0' and 3... [We] cannot escape the solemn beauty of this music, which already has the authentic atmosphere of natural genius."


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> Kreisler still implied it though; he can explain himself maybe. Why are you citing the "List of oratorios" wikipedia page, it doesn't prove anything with regards to your claims.


On the contrary, that's a whole "liturgical" genre that continued into the 19th century, which impacted numerous Romantic composers, for which Händel can be credited, not Mozart.



hammeredklavier said:


> C.P.E. Bach conducted a performance of his own magnificat and his father's B minor mass in a concert sponsored by van Swieten in 1786, Hamburg.


Yes. CPE Bach. JS Bach. And all while Mozart was orchestrating Händel. I mean, my point isn't to say that Mozart's liturgical music was worthless or deemed worthless. Far from it. Only that even in Mozart's own lifetime his impact on the genre was greatly overshadowed by other composers, including Bach and Händel. That might have changed after the Requiem. Had he lived. That's a fair conjecture.



hammeredklavier said:


> The famous "Ode to Joy" theme in Beethoven's 9th symphony (which he referred to as a "pious song" in a symphony) most likely derives from Mozart's Misericordias domini in D minor, K.222.


It's _possible_. Beethoven borrowed other themes from Mozart. Is it _likely_? It would take more than melodic correspondence to say it was "likely". There are many melodic correspondences between composers that have nothing to do with exposure.



hammeredklavier said:


> But the fact remains that Mozart's Requiem was more influential than the colorless Messiah...


In regard to what? That's such a sweeping generalization as to be vacuous. Mozart's Requiem was probably less influential than Händel's colorful Messiah depending on the genre in which the composer was working. In other cases, Mozart's Requiem was likely the more influential. From what I can tell there were far more requiems written than oratorios (http://requiemsurvey.org/), but their performances were usually one-off performances while oratorios were more of a public spectacle and not tied to any isolated event. So, which form ultimately had more of an impact on Romantics? Probably the oratorio. The form itself was best known through Händel's examples. So, in that respect, Händel was more influential than Mozart's Requiem. But again, it gets thorny. One could argue that Mozart's Requiem set a choral example that would be used in future Oratorios. That sort of speculation goes beyond my pay grade. *Edit:* I wonder how many people know that Liszt, Schumann, Schubert (unfinished), and Saint-Saens wrote Requiems? Probably not many.



hammeredklavier said:


> Ok. But also, we shouldn't concern ourselves with what one-trick pony-like guys like Stamitz did or didn't do. He doesn't have that much relation to Mozart compared to guys like Naumann [1741] Aumann [1728], Brixi [1732], Hasse [1699], F.X. Richter [1709], Pasterwitz [1730], L. Mozart, Albrechtsberger [1736], Adlgasser [1729], Holzbauer [1711], Gatti [1740], etc, etc.


Notice a trend in the dates affixed to all those composers? They were all the generation before Mozart, old enough to be his father (one was) and some old enough to be his grandfather and great-grandfather. They all began their careers while musical employment was still in transition, moving from the sacred to the secular. But Mozart wasn't born in 1713. If Mozart had lived into the 19th century, then one should compare his conjectural production to the production demanded of composers in the early 19th century, not mid 18th century composers.



hammeredklavier said:


> A composer Mozart mentioned in one of his letters to his father: "Peter von Winter (1754-1825), born in Mannheim, joined the Mannheim orchestra as violinist in 1775. In 1794 he became Vice- Kapellmeister to the Munich court orchestra, and in 1798 Kapellmeister. From 1793 to 1797 he had nine operas performed at the Burgtheater and Schikaneder's theatre in Vienna. He also composed a great deal of church music. He was in Vienna during the winter of 1781 for the production of three ballets, for  which he had written the music."


Yes, as I mentioned earlier, it was Winter who composed the sequel to the Magic Flute, an opera Mozart _surely_ would have composed had he lived.

"Winter composed more than thirty operas between 1778 and 1820, and only few were unsuccessful. His most popular work, Das unterbrochene Opferfest (The interrupted sacrificial feast), was produced in 1796 in Vienna leading to his recognition as an opera composer.[4] He composed two operas to librettos by Emanuel Schikaneder, Die Pyramiden von Babylon and Das Labyrinth, oder Der Kampf mit den Elementen, a sequel to Mozart's Die Zauberflöte which was premiered at the Theater auf der Wieden on 12 June 1798."

