# Why six?



## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Just curious as to why a lot of Classical Era compositions are in groups of six:

Haydn's Op20 Quartets
Haydn's Op33 Quartets
Haydn's Op50 Quartets
Haydn's Op64 Quartets
Haydn's Op76 Quartets
Haydn's Paris Symphonies
Both sets of Haydn's London Symphonies
Mozart's "Haydn" Quartets
Beethoven's Op18 quartets

There are other examples but you get the idea. Is it coincidence, or was there a compositional reason...or even a marketing reason? If you don't know for sure but have a theory, I'd like to hear that too.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I don't know, but it precedes Classical times. Handel and Corelli, to name two, wrote sets of six concerti grosso; Bach had six Brandenburgs, four orchestral suites, six cello suites . . .. For whatever reason, things wanted to come in sets.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

MarkW said:


> I don't know, but it precedes Classical times. Handel and Corelli, to name two, wrote sets of six concerti grosso; Bach had six Brandenburgs, four orchestral suites, six cello suites . . .. For whatever reason, things wanted to come in sets.


God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Olias said:


> Just curious as to why a lot of Classical Era compositions are in groups of six:
> 
> Haydn's Op20 Quartets
> Haydn's Op33 Quartets
> ...


At least for Bach, most things came in sets of three and there is an actual reason; in Christian gematrics three is considered a holy number. Obviously, six is two sets of three. As for other composers, I don't know.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Factorabilty. Twelves for the same reason.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Jacck said:


> God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th


In Christianity, number six is considered a symbol of imperfection or indecisiveness. So it's curious that the deeply-religious Haydn chose six as the number for many of his output sets. Likely the reason is not related to his faith.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> In Christianity, number six is considered a symbol of imperfection or indecisiveness. So it's curious that the deeply-religious Haydn chose six as the number for many of his output sets. Likely the reason is not related to his faith.


I've never come across this idea before, I think you may be confusing the number 666 with the number 6. We see 6 being an important number for a range of different composers, including during times when music was being composed specifically for the church. As mentioned the number was used by Bach and other Baroque composers, we can also observe that medieval music theory was based around the hexachord or 6 note scale. In Qabbalistic terms the number 6 is associated with concepts like beauty, the sun and Jesus Christ. This Qabbalistic concept would not have been unfamiliar to any composer that was a Freemason or a member of a similar organization.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

tdc said:


> I've never come across this idea before, I think you may be confusing the number 666 with the number 6. We see 6 being an important number for a range of different composers, including during times when music was being composed specifically for the church. As mentioned the number was used by Bach and other Baroque composers, we can also observe that medieval music theory was based around the hexachord or 6 note scale. In Qabbalistic terms the number 6 is associated with concepts like beauty, the sun and Jesus Christ. This Qabbalistic concept would not have been unfamiliar to any composer that was a Freemason or a member of a similar organization.


It's an idea from Biblical numerology. Both Hebrew and Christian sources believe six indicates "imperfection," "man", or "evil." For Christianity, this occurs preeminently in the Book of Revelation.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> It's an idea from Biblical numerology. Both Hebrew and Christian sources believe six indicates "imperfection," "man", or "evil." For Christianity, this occurs preeminently in the Book of Revelation.


The Bible was written by Qabalists, so Biblical numerology likely does not differ from the former. I recently read the book of Revelation and I remember the number 7 being emphasized and the number 666 being discussed, but nothing in relation to what you are suggesting, though I may be over looking something. Still I am somewhat skeptical of your claim, considering the Bible itself is comprised of 66 books.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

BachIsBest said:


> At least for Bach, most things came in sets of three and there is an actual reason; in Christian gematrics three is considered a holy number. Obviously, six is two sets of three. As for other composers, I don't know.


I would imagine it is purely functionary with no religious significance. Beethoven was not religious when he wrote the Op 18 quartets. He just wrote 6


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

tdc said:


> The Bible was written by Qabalists, so Biblical numerology likely does not differ from the former. I recently read the book of Revelation and I remember the number 7 being emphasized and the number 666 being discussed, but nothing in relation to what you are suggesting, though I may be over looking something. Still I am somewhat skeptical of your claim, considering the Bible itself is comprised of 66 books.


I certainly think we can overemphasise numbers in the Bible. True there are some which are significant, but we mustn't think there is some sort of code. The fact the Bible is comprised of 66 books is a mere coincidence. In the Hebrew Bible some of the books like Chronicles are actually one book.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

TwoFlutesOneTrumpet said:


> It's an idea from Biblical numerology. Both Hebrew and Christian sources believe six indicates "imperfection," "man", or "evil." For Christianity, this occurs preeminently in the Book of Revelation.


The book of Revelation does not say 666 is the mark of imperfection but it says the 'mark of a man'. The 'man' was Caesar and the mark of the beast (originally) was the Caesar cultus.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

DavidA said:


> I would imagine it is purely functionary with no religious significance. Beethoven was not religious when he wrote the Op 18 quartets. He just wrote 6


For composers other than Bach I agree the connection may be tenuous. However, I think there is strong historical evidence for Bach though. He wrote six Brandenburg concertos, six cello suites, six orchestral suites (counting the lost ones), three violin partitas, three violin sonatas, six sonatas for violin de gamba, six sonatas for flute, twenty-seven violin concertos (counting lost ones), etc. Plus Bach was fairly known to ascribe to Christian numerology and enjoyed doing things like this.


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## Fredrikalansson (Jan 29, 2019)

Corelli actually wrote 12 concerti Grossi, as well as 12 violin sonatas. Handel's Op. 6 (in imitation) had 12 concertos. Biber's Rosary cycle has 15 sonatas. However, 6 seems to be a prevalent number. Bartok wrote 6 quartets, although over his career, not as a single set. Could it be that composing six pieces is an optimum opportunity to achieve variety and unity at the same time?

Interestingly, when I look at my CD collection, multiple recordings of favourite pieces (eg. Harold in Italy) seem to max out at 6. There are some pieces, of course, (eg. Verdi Requiem) where there doesn't seem to be an upper limit on my acquisitions.


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