# Mozart, the Classical Era Stockhausen?



## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

My daughter is taking a music history course focusing on Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. I know Mozart’s music was ahead of its time, but when I read through some notes about Mozart, I was a bit stunned by some parallels to reactions to modern music. The following are various quotes:

The dissonant chromaticism of the Haydn Quartets led to such comments as:

“Mozart’s works do not in general please quite so much as Kozuluch…His 6 quartets…confirm…that he has a decided leaning towards the difficult and unusual.” (a critic)

Other comments included “barbarous”, “execrable”, and “miserable”.

“It is a pity that in his truly artistic and beautiful compositions Mozart should carry his effort after originality too far, to the detriment of the sentiment and heart of his works. His new quartets, dedicated to Haydn, are much too highly spiced to be palatable for any length of time.” (1785 review)

I was also fascinated to hear that Mozart kept some compositions from his normal audience due to fear of negative reactions. Mozart began to refer to, “Compositions which I keep for myself or for a small circle of music-lovers and connoisseurs (who promise not to let them out of their hands).” The G minor quintet was an example.

This information may not be so new (many threads have discussed how audiences have been behind the times for a very long time), but I hadn’t seen explicit quotes to this effect about Mozart’s music before. If audiences responded to Mozart’s music in that manner, it’s easy to see why modern composers would receive similar treatment.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> This information may not be so new (many threads have discussed how audiences have been behind the times for a very long time), but I hadn't seen explicit quotes to this effect about Mozart's music before. If audiences responded to Mozart's music in that manner, it's easy to see why modern composers would receive similar treatment.


Cherry-picking negative reviews is an infamous and dreary habit of academics, who seem to have little better to do. Mozart's music was very well appreciated indeed. From the second edition (1808) of Niemetschek's biography of Mozart: "A composer, by no means unfamous and living in Vienna, said to a colleague at Mozart's death, with much truth and uprightness: 'Of course it's too bad about such a great genius, but it's good for us that he's dead. Because if he had lived longer, really the world would not have given a single piece of bread for our compositions.' " That composer is thought to have been Kozeluch.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

At least Mozart kept his quartets away from helicopters...


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

There was a period where his music fell out of fashion in the later 1780s. But then just at the time of his death I think he was becoming more fashionable again, The Magic Flute seemed very popular.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

There are _many_ examples throughout history where composers have been innovative and the audience not quite sure as to what they think of it. Mozart wasn't _the_ most popular composer of his time and often there were many composers whose works have been praised much more highly than his own. The critiques that you have posted don't show anything really new or only in common with music from the 20th century. Monteverdi, Beethoven, Wagner, Bach and many more have experienced similar complaints about their music from critics, audience members and even musicians. Comments like these aren't something that have been confined to 20th century music. It is unsurprising that any composer would receive negative reviews.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mozart wrote in the style of his time (and of course developing it further) but he was NOT there to alienate and shock, nor make conceptual pieces, and his glorious notes were music, not noise.

And as much as we have the choice before us of all the periods, many new to the sounds of Stockhausen today still reject it straight away.



mmsbls said:


> This information may not be so new (many threads have discussed how audiences have been behind the times for a very long time), but I hadn't seen explicit quotes to this effect about Mozart's music before. If audiences responded to Mozart's music in that manner, it's easy to see why modern composers would receive similar treatment.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Mozart wrote in the style of his time (and of course developing it further) but he was NOT there to alienate and shock, nor make conceptual pieces, and his glorious notes were music, not noise.


I don't think a piece can be made _not_ to alienate all listeners.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> And as much as we have the choice before us of all the periods, many new to the sounds of Stockhausen today still reject it straight away.


And why care about them and their opinions?

People have the choice of all the music in the world, and they still shell out a dollar and a quarter to buy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royals_(song).

If your argument against this is to bring up that the classical music audience is different, you have to answer first why that distinct minority audience is more important than the majority, and furthermore why, if you don't believe that mass popularity is the most important factor here, you are using it as a rubric for anything at all.

I don't think there's really much comparison to be made between Mozart and Stockhausen anyway, though, either in terms of style or reception. I'll let someone who enjoys Stockhausen's music and knows it better than I defend it.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Sorry, I guess I should have been more explicit. My point was simply that there were people in Mozart's time that found some of his music rather difficult. I was rather surprised to see quotes like this. Many view Mozart's music as immediately pleasing. The title of the thread was for fun, and I don't really view Mozart and Stockhausen as very similar. I do think it's interesting that Mozart kept some of his music private because of the potential negative reactions. And it's still a bit hard to imagine people viewing the Haydn Quartets (maybe with the exception of the Dissonant Quartet) as difficult and unpalatable.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I do think it's interesting that Mozart kept some of his music private because of the potential negative reactions.


Beethoven did something similar with his "Serioso" Quartet of 1810, saying "The quartet is written for a small circle of connoisseurs and is never to be performed in public." However, it was publicly premiered in 1814.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

KenOC said:


> Cherry-picking negative reviews is an infamous and dreary habit of academics, who seem to have little better to do. Mozart's music was very well appreciated indeed.


I found this hilarious, but of course, you don't know the professor and don't know what he presented to the students. He knows full well that Mozart was quite popular and made quite a bit of money until a slight downturn in his career. I picked these quotes out because they struck me as remarkable when describing Mozart's music. His only point was to show that even some of Mozart's music was considered rather dissonant and hard to follow during his lifetime. I am honestly a bit surprised that people on TC are so quick to find fault with academics.

Anyway, my presentation could have been clearer as I said in the last post.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I found this hilarious, but of course, you don't know the professor and don't know what he presented to the students.


True, and I shouldn't be going around blindly slamming academics! But I do get tired of a tendency (maybe more prevalent among writers of liner notes) to concentrate on a few negative reviews of the time when the music was, in fact, well-received and even quite popular. Beethoven used to suffer from this treatment a lot, until a mass of evidence that he was extremely successful and popular as a composer became well-known. Even today, you'll see comments that he was "misunderstood" and that he totally mystified or repelled his audiences.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Just another interesting fact, some other music regarded as 'difficult' were his two piano quartets in g minor and e-flat(K478 and 493 respectively). Supposedly, Mozart was commissioned by Hoffmeister to write 6, but the first was considered too difficult and that the public wouldn't buy them, but Mozart wrote another nine months later, anyways.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

brianvds said:


> At least Mozart kept his quartets away from helicopters...


Hmm but who knows if he did this as a conscious artistic choice or because helicopters weren't around when he was alive.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> I found this hilarious, but of course, you don't know the professor and don't know what he presented to the students. He knows full well that Mozart was quite popular and made quite a bit of money until a slight downturn in his career. I picked these quotes out because they struck me as remarkable when describing Mozart's music. His only point was to show that even some of Mozart's music was considered rather dissonant and hard to follow during his lifetime. I am honestly a bit surprised that people on TC are so quick to find fault with academics.