And this is probably what we could have expected from Mozart. His production of liturgical music, like Winter's, would have remained a relatively small portion of his output (as was already the case in the last ten years of his life). Why would that change? So again, as I and others have stated, all evidence (from Mozart's last years to the market forces that defined the production of music in the 1790s and 1800's) suggest that Mozart's impact on the Romantics probably would have been primarily through his operas and other secular works. He would have produced many more piano sonatas as the piano spread through the middle class (just as Clementi, Pleyel, Kozeluch, Schubert and Beethoven did). He would have written more string quartets (and would have completed the set he was already engaged in). The demand for violin sonatas and trios would also have increased along with the increasing demands of the middle class. Mozart's production of Piano Concertos would probably have remained steady or even increased. The one genre for which demand was decreasing and continued to decrease was liturgical music. As Mozart wrote to his father: Tastes were changing. "True church music" was being relegated to worms and the attic."



hammeredklavier said:


> "On 8 May, Mozart briefly returned to Leipzig, where on 12 May he gave a concert at the Gewandhaus. The concert program consisted entirely of Mozart's music: the piano concerti K. 456 and K. 503, two scenas for soprano (K. 505, K. 528) performed by Josepha Duschek, the fantasy for piano solo K. 475, and two unidentified symphonies. Following a custom of the time, the first of the symphonies was split, the first two movements being played at the opening of the concert and the second two before the intermission. The concert, organized on short notice, apparently was not well attended. Mozart writes back home, that "*from the point of view of applause and glory this concert was absolutely magnificent but the profits were wretchedly meager*" (letter, 16 May 1789)."
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart's_Berlin_journey


Yes, well, you win some and you lose some. In his letter to his father dated 29th March 1783, that included a performance of the Haffner Symphony, K 415, K 369, K 320, K 175 and other pieces, Mozart boasted of its great success and indicated there would be a repeat performance. Yes, for whatever reason, Mozart's forays weren't always successful, but that doesn't mean the audience was looking for Mozart's tragically lost Mass in E sharp minor.


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## joen_cph

hammeredklavier said:


> Bruckner Requiem in D Minor, WAB 39: "There is clear influence of Mozart throughout the work.
> [There] are many passages reminiscent of what was even then, in 1848/49, a past age (the very opening points irresistibly to Mozart's Requiem in the same key), and though the very inclusion of a figured bass for organ continuo strikes one as backward looking, there are already several flashes of the later, great Bruckner to come.
> [Despite it] is by no means a perfect masterpiece... [it] can be said to be the first full demonstration that the young man was a composer of inestimable promise. ... [The] expressively reticent opening of the opening of the Requiem, with his softly shifting syncopations in the strings ... already faintly anticipates one or two of his own symphonic passages in the two earlier D minor symphonies, for instance Nos. '0' and 3... [We] cannot escape the solemn beauty of this music, which already has the authentic atmosphere of natural genius."


In all fairness, some also consider it one of Anton's most banal and unimportant works.


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## vtpoet

joen_cph said:


> In all fairness, some also consider it one of Anton's most banal and unimportant works.


I wasn't going to say anything, but since you went there.... Yes.


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## Johnnie Burgess

hammeredklavier said:


> Bruckner Requiem in D Minor, WAB 39: "There is clear influence of Mozart throughout the work.
> [There] are many passages reminiscent of what was even then, in 1848/49, a past age (the very opening points irresistibly to Mozart's Requiem in the same key), and though the very inclusion of a figured bass for organ continuo strikes one as backward looking, there are already several flashes of the later, great Bruckner to come.
> [Despite it] is by no means a perfect masterpiece... [it] can be said to be the first full demonstration that the young man was a composer of inestimable promise. ... [The] expressively reticent opening of the opening of the Requiem, with his softly shifting syncopations in the strings ... already faintly anticipates one or two of his own symphonic passages in the two earlier D minor symphonies, for instance Nos. '0' and 3... [We] cannot escape the solemn beauty of this music, which already has the authentic atmosphere of natural genius."


Who are you quoting?


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## joen_cph

Johnnie Burgess said:


> Who are you quoting?


His link gives Wiki article on the Requiem, including sources. The link is in the first, highlighted words of his post. Record liner notes, incl. Robert Simpson.


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## Coach G

Mozart DID impact the Romantic era. Tchaikovsky was one of the greatest, if not beloved, composers of the Romantic era. In his letter to his patron Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky acknowledged Beethoven's greatness; but praised Mozart above all others, even identifying Mozart as a "Musical Christ". Despite Tchaikovsky's talent for endless melody and his sad, brooding, Russian soulfulness, that we all know and love; he was also very concerned about form and was highly self-critical in that he never could seem to get everything perfectly balanced and beautiful the way that Mozart did. Tchaikovsky was dissatisfied that he couldn't get from point A to point B in a manner that was as seamless. Of course, if you're going to use Mozart as your benchmark you're bound to be disappointed.


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## Bwv 1080

Curious what impact, if any, the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars had on the Church’s finances and willingness to commission new music? The Church lost French, Italian, German and Austrian lands and income during the period


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## vtpoet

Bwv 1080 said:


> Curious what impact, if any, the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars had on the Church's finances and willingness to commission new music? The Church lost French, Italian, German and Austrian lands and income during the period


*That* is a fascinating question and I do not know. Maybe Hammeredklavier knows. Answer it though, write a book, and you'll be a shoe in at the Music History Department at any conservatory of music.


