# Basic music homework help!



## spokati (Mar 25, 2018)

Hi everybody. I recently joined after browsing some threads because I am musically impaired and my introductory music class is killing me! I'm a STEM major so this is a general ed class for me, but it's still important for me to do well. I also genuinely enjoy classical music. 

For an essay I have to compare and contrast the music of two classical composers, at least one of which has to have been covered in the textbook we’re using. My class has gone through the medieval period, Renaissance, baroque, classical, and eventually we’ll get to the romantic era. 

I am a beginner so please bear with me! I was just hoping to get ideas for which composers to choose, first of all. I know everyone else will probably do Mozart-Beethoven or Bach-Handel, so I was hoping for ideas on some less common/predictable pairs?

Any advice is welcome. Hopefully I am posting in the right place. Thanks in advance.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Haydn/Mozart perhaps?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Vivaldi/Bach maybe?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Or any mixing of the above mentioned.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Welcome btw, hope you stick around!


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Lully, Rameau or Couperin - Handel or Vivaldi? (French & non-French baroque)

Handel & Beethoven? (contrast!  )


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Schubert/Mozart would be interesting! All you really have to do is google composers of the ____ era and find the ones you want.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Prokofiev / Shostakovich
Strauss / Hindemith
Schubert / Mozart

Captain, you can also edit your original post to add aditional content instead of flooding the whole thread with one sentence comments.


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

Hello, spokati. Welcome to TC. Hope you stick around.

I have two suggestion for you, each a different kind of comparison:

*1. Father and Son*: Compare the compositions of *Johann Sebastian Bach* with his son *Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach*. CPE Bach bridged the baroque and classical eras in much the same way as Beethoven did classical and romantic. CPE was one of the first masters of the symphony and symphonic form as we know it today, and his lively, and at times wonderfully impish music is a considerable contrast to the meticulously crafted work of his father. Not that his music is not also well crafted. Mozart held CPE Bach in the highest regard, and spent many years learning his craft by transcribing the works of CPE Bach, among others.

*2. Opera Giants*: Compare the musical and story-telling styles of *Richard Wagner* and *Giuseppe Verdi*. Both of these highly-regarded composers have a large number of works that dominate the standard operatic repertoire, were writing for the stage at the same time, and yet their styles could not be more different. Wagner's ideal of the _Gesamtkunstwerk_, dispensing with showcase arias and instead employing leitmotifs that span the work, constrasted with Verdi's more traditional yet musically no less masterful approach.

If I were to write your paper, I would select one of these. But whatever you do, please let us know what you choose.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Are your guidelines to compare/contrast composers in the same period or are they to define differences between periods?


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

My advice would be to pick two composers who's work you actually appreciate. Nothing worse than trying to write an essay on something you don't care about.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Are your guidelines to compare/contrast composers in the same period or are they to define differences between periods?


I understood one of the composers has to be in his textbook and the other can be anyone else. I also understood that it had to be from one of the eras his class has already covered.


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## Genoveva (Nov 9, 2010)

It's not clear what the field of possible candidates may be.

The OP says that _"... at least one of which has to have been covered in the textbook we're using. My class has gone through the medieval period, Renaissance, baroque, classical, and eventually we'll get to the romantic era"_.

Does that mean that one of the two composers must be one that's been covered? If so, which have been covered so far? And can the other one be taken from outside the periods that have been covered so far?

Assuming that Mozart and Beethoven have been covered, and that it's possible to go into the romantic era I'd suggest Beethoven/Brahms or Mozart/Tchaikovsky. The clue to the OP is that the latter named composer in each pair thought very highly of the former.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Tchaikovsky/Brahms


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Hildegard of Bingen/Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (!!_!!)


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Some other famous and/or interesting duos throughout history:

*Palestrina - Byrd*: both Catholic composers, one of them composing in a situation that was quite favorable to Catholicism and the other in a situation where his Catholicism could very well have cost him his life

*Piccini - Gluck*: in the 1760s, the genre of opera came to a crossroads, with one of these composers leading opera down one path and the other composer choosing another

*Beethoven - Rossini*: by common consent of the time, the two greatest living composers of the early nineteenth century, each occupying very different positions in the musical world but considered the summits of those positions and therefore equals to each other; it would also be a very instructive lesson in today's musical values to study how drastically historians of the twentieth century have rewritten history in order to undo that equality and favor one composer over the other

*Schoenberg - Ives*: two Romantics trapped in modernist bodies

*Debussy - Stravinsky*: both were figureheads of the anti-Romantic movement but in different ways and for different reasons (but with some overlap too)

*Schoenberg - Stravinsky*: the two great arch-rivals of the twentieth century, one of them seeing himself as the continuer of a great tradition (which ironically led him to some radically new ways of conceiving of music) and the other seeing himself as ending that tradition (though ironically presenting his alternative as a return to the past)


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

You could do Wagner and Brahms. One's music is basically cinematic in nature and can have a tendency towards a lot of chromaticism while Brahms has a more heavily classical orientation with a defined formal structure. They were opponents of sorts in real life with some back-and-forth commentary on each other's music.

It wouldn't be really difficult, while also being interesting and entertaining.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Where has the OP gone to? haha!


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## Genoveva (Nov 9, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Where has the OP gone to? haha!


This sort of thing often happens. Sometimes the OP only makes one post and many years later the rest of the Forum is still discussing the matter. It just shows what a helpful lot we are here, or possibly in a few cases have nothing else to do.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Where has the OP gone to? haha!


Perhaps just watching what answer coming in.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Varese/ Xenakis


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## Genoveva (Nov 9, 2010)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Varese/ Xenakis


A bit soon for these maybe, as the course doesn't get on to these composers until around 2023.


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## Mal (Jan 1, 2016)

I can see why he's struggling! Where do you start? Comparing any two composers, done properly, is surely a lifetimes work. So first thing to do is remember this is a quick essay for gen. ed. class. I'd start with the textbook and see if the author makes any interesting comparison, or gives clues on what to avoid. Maybe Haydn/Mozart would be good - my "textbook" says "Except in the world of opera Mozart broke no new ground - unlike Haydn and Beethoven, who did - he excelled in every genre current in his time."
That's an interesting point of comparison that could be expanded upon, and you could easily find several beginners books on classical music doing so, if your textbook doesn't make enough points. Plenty of web pages as well! Do a search for "Haydn compared to Mozart" gets you pages like:

http://www.oregonlive.com/O/index.ssf/2009/08/haydn_vs_mozart_the_battle_of.html

Where you can dig out interesting comparisons and differences, like:

"[Haydn's] key structures could be more daring than Mozart's: F-Sharp Minor, E Minor, F Minor, B Major. Mozart was adventurous within key structures."


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## spokati (Mar 25, 2018)

Hi all! 
I am still around, just been busy with homework and midterms. This essay isn't due until next month but I wanted to get a head start on it. I appreciate all of the responses, I promise I have read them and thank you for putting yourself in my amateur shoes for a brief moment to help me! I've chosen to compare Wagner and Brahms. Now I suppose I'll need some guidance as far as which pieces of theirs to compare...


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

spokati said:


> I suppose I'll need some guidance as far as which pieces of theirs to compare...


Easy:

Wagner - _Prelude to Tristan and Isolde_
Brahms - _4th Symphony_

There are reams written about both works and each is highly "listenable."


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