Yes, what is surprising is not that he failed to please some critics, because no composer will ever make everyone happy. But it is indeed somewhat strange to note that the thing that displeased him was that his music is dissonant. Dissonant!? I have never been able to work out why the "Dissonance" quartet even bears that name.

These critics just didn't get out enough, and obviously missed the premiere of the Rite of Spring. 

But it sort of confirms an idea I read about long ago, namely that over time, music will tend to become ever more dissonant. As soon as the public ear is used to particular harmonies, it begins to experience them and bland, and then composers have to push the boundaries a bit to add a bit of spice. And a generation later, they have to push a bit further. Etc, etc, until you get to our current era of really seriously noisy music.

And where do you go after that? Why, you start afresh with medieval music, which by now strikes the modern ear as wonderfully exotic.



violadude said:


> Hmm but who knows if he did this as a conscious artistic choice or because helicopters weren't around when he was alive.


There were hot air balloons, at least in Paris, so if he was a serious avant gardist he could have made a plan. Or just shoot a violinist or two up in a big cannon, for cryin' out loud.

Clearly, Mozart was a hopelessly moribund ultra-conservative, and more inventive when it came to dirty jokes than with music...

:devil:


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

brianvds said:


> Yes, what is surprising is not that he failed to please some critics, because no composer will ever make everyone happy. But it is indeed somewhat strange to note that the thing that displeased him was that his music is dissonant. Dissonant!? I have never been able to work out why the "Dissonance" quartet even bears that name.


Dissonance is a compositional device used to great extent at the opening of the quartet. All the rules for how dissonance is applied in harmony and counterpoint were developed in the Renaissance, a great explanation is given in Johann Joseph Fux's _Study of Counterpoint_ from _Gradus ad Parnassum_ (species 4 counterpoint: the ligature), a book of which was held in high regard by Bach and was studied by Beethoven and Haydn and Mozart just to name a few. It got the nickname just because of the prolonged dissonant intervals at the start that resolve to consonance. Dissonance is relative to consonance.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

brianvds said:


> Dissonant!? I have never been able to work out why the "Dissonance" quartet even bears that name.


As COAG points out, it's because of the intro to the first movement. Haydn is supposed to have said that it stumped him, but that if Mozart wrote it then it must be right!

Beethoven was clearly inspired by that passage in his own first movement intro to the 3rd Rasumovsky Quartet, Op. 59 #3, also in C major.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

KenOC said:


> As COAG points out, it's because of the intro to the first movement. Haydn is supposed to have said that it stumped him, but that if Mozart wrote it then it must be right!


What I meant is just that it doesn't SOUND dissonant to me at all.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Mahlerian said:


> If your argument against this is to bring up that the classical music audience is different, you have to answer first why that distinct minority audience is more important than the majority, and furthermore why, if you don't believe that mass popularity is the most important factor here, you are using it as a rubric for anything at all.
> ....


Try not to generalise too much in your arguments when discussing art. You should should know generalisations don't work for art in many cases. Popularity doesn't always work but often it does - and don't ask me to define when and why, but I do know, as well as you most definitely do, that Mozart's popularity today and during his lifetime (not that he was the most popular nor successful) was a very different one to Stockhausen's.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

While I think a smaller percentage of classical music listeners enjoyed Stockhausen during his lifetime than enjoyed Mozart, what about the absolute number of people who ever heard Mozart's music during his lifetime compared to the number of people who heard Stockhausen's music during his lifetime. I'm not sure which is higher.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

In Mozart's day people were singing his songs in the streets and there was a veritable musical industry cranking out arrangements and variations of his hit tunes. The closest Stockhausen came to this was Gould's satire.

"German silence, which is of course organic, as opposed to French silence, which is ornamental." You go, Glenn!


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> .... what about the absolute number of people who ever heard Mozart's music during his lifetime compared to the number of people who heard Stockhausen's music during his lifetime. I'm not sure which is higher.


Is that apples for apples comparison? Stockhausen is now dead and it seems he is good for conversation than actual listening of his music, and I think more folks like to comment about him and his music than actually listen to the stuff.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> While I think a smaller percentage of classical music listeners enjoyed Stockhausen during his lifetime than enjoyed Mozart, what about the absolute number of people who ever heard Mozart's music during his lifetime compared to the number of people who heard Stockhausen's music during his lifetime. I'm not sure which is higher.


True, but how many changed the station in each case? :devil:


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

KenOC said:


> True, but how many changed the station in each case? :devil:


And I don't think Stockhausen ever filled large concert halls whereas Mozart certainly did (but not always).


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> Is that apples for apples comparison? Stockhausen is now dead and it seems he is good for conversation than actual listening of his music, and I think more folks like to comment about him and his music than actually listen to the stuff.


It's not a comparison that tells anyone about a composer's value or how many people enjoyed their music. But I'm actually not sure what the correct answer is. Mozart was rather popular, and many people in Europe who heard classical music probably heard his music. Stockhausen may have been relatively unpopular, but he lived in a period with many more people (almost 7 times as many), with technology that allowed people all over the world easy access to huge amounts of music, and for over twice as long as Mozart. I'd actually be interested in knowing who had more listeners.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> I'd actually be interested in knowing who had more listeners.


Well, during Mozart's lifetime he was known mostly in Europe of course, and probably not all of that. In terms of popularity today, that can be roughly measured by concert programming and music media sales -- but we know how that would play out.

I'm sure the "most listeners during their lifetimes" contest would be won by the Beatles, or Lady Gaga, or...but not sure what the point of the comparison is.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> It's not a comparison that tells anyone about a composer's value or how many people enjoyed their music. But I'm actually not sure what the correct answer is. Mozart was rather popular, and many people in Europe who heard classical music probably heard his music. Stockhausen may have been relatively unpopular, but he lived in a period with many more people (almost 7 times as many), with technology that allowed people all over the world easy access to huge amounts of music, and for over twice as long as Mozart. I'd actually be interested in knowing who had more listeners.


I see now what you were trying to suggest. I agree. Interesting. Another point is that Stockhasuen produced a lot of electronic music during the radio age when radio was popular, which would have been a good means to spread his own music. But alas, I don't think even using radio did much help to his stuff.


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## Guest (Oct 12, 2013)

It's not really so difficult.

Two things.

One, no composer in any time has ever pleased everyone. Cherry-picking aside, neither Mozart nor Beethoven were universally popular. Berlioz and Liszt, who spent much of their time promoting Beethoven's music, would have been either incensed or vastly amused by KenOC's perspective on Beethoven's popularity. (Maybe in Germany. And even there.... Perhaps cherry-picking applies to nations as well.)

Two, a conversation about audience reaction to two different composers from two different times that ignores differences between audiences* is bound to be futile. It is well documented that audiences in Mozart's time went to concerts _in order to_ hear new music. Audiences in Stockhausen's time had first of all been long splintered into little ghettos, the largest of which (what is often referred to as "the audience" or sometimes, when that one's challenged, "the typical classical audience") goes to concerts explicitly to hear old music.

That's a huge shift in sensibility. To ignore it is to be either ignorant (in its neutral sense) or dishonest (which has no neutral sense).

*The idea of concerts changed, too, from the inclusive, collegial concerts of Mozart's time to the exclusive, clique-ish concerts of Stockhausen's time.

(Those changes, just by the way, started in the late 18th century/early 19th century, over a hundred years before anyone had ever heard a note of Schoenberg's pantonal music or of Stravinsky's rhythmically innovative and discordant music.)


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## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> And I don't think Stockhausen ever filled large concert halls whereas Mozart certainly did (but not always).


This is just not true. Many Stockhausen concerts in recent years (and probably during his lifetime) have been sold out.



ArtMusic said:


> Stockhausen is now dead and it seems he is good for conversation than actual listening of his music, and I think more folks like to comment about him and his music than actually listen to the stuff.


Personally I'd much rather listen to Stockhausen than talk about him. He's produced some of the most engaging music I've ever heard, in enough quantity to keep me engaged for the rest of my life (a bit like Mozart then). I don't understand the theory behind it so I'd have trouble discussing it with someone knowledgeable, but his music is NOT difficult to listen to - I appreciated Stockhausen long before I appreciated Mozart.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

So who do we think the modernist era's Mozart is? Do we really need these questions to make either older music or more modern music more relevant to us?


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## Garlic (May 3, 2013)

The modernist Mozart is Babbitt and the modernist Beethoven is Carter.


eta but seriously, I agree, these comparisons aren't very helpful


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Garlic said:


> The modernist Mozart is Babbitt and the modernist Beethoven is Carter.


I'd say the modernist Mozart is Stravinsky and Schoenberg the modernist Beethoven, personally.



artmusic said:


> And I don't think Stockhausen ever filled large concert halls whereas Mozart certainly did (but not always).


Large concert halls in the modern sense didn't exist during Mozart's day.

Furthermore, you could always do some basic research before making provably false assumptions.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I like Stockhausen. He's not my favourite composer but in my opinion his music is great!


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

KenOC said:


> True, and I shouldn't be going around blindly slamming academics! But I do get tired of a tendency (maybe more prevalent among writers of liner notes) to concentrate on a few negative reviews of the time when the music was, in fact, well-received and even quite popular. Beethoven used to suffer from this treatment a lot, until a mass of evidence that he was extremely successful and popular as a composer became well-known. Even today, you'll see comments that he was "misunderstood" and that he totally mystified or repelled his audiences.


I've read from two legitimate sources, Charles Rosen's Classical Style and Joseph Kerman's Beethoven Quartets, that this is was not nearly the case. The Strings Quartets from the 13th on had less than 100 performances each before the 20th century. Beethoven was extremely well-respected as a composer, but he was constantly complaining that people seemed to be much interested in the new style of Rossini than his. People made a lot of noise about the 9th Symphony at its premiere, but this was more because of the respect towards the composer rather than the mass popularity of a piece that continues to be hard to appreciate even today.

I understand this is a contentious issue, meaning that it could be very well your side of the story too, but the idea that it is only be made by a few tiring academics, and implied only because they want to protect the unpopularity of modern music, is just silly. Charles Rosen in his book himself said that never before had a bigger gap between audience and artist been made than by Beethoven. Schnabel, when playing the Diabelli Variations, quoted: "I am the only person here who is enjoying this, and I get the money; they pay and have to suffer,"


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

SottoVoce said:


> Charles Rosen in his book himself said that never before had a bigger gap between audience and artist been made than by Beethoven.


Beethoven made about $100,000 (US dollar current equiv.) from the Missa Solemnis. He was paid plenty for the 9th, although the two concerts didn't make him much. He was certainly in demand! As for his later quartets -- remember that publishers made money by selling sheet music, primarily to amateurs -- here's what Cooper has to say in his biography of Beethoven:

"It is often assumed that, after the Ninth Symphony, Beethoven turned his back on the public, withdrawing into a private world to write string quartets purely for his own satisfaction. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although his late quartets were supposedly sparked off by a request from Galitzin and sustained by his own love of the genre, it was public demand, filtered through a number of publishers, that fuelled this unprecedented burst of activity in a single genre. Beethoven had been asked for quartets by both Schlesinger and Peters even before Galitzin's commission had arrived; and Schott's and probably Steiner had joined the chase before a note of Op. 127 had been written. These and other publishers then sustained Beethoven's activities with offers of high rewards unmatched, as Schlesinger confirmed, in other types of music... He had, it is true, received 600 fl. from Schott's for the Ninth Symphony -- more than the 360 fl. now being offered for a quartet -- but in proportion to the work involved the rate was lower."


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## Musician (Jul 25, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> My daughter is taking a music history course focusing on Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. I know Mozart's music was ahead of its time, but when I read through some notes about Mozart, I was a bit stunned by some parallels to reactions to modern music. The following are various quotes:
> 
> The dissonant chromaticism of the Haydn Quartets led to such comments as:
> 
> ...


Mozart was the modernist of his era?

I think that this assertion if totally false. He wrote pretty much in the style of his era, which was classical. But the german composer you mentioned, wrote in no style, in fact he wrote rubbish, its not even music, its all unintelligible barrage of balderdash.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Musician said:


> But the german composer you mentioned, wrote in no style, in fact he wrote rubbish, its not even music, its all unintelligible barrage of balderdash.


Hmmm the "no style" style. That's quite catchy actually. You should send that idea to the department head of music marketing. I think it will especially catch on with the hipsters. They love their irony.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Musician said:


> But the german composer you mentioned, wrote in no style, in fact he wrote rubbish, its not even music, its all unintelligible barrage of balderdash.


??? I suspect you may never have heard Kozeluch's music. He wrote clearly in the style of the day, and he wrote well. His music was valued, although he seems to have been an unpleasant person. He was no Haydn or Mozart, but who was? Here's the first movement of a clarinet concerto:


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## Musician (Jul 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> ??? I suspect you may never have heard Kozeluch's music. He wrote clearly in the style of the day, and he wrote well. His music was valued, although he seems to have been an unpleasant person. He was no Haydn or Mozart, but who was? Here's the first movement of a clarinet concerto:


I'm talking about a different composer, not him...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Musician said:


> I'm talking about a different composer, not him...


Sorry! If you were talking about Stockhausen, I'll simply refrain from comment. But do give the Kozeluch a listen!


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Musician said:


> Mozart was the modernist of his era?
> 
> I think that this assertion if totally false. He wrote pretty much in the style of his era, which was classical. But the german composer you mentioned, wrote in no style, in fact he wrote rubbish, its not even music, its all unintelligible barrage of balderdash.


Yes, Mozart wrote in the classical style, and of course, Stockhausen wrote in the style of his day as well - avant-garde. Both pushed the envelope in a variety of ways. I used to think that Stockhausen wrote music that was unintelligible and possibly rubbish until I learned to listen better and differently. I still have issues with many works, but I certainly don't view his music as either unintelligible or rubbish. And I quite like some works.

I guess even though I've heard many examples of critics and audiences struggling and disliking unimaginably gorgeous music (e.g. Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, Beethoven's Grosse Fuge), I was just struck by hearing similar critiques of Mozart. Composers who blaze new trails (the vast majority of great ones) will likely continue to receive such criticisms of their works.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Musician said:


> I'm talking about a different composer, not him...


I think Chopin and Beethoven wrote crap, not music at all. They had no style or technique and everyone who listens to their rubbish (doesn't even deserve to be called music) should be told that they're listening to unintelligible barrages of balderdash.
:tiphat:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> I think Chopin and Beethoven wrote crap, not music at all. They had no style or technique and everyone who listens to their rubbish (doesn't even deserve to be called music) should be told that they're listening to unintelligible barrages of balderdash.


Hah! You think they're bad? Give that Bach guy a listen!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

mmsbls said:


> My daughter is taking a music history course focusing on Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. I know Mozart's music was ahead of its time, but when I read through some notes about Mozart, I was a bit stunned by some parallels to reactions to modern music. The following are various quotes:
> 
> The dissonant chromaticism of the Haydn Quartets led to such comments as:
> 
> ...


I've come across similar reactions to other dead canonical composers works, and yes it is surprising. I was listening to Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto #3 for example, and one critic at the premiere said it was too long and complex, basically unintelligible. They said the same thing about Brahms' piano concertos a generation or two earlier, that they where too symphonic. I was also reading about Prokofiev's Symphony #1 "Classical" and one critic said it was more or less jangled noise.

I think part of the reason is not only the passage of time but also that Modernist ideology always kind of hogged the limelight for its own iconic sort of works as being groundbreaking, and that's it. Its only things like The Rite of Spring or works by the Viennese atonalists that caused riots that can be considered "innovative" and "cutting edge." Things that still sound wierd or out of the ordinary today to some degree. But things like composers who aren't considered Modernist - or their 'less adventuruos' works such as Proky's "Classical" symphony - well they are conservative and always have been conservative, right?



> ...
> I was also fascinated to hear that Mozart kept some compositions from his normal audience due to fear of negative reactions. Mozart began to refer to, "Compositions which I keep for myself or for a small circle of music-lovers and connoisseurs (who promise not to let them out of their hands)." The G minor quintet was an example.


Well I suppose that's explained by the fact that very few works prior to the Romantic era where done in minor keys. I suppose if you wanted to create a certain angsty vibe - like the Sturm und drang works of Mozart, Haydn, C.P.E. Bach - it was okay. As part of a kind of fad, I suppose. But if it was something else, well maybe the composer was going out on a limb a bit.

But today its the reverse. We love the angsty stuff. Some works of the era that became popular are atypical because they're in a minor key. Mozart's requiem is a case in point.



> This information may not be so new (many threads have discussed how audiences have been behind the times for a very long time), but I hadn't seen explicit quotes to this effect about Mozart's music before. If audiences responded to Mozart's music in that manner, it's easy to see why modern composers would receive similar treatment.


I am no expert on this but the real big subversiveness of Wolfie lies in his final three great operas. In these, he reflected the emerging Enlightenment philosophies. The aristocracy are portrayed as fallible fools and he moves away from portrayal of mythical stories involving remote gods and into the more ambiguous realm of real people. So you get some curly moral questions being raised and a bit of a mirror raised to the audience, most of whom would have still been aristocrats in the late 18th century. These operas didn't go down well in conservative Vienna but went down a treat in more liberal Prague.

I'm sorry to repeat myself, I've said this on the forum before. I've come across it in various sources and this whole thing connecting Wolfie to the politics of his day is big in academia today. Basically, Wolfie was lampooning the aristocracy, he was thumbing his nose at them.


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## neoshredder (Nov 7, 2011)

The PostModernist Mozart is? Stockhausen?


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

How ridiculous. Mozart was one of the greatest composers, ever. What does that have to do with mediocre Karl-Heinz?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Rapide said:


> How ridiculous. Mozart was one of the greatest composers, ever. What does that have to do with mediocre Karl-Heinz?


Did you read the OP?


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

violadude said:


> Did you read the OP?


Yes. Mozart wrote in the galant style when he was a kid, much like anybody else willing to commit to the newest style at the time - to entertain, to delight and *to be paid as a composer*. Stockhausen did not write to entertain (far from it), not to delight (further still) and who really cares if he made a comfortable living or not anyway.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

The analogy is ridiculous, showing total lack of understanding both historically and from the idioms of each of these two composers.


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2013)

Again, did you read the OP?

Or perhaps I should say, did you read _and understand_ the OP?

While we wait, maybe I could remark on some of your recent remarks. Is writing to entertain a good thing or a bad thing? From my experience on online forums, writing to entertain is a bad thing when you're talking about Justin Bieber or Lady Gaga. But if you're talking about the (relative) unpopularity of modern composers (which, since they're already unpopular, it's hard to figure why you spend so much time making sure everyone knows that they're not worth listening to), then writing to entertain is a good thing. Curious that. It's having your cake and eating it, too, isn't it? And since the context in which one would say writing to entertain is good is very different from the context in which (the same) one would say that writing to entertain is bad, (the same) one thinks that no one will notice.

Too bad.

I noticed.

There are people, if _you_ haven't noticed, who are entertained and delighted by Stockhausen's music. No matter what his intentions (which, I submit, nor Rapide nor KenOC nor ArtMusic nor anyone else can really know), the thing itself has happened. Has happened and continues to happen. (Ah. I get it now! These people who are unpopular actually have a noticeable following of fans. Yes. They're not unpopular. And the more not unpopular they are, the more likely that you'll have to listen to their music. Gaaaaaahhh!!! <---that's you saying "Gaaaaaaahhh," not me.)

And finally, since he is dead, no one cares if he made a comfortable living or not.

I would hope however that when he was alive, _anyone_ would want him to make a comfortable living, regardless of how they felt about his music. It's called being genial.:kiss:


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Sid James said:


> I am no expert on this but the real big subversiveness of Wolfie lies in his final three great operas. In these, he reflected the emerging Enlightenment philosophies. The aristocracy are portrayed as fallible fools and he moves away from portrayal of mythical stories involving remote gods and into the more ambiguous realm of real people… Basically, Wolfie was lampooning the aristocracy, he was thumbing his nose at them.


Yes and no. The concept of the Enlightenment, and Mozart's relationship to it, usually gets distorted by our modern notions of aristocrats and monarchs, so often depicted as bumbling idiots in twentieth- and twenty-first century artworks (I'm not saying this is suggested by your post in particular), and by the broader belief that the Enlightenment was an attempt to judge people by their merit rather than by their social class. With assumptions like that in place, it's easy to see why Mozart would emerge as a kind of Enlightenment hero, especially in those last three operas, and why listeners today place so much emphasis on Mozart's periodic difficulties in getting along with aristocrats.

But it's easy to forget that the Enlightenment was largely a movement promoted by the elite classes themselves: not just well-educated intellectuals like Kant or Rousseau but also actual monarchs like Joseph II and Empress Catherine II. Despite the so-frequently-cited spats between Joseph and Mozart (especially over _Abduction from the Seraglio_ and the "too many notes" remark), Joseph was also instrumental in forging the collaboration between Mozart and da Ponte, whose "anti-aristocratic" operas had no bigger fan than the emperor himself. Don Giovanni may be dragged into hell at the end of the story, but his punishment is administered by the ghost of the noblemen he killed at the beginning, as if to suggest that the aristocratic order is governed by justice. Not only were Mozart and da Ponte darlings of the aristocracy, but so was Beaumarchais, author of the original Figaro plays. _The Magic Flute_ may be a thinly-veiled allegory of Freemasonry, a nominally apolitical brotherhood in which discussions of political allegiance are forbidden, but Joseph is rumored to have been a Freemason himself and he generally protected their right to organize during his rule. And when you get right down to it, Tamino is, after all, a prince.

So while it is true that Enlightenment messages can be found in Mozart, they are not quite the messages of anti-aristocratic, social emancipation they are sometimes made out to be. It is possible to retain the general humanistic themes of the late operas without believing that Mozart was trying to undermine the aristocratic institutions of which he himself was a beneficiary. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

brianvds said:


> Yes, what is surprising is not that he failed to please some critics, because no composer will ever make everyone happy. But it is indeed somewhat strange to note that the thing that displeased him was that his music is dissonant. Dissonant!? I have never been able to work out why the "Dissonance" quartet even bears that name.


The introduction continually thwarts our tonal expectations. A low repeated C in the cello sets us up for C minor or major, but the next note we hear is A-flat in the viola. The rest of the A-flat major chord is formed by the E-flat that comes in from the 2nd violin, but the first violin enters on an A natural! The violas have moved down to G at the same time, forming a half-diminished seventh chord on A, a rather dissonant chord the sharpness of which is heightened by the cross relation between the A-flat in the previous harmony and the A natural at the top of this one. It continues on like that, and this would have sounded positively terrifying to audiences of Mozart's day.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

some guy said:


> Again, did you read the OP?
> 
> Or perhaps I should say, did you read _and understand_ the OP?
> 
> ...


Can you kindly refrain from naming individual members and verging on _ad hominem_? Too predictable that this seems to be your only line of defense. Notice I did not - I was commenting on the composers and music. It's called being genial, and one step further; genial to people you are currently communicating with :kiss:

You don't seem to grasp at all the idioms of the two composers. I would strongly encourage you to read the surviving letters of Wolfgang Mozart (hundreds of letters) to perfectly understand what he was trying to do. As an learning exercise, contrast that with Stockhausen. Having attended lectures by K-HS and being in conversations with his students, I would say entertainment value and delight (in the sense of the Classical idiom) were far from what they were trying to do. I do not disacknowledge there are the esoteric few today who find every note of K-HS worthwhile, there are pieces by him that I myself see artistic value in.

*What's next?* Was Johann S. Bach the Baroque era John Cage? Both have the same Christian names, and similarly spelt surnames, right? Both shocked their audiences, with extremes that were unheard of during their days, right? Both were not exactly the most popular composers during their own times, right? Both were poorly understood when they wrote their music because they were pushing the boundaries, right? Both were not exactly the most well-off financially, right? That's right folks - J. S. Bach was definitely the Baroque John Cage.

Wait, was Monteverdi the late Renaissance Boulez?


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

Eschbeg said:


> Yes and no. The concept of the Enlightenment, and Mozart's relationship to it, usually gets distorted by our modern notions of aristocrats and monarchs, so often depicted as bumbling idiots in twentieth- and twenty-first century artworks (I'm not saying this is suggested by your post in particular), and by the broader belief that the Enlightenment was an attempt to judge people by their merit rather than by their social class. With assumptions like that in place, it's easy to see why Mozart would emerge as a kind of Enlightenment hero, especially in those last three operas, and why listeners today place so much emphasis on Mozart's periodic difficulties in getting along with aristocrats.
> 
> But it's easy to forget that the Enlightenment was largely a movement promoted by the elite classes themselves: not just well-educated intellectuals like Kant or Rousseau but also actual monarchs like Joseph II and Empress Catherine II. Despite the so-frequently-cited spats between Joseph and Mozart (especially over _Abduction from the Seraglio_ and the "too many notes" remark), Joseph was also instrumental in forging the collaboration between Mozart and da Ponte, whose "anti-aristocratic" operas had no bigger fan than the emperor himself. Don Giovanni may be dragged into hell at the end of the story, but his punishment is administered by the ghost of the noblemen he killed at the beginning, as if to suggest that the aristocratic order is governed by justice. Not only were Mozart and da Ponte darlings of the aristocracy, but so was Beaumarchais, author of the original Figaro plays. _The Magic Flute_ may be a thinly-veiled allegory of Freemasonry, a nominally apolitical brotherhood in which discussions of political allegiance are forbidden, but Joseph is rumored to have been a Freemason himself and he generally protected their right to organize during his rule. And when you get right down to it, Tamino is, after all, a prince.
> 
> So while it is true that Enlightenment messages can be found in Mozart, they are not quite the messages of anti-aristocratic, social emancipation they are sometimes made out to be. It is possible to retain the general humanistic themes of the late operas without believing that Mozart was trying to undermine the aristocratic institutions of which he himself was a beneficiary. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between.


Exactly. Mozart was not thumbing his nose at the upper crust. He needed their support. He was desperate for a stable position. His dream job was to be emperor Joseph's court "slave". People keep quoting operas like _Figaro_ as that evidence of "thumbing" but that is just poorly understood. Do not forget Mozart's last opera _La clemenza di Tito_ was written for the coronation of a new emperor .....


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Rapide said:


> The analogy is ridiculous, showing total lack of understanding both historically and from the idioms of each of these two composers.