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## hammeredklavier

Remember no one said that he wouldn't have written opera. I said more than once in this thread; a bunch of kapellmeisters under employment in the late 18th century ~ circa. 1800~1810 wrote dramatic works from commission as well as fulfilling their duties in church and court.
Some people can repeat all day the same predictable statement; ["Mozart would have written opera (DUH), singspiel works that would have hastened the advent of Weberian style and DUH Freischütz."]
Of course Mozart would have written operas more mature than his previous ones, and would have done more things exemplary/inspiring to the later composers (DUH) in all the genres he worked in (not just opera). -Is there anyone who disagree with this anyway?
It also seems that they're just trying fit their imagined elderly Mozart into Weber's idiom cause Weber happens to be one of their favorite opera composers right after Mozart's time, pretending like the closing of the enormous gap of elements between Mozart's music and Weber's the inevitable course Mozart would have taken in the course of 10~20 years after 1791. Not just Weber - but also other composers (particularly Beethoven, Schubert, Hummel) with unique backgrounds, ideas, sensibilities, sensitivities, temperaments, experiences, philosophies spanning different timeline. The idea that "Mozart would have sounded like them" seems very unlikely.

Why not go about this by thinking in terms of the idioms of his colleagues, in the context of his own time, and his situation and attitude to music (according to his letters).
-gorgeous 18th-century vocal writing: 



 



-richness of melody in all the parts: 



-changes of character that come with minor tonality
Ex. Think of the restless chromatic bassline going downward in the opening of K.491/i: 



Think of K.543/i: 



Think of "Ach, ich fühl's": 



 (~12:28)

and based on Mozart's views in his letters, I made reasonable speculations on what course he would have taken and pointed to a work written in 1805 in a "similar" idiom as his, as an example [Post#152] (I wish there was an opera written around this time in this idiom). And I think Vtpoet's continual rantings in this thread can be taken with a grain of salt since he kindly "confessed" to us in another thread: _"My perspective has probably been poisoned by my near-absolutist and cult-like love of Bach."._ Yes, it is, Mr. Vtpoet. =) Why would Mozart have written a work in the _theoretical key_ of E sharp minor? Your perspective surely has been _poisoned_, irretrievably. =)



joen_cph said:


> In all fairness, some also consider it one of Anton's most banal and unimportant works.


The point was that it was Bruckner's "starting point" and its probably why even in his later works, the expressions (such as the use of pedal points) are heavily reminiscent of organ and liturgical music.
"The Requiem is most likely Bruckner's "first truly large-scale composition and probably his first significant work." "[It] is amazing what he achieved, especially if we look at the great double fugue of the Quam olim Abrahae, written at least six years before he even commenced his thorough contrapuntal studies with Simon Sechter!" "The Requiem was Bruckner's first larger-scale composition and also his first work with orchestra. [When reviewing it in 1892,] as a highly self-critical seventy-year-old, Bruckner passed judgement on the work as follows: Es is' net schlecht! ('It is not bad!')."" (wikipedia)



Bwv 1080 said:


> Curious what impact, if any, the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars had on the Church's finances and willingness to commission new music?


Also, remember one of my previous posts: "He shouldn't have written the Requiem from commission (commissioned by an aristocrat) then. "Royal courts also commissioned masses and motets....." [#180].



Coach G said:


> Tchaikovsky


_"Handel is only fourth rate. He is not even interesting."_


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## vtpoet

hammeredklavier said:


> And Vtpoet's continual rantings in this thread can be taken with a grain of salt since he kindly "confessed" to us in another thread: _My perspective has probably been poisoned by my near-absolutist and cult-like love of Bach."._ Yes, it is, Mr. Vtpoet. =) It is. =)


Yeah. Your last post doesn't really add anything. Sounds more like a very begrudging concession speech to me. And if you want to call my comments "ranting", I call that _Projection_ with a capital 'P'.

As to my being poisoned by my near-absolutist and cult-like love of Bach? Guilty. Guilty, I say! And feel free to quote that ad nauseam. After Bach, one can certainly enjoy the lovely liturgical compositions of the pre-classical generation, all those listed in your prior post, but that's about the best to be said for them-they're mostly pretty and tuneful. Very pretty. Some even manage to be lovely. And be sure to quote that too.


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## 59540

Bwv 1080 said:


> Curious what impact, if any, the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars had on the Church's finances and willingness to commission new music? The Church lost French, Italian, German and Austrian lands and income during the period


Some of the greatest "liturgical" music since then came about without direct financing by the church, including those few late Mozart efforts, so I don't see how expenditures are in proportion to quality of work.

The bottom line for me is that if Mozart had lived past 1793 he would've been a church composer. I think that's not all that controversial to say, and I don't think anyone's implied that thereafter he would've composed *only* liturgical music, any more than Bach did as Thomaskantor.


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