It does appear that my original post plus my follow-up posts did not adequately convey to you what I intended. I was not comparing the two composers. They are enormously different in many ways and not simply because they wrote in vastly differing times. I admitted that the title was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I was being somewhat theatrical with what appeared to be a direct comparison.

I was pointing out certain similarities in _audience response_ to their music. I was surprised that some critics and some members of Mozart's audience reacted so negatively to his "modern" (for his day) sounding music. The terms "barbarous", "execrable", and "miserable" sound amazing when referring to Mozart, but apparently they were used to describe his music. We are familiar with some people using terms such as those to describe Stockhausen's music today. _That aspect of certain audience reception to the music_ was the comparison I was making.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

I might have to be the third person that asks if you read the OP.

The question wasn't whether Mozart and Stockhausen made music that sounded the same but whether the critical response that they received made them similar. Their roles, and the role of the artist in general was significantly different between the 18th and 20th century. The way they were rewarded for their composition and the audience they played for was also very different but the response from critics was eerily similar in many ways.

Personally I think it is really just a depiction of the eternal critic and has little do with Mozzy or Socky. They reach for the most extreme word they can find to make a point that will ring in your ears, centuries later in the case of Mozart criticism. "Barbarous", "execrable" really? well perhaps they were better chosen words before translation but I doubt it. Barbarous is an especially facile criticism as it assumes some arcadian era of greco-roman classical music making, which we still know little about and rejects anything that doesn't fit that ideal. Kind of forgiveable in Mozart's era but rather embarrassing for the limited response critics these days.

It's very interesting to draw parallels between two eras rather than pointing out all the ways they are different. My first thought was if Stockhausen's helicopters were regarded as instruments in the performance then similar works for usual instrumentation might link him with Mozart but I could only think of Mozart's works for glass armonica. His father though wrote a work for toy instruments which links him to Cage's toy piano pieces and both Mozart and Beethoven composed works for a Flötenuhr or musical clock. The helicopters also have a connection with Handel's boats in his water music and both Cage and Stockhausen share Ravel's fate that one of their less significant works overshadow all the rest of their output.


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2013)

It was, Mmsbls (and let's be honest about it), a bit of a non-starter, no? And one doomed (as Tolkien would employ the term) to cause a sundering between middle earth dwellers. To re-deploy your comparison, what would be the _literary equivalent_ of the point you are trying to make between, say, Joyce's _Ulysses_ and Dickens' _Great Expectations_. The contexts are so far apart that they defy, surely, any attempt at linkage : the times have changed, the mindset has evolved ...


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

TalkingHead said:


> It was, Mmsbls (and let's be honest about it), a bit of a non-starter, no? And one doomed (as Tolkien would employ the term) to cause a sundering between middle earth dwellers. To re-deploy your comparison, what would be the _literary equivalent_ of the point you are trying to make between, say, Joyce's _Ulysses_ and Dickens' _Great Expectations_. The contexts are so far apart that they defy, surely, any attempt at linkage : the times have changed, the mindset has evolved ...


It appears as though you may be reacting the same way Rapide did. If not, then I really don't understand what you are saying. You ask for the literary parallel between Joyce's _Ulysses_ and Dickens' _Great Expectations_. I think you should have asked for the parallel between the _audience or critic response_ to Joyce's _Ulysses_ and Dickens' _Great Expectations_ rather than the parallel between the two books. I know essentially nothing about the response during the author's lifetime to those works so I can't say anything about such a parallel.


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## Guest (Oct 14, 2013)

I see now what you mean. It seems I have misread your OP. My apologies. 
Can I be a moderator now? My fees are not that extortionate.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Eschbeg said:


> ...Not only were Mozart and da Ponte darlings of the aristocracy, but so was Beaumarchais, author of the original Figaro plays. ...


I agree with the gist of what you're saying, that the Enlightenment and its philosophies didn't change much in terms of political realities in Europe in the late 18th century. Despite numerous revolutions throughout the 19th centruy, the ancien regime clung on to power, and it really took World War I to finish them off (and even after that, you had the unfortunate situation of the remnants of the ancien regime acquiescing to the likes of Hitler and Mussolini taking power). So yeah it was all intellectualising that philosophers did in their salons.

But that doesn't change the subversive nature of those ideas. I know that the play version of Marriage of Figaro was banned in absolutist France. Some called it to be one of the big sparks that led to the French Revolution (which again, in reality didn't pan out to much except the Terror and the despotism of Napoleon). But you know, the saying goes that the pen is mightier than the sword. So these things did have their effects. Composers from Beethoven onward though had to do operas that worked around the censors. Fidelio was really about the French Revolution but set at some undisclosed time in Spain. Same with Verdi, his operas like Aida and Nabucco where about the present day, Italy's quest for independence and unity, but he had to make them metaphors for them to be allowed to be performed. You also had Puccini's Tosca, and if you dig below the "weepie" surface you get that struggle between dictatorship and yearnings for some sort of freedom. PUccini was looking back on independence, while Verdi in some ways looked forward to it and lived to see it happen.

As for the composer's role in society, maybe the comparison of Mozart to Stockhausen isn't so far fetched? So with Mozart and Haydn you had them working for the aristocracy directly. Late in their careers they more or less went freelance. Beethoven was freelance fully, but still his clients tended to be nobles. Then you had composers like Brahms and I think Dvorak who where effectively bourgeois, they wrote what they wanted to, and they had big publishing houses behind them. At the same time, Liszt's daring experiments where done away from the big centres in the court of Weimar. Kind of similar to Haydn with Eszterhazy. YOu had Wagner bankrolled by an aristocrat despite his republican ideals.

Fast forward to the post war era and you get Stockhausen and Boulez being funded by governments. So you had a kind of clique or cliques around them. Not aristocratic ones, but academia. It was the same rigid academia that had at the start rejected Ravel and Debussy as too radical at the start of their careers, but by the end of their lives they where establishment. But after 1945, you get the universities more or less as intellectual ghettoes. Maybe we are going backwards? I don't think its the same now though, that kind of avant-garde hegemony is largely over. I think things are less ideological now than then, and in a way that kind of ivory tower mentality has been called a failure, not least by a good number of academics and composers themselves.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

blah ' '


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## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Sid James said:


> But that doesn't change the subversive nature of those ideas. I know that the play version of Marriage of Figaro was banned in absolutist France. Some called it to be one of the big sparks that led to the French Revolution (which again, in reality didn't pan out to much except the Terror and the despotism of Napoleon).


There's no denying the subversiveness of the ideas, that much is certain. My point is that the subversiveness of an idea depends largely on how it is received, and Mozart's receiver was much less inclined to view _The Marriage of Figaro_ as subversive than, say, Beaumarchais's; as you noted, Louis XV was far more authoritarian, and therefore had a much broader definition of "subversive," than Joseph II. What may have been perceived as criticism of authority in 1770s Paris, I think, became a more general paean to humanism in 1780s Vienna. Both are different sides of the same Enlightenment coin, but Mozart's operas definitely focused on one side more than the other.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^I think that's a good point. Of course there where differences of opinion as to how things should be done amongst the aristocracy. I suppose France and Russia where the most authoritarian monarchies. Spain comes across as the most religiously inclined, and very conservative in that way. England's royals reformed themselves after lost of turbulence, and that might point to the monarchy there still existing today? Italy and Germany became unified in the late 19th century, but their monarchies didn't result in what I'd call democracy either. But I think the Habsburgs missed out on a golden opportunity with Joseph II, he started reforms but died prematurely.

This is an interesting area of history. My knowledge of it is stronger in terms of Austria, Germany and Russia. The other thing is enlightened despots. Napoleon started out as that, he made important reforms to things, particularly to the legal and education systems in France. However again his sliding towards authoritarianism led to a kind of souring of his legacy. The thing is that revolution ultimately brings more repression, and maybe more evolutionary systems are more effective in making for long term positive changes.

I can see parallels in this with music as well. I think I often focus on academia and demonise them. The thing is that, speaking to the topic of whether Mozart was a radical or not, every younger generation has had to struggle to gain acceptance and recognition to some degree. I mean, Mozart didn't get a plum job in any court, he was stuck in Salzburg, and he eventually gravitated towards freelance work in Vienna and Prague for that reason. I know he hated Salzburg, wanted to get out of there to some better and bigger less parochial court elsewhere. Despite his efforts and applications, it didn't happen, so he changed and went freelance, gave public concerts in the cities and of course wrote those operas and so on.

I just think that Modernist ideology kind of made this myth that its only the likes of Stravinsky, or the Viennese atonalists, or indeed post war controversies (the riot at the premiere of Varese's Deserts in Paris in the 1950's is an example), only those high octane innovators got grief from the conservatives. Well that's not true. Many people got pulled down over the ages, particularly by academia. I just listened to Debussy and Ravel's string quartets, and Franck and Faure where scathing of them. Ironically Ravel dedicated his quartet to Faure, yet Faure was not happy with it, he called the finale in particular a "failure." Another irony is that early in their careers, Franck and Faure where innovators and viewed with suspicion by the establishment of their time. But by the end of their lives, like Debussy and Ravel, they themselves became establishment.

Such is the cycle of music. One generations radical can become the next's anachronistic old fart. As I said, more "conservative" composers copped a lot of flack early on from the powers that be. Brahms got it, Dvorak too, into the 2oth century Rachmaninov and Gershwin, and I can go on.

So what I was saying is that its not only Mozart that got that kind of criticism, they all did basically, to greater or lesser degree. Its all part of the power games and ideology that has been attached to classical music since time immemorial. There are threads like this running through the history of classical music. Its funny how now, many people don't care for the innovations of the post-war generations, including Stockhausen. In a way, they have become ossified just like the generation they called dinosaurs when they where young. I at least admire Stockhausen for concentrating on his own music, in that way he was like Mozart, performing his own music. Unlike the biggest ideologue of the post war era, Boulez who hardly composed anything and mainly acted as a proseletyzer for Modernism and conducted dead guy's music. I like some of their music which I have heard, I got some of it in my collection, I admire them for their innovations - but these other, ideological things, they grate me. But I'll leave it there!


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## otterhouse (Sep 6, 2007)

Actually, Stockhausen conducted Mozart... 
On an lp coupled with Haydn's Trumpet concerto:





Rolf
http://classicalspotify.blogspot.nl


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## otterhouse (Sep 6, 2007)

I'm sò into Beethoven.... #not

Rolf
http://classicalspotify.blogspot.nl


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> My daughter is taking a music history course focusing on Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. I know Mozart's music was ahead of its time, but when I read through some notes about Mozart, I was a bit stunned by some parallels to reactions to modern music. The following are various quotes:
> 
> The dissonant chromaticism of the Haydn Quartets led to such comments as:
> 
> ...


Thank you for posting this: There are / is a faction who are keen on classical music of yore being "populist" -- and contemporary composers not -- who always cite Mozart and Beethoven as such composers, these little nuggets and facts are quite handily ignored or put aside when they make their (rather silly) arguments for these earlier composers being populist, ear to the ground for "what will fly with the common guy," etc.

In one of the many letters to his father, Mozart also said he knew the listening public found his music 'difficult.' Surprise, surprise, Wolferl was on the cutting edge of things back then, and only several hundred years more or less later do we take all of Mozart and Beethoven as a matter of course.

This really is no surprise, other than in the false flickering fluorescent lighting of the revisionist "populist" historians 

That famous D minor piano concerto was performed at a private subscription series, at least half the audience other musicians and "the cognoscenti" -- again, a radical piece (we don't think of Mozart that way because all he did was so polished and 'well-mannered'), a milestone of a shift in music history and stylistic direction, and not at all for everyone at the time. Of those in attendance, they recognized with this piece that music had taken a very bold step in completely new and as of yet uncharted territory.

If you do not know and are not familiar with a lot of other music, and Mozart from before and around the time of this piece, I suppose it would be to that listener "just another Mozart piano concerto," while it is anything but 'just that.'


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Rapide said:


> The analogy is ridiculous, showing total lack of understanding both historically and from the idioms of each of these two composers.


I think your well-known distaste of most anything modern and some affection for Mozart have you off the wall in not understanding the OP, and taking it quite too literally at that.

Fact is, Mozart and Beethoven were not always out to please, and often enough wrote without thinking about "the audience" at all.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Fact is, Mozart and Beethoven were not always out to please, and often enough wrote without thinking about "the audience" at all.


No...not always. But Beethoven (at least) read his reviews most carefully. At one point he even wrote a letter to the AMZ Leipzig complaining about negative reviews. Not surprising in a professional composer whose income was largely made up of payments from publishers, which in turn were determined by how much sheet music they expected to sell.

For a balanced view of Beethoven's views on his music, I suggest Cooper's "Beethoven", which goes into quite a bit of detail concerning the "making a living" aspect of Beethoven's career.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> No...not always. But Beethoven (at least) read his reviews most carefully. At one point he even wrote a letter to the AMZ Leipzig complaining about negative reviews. Not surprising in a professional composer whose income was largely made up of payments from publishers, which in turn were determined by how much sheet music they expected to sell.
> 
> For a balanced view of Beethoven's views on his music, I suggest Cooper's "Beethoven", which goes into quite a bit of detail concerning the "making a living" aspect of Beethoven's career.


I'll meet you on the ground where any composer of course desires performances of their work, but only that far. Both Mozart and Beethoven also wrote "for themselves" or "for those who might understand it" while knowing those particular works would not be popular.

I only protest the complete whitewashing of those works so conceived and done, and the imposition of contemporary marketing ideas, including the transliteration / imposition of the notion of populist to include a contemporary audience of all those who listen to Youtube, the radio, purchase CDs compared to the actual and relatively _small_ audiences in the classical era. "Populist" was of a very different ratio then as to now, and I think it faulty to imagine the past as the present.

Yeah, they were all out to make a living: blazing flash of the obvious.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Both Mozart and Beethoven also wrote "for themselves" or "for those who might understand it" while knowing those particular works would not be popular.


I know of only one work by Beethoven that meets that description -- the Serioso Quartet. And even that Beethoven was happy to publish four years later. If you know of others, you might want to name them.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> It does appear that my original post plus my follow-up posts did not adequately convey to you what I intended. I was not comparing the two composers. They are enormously different in many ways and not simply because they wrote in vastly differing times. I admitted that the title was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I was being somewhat theatrical with what appeared to be a direct comparison.
> 
> I was pointing out certain similarities in _audience response_ to their music. I was surprised that some critics and some members of Mozart's audience reacted so negatively to his "modern" (for his day) sounding music. The terms "barbarous", "execrable", and "miserable" sound amazing when referring to Mozart, but apparently they were used to describe his music. We are familiar with some people using terms such as those to describe Stockhausen's music today. _That aspect of certain audience reception to the music_ was the comparison I was making.


This is simple. Minor Thirds were then considered disturbingly dissonant -- not that they had not been heard aplenty before, but the way Mozart used them. The height of classical restraint to us, he was also heavily criticized for "wearing his heart on his sleeve," i.e. the music was thought to be excessively emotional, and that not in good taste 

All more than difficult to fathom in the perfect 20-20 retrospect of hundreds of years later.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I know of only one work by Beethoven that meets that description -- the Serioso Quartet. And even that Beethoven was happy to publish four years later. If you know of others, you might want to name them.


The several quotes, along the lines of "I can wait fifty years" (for anyone to 'get' this piece I wrote) and "I don't give a damn about your fiddle" and the like are enough for me, but I am not nearly, it seems, as pedantic as you would care me to be.

Yes, Luigi was very concerned with _sales_ and that does, _only somewhat_ include 'populist' fare. It seems to me you are very keen on nearly marketing Luigi as a highly conscious of being populist composer, especially in contrast to composers you think are not thinking of "what audiences might like." and I don't care to go there, yet again, as I'm bored to death with it


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> The several quotes, along the lines of "I can wait fifty years" (for anyone to 'get' this piece I wrote) and "I don't give a damn about your fiddle" and the like are enough for me, but I am not nearly, it seems, as pedantic as you would care me to be.
> 
> Yes, Luigi was very concerned with _sales_ and that does, _only somewhat_ include 'populist' fare. It seems to me you are very keen on nearly marketing Luigi as a highly conscious of being populist composer, especially in contrast to composers you think are not thinking of "what audiences might like." and I don't care to go there, yet again, as I'm bored to death with it


It's interesting that you think this is about me and not about the points I'm making. BTW the only "50-year" quote I can think of is Beethoven saying that the Hammerklavier would give pianists "something to do" 50 years hence. He also supposedly commented to the person doing the fingering for a sonata (the Kreutzer I think), "This is not music for you but for a future generation." I can hear the almost audible sniff!

Re the late quartets and Beethoven's comment to Schuppanzigh about his fiddle, the commercial drivers for his lengthy efforts on the quartets are well-known -- again, publisher demand and subsequent large payments due to a public anxious for new works by Beethoven. In any event, I'm not sure what that comment has to do with his relationship with his audience.

Again, some concrete musical examples to support your view will be welcome.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

PetrB said:


> That famous D minor piano concerto was performed at a private subscription series, at least half the audience other musicians and "the cognoscenti" -- again, a radical piece (we don't think of Mozart that way because all he did was so polished and 'well-mannered'), a milestone of a shift in music history and stylistic direction, and not at all for everyone at the time. Of those in attendance, they recognized with this piece that music had taken a very bold step in completely new and as of yet uncharted territory.


The D minor concerto is perhaps my favorite piano concerto. I was powerfully struck the first time I heard it and have adored it ever since. I have often thought how I might have reacted to the work had I been living back then. I would like to think that I would have recognized its beauty and perfection and congratulated Mozart on his supreme achievement. But I suppose I would have reacted similarly to the way I reacted to much modern music today (maybe not Stockhausen, but perhaps some Stravinsky) - "Hmmm, I need more time to understand this music."


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

The D minor piano concerto was totally new but it did not alienate. Never did then nor now. Nor in between. That's the monumental key difference between perceptions of this Stockhausen - Mozart analogy.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

mmsbls said:


> The D minor concerto is perhaps my favorite piano concerto. I was powerfully struck the first time I heard it and have adored it ever since. I have often thought how I might have reacted to the work had I been living back then. I would like to think that I would have recognized its beauty and perfection and congratulated Mozart on his supreme achievement. But I suppose I would have reacted similarly to the way I reacted to much modern music today (maybe not Stockhausen, but perhaps some Stravinsky) - "Hmmm, I need more time to understand this music."


My self conceit has me liking to think the same of being a contemporary and hearing Mozart, Beethoven, i.e. now accepted composers when their stuff was spanking new and modern. I _like_ to think I would be "one who got it," but if actually from that time, any of the now standard rep might have more than given me pause


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> It's interesting that you think this is about me and not about the points I'm making. BTW the only "50-year" quote I can think of is Beethoven saying that the Hammerklavier would give pianists "something to do" 50 years hence. He also supposedly commented to the person doing the fingering for a sonata (the Kreutzer I think), "This is not music for you but for a future generation." I can hear the almost audible sniff!
> 
> Re the late quartets and Beethoven's comment to Schuppanzigh about his fiddle, the commercial drivers for his lengthy efforts on the quartets are well-known -- again, publisher demand and subsequent large payments due to a public anxious for new works by Beethoven. In any event, I'm not sure what that comment has to do with his relationship with his audience.
> 
> Again, some concrete musical examples to support your view will be welcome.


For a guy who wrote a capriccio sub-titled "Rage over a Lost Penny," it is no shock Beethoven had a keen eye and a mind almost constantly on _money_ and that would include then what you are interpreting as his concern about being "popular."

I have come to associate this as coming from you because of repetitive posts on the same, Beethoven, Mozart, etc. being populist minded vs. contemporary composers (your reviled Miton Babbit essay) who by your view are anything but -- this as a near idee fixe or obsession, imho.

My gut, and a lot of reading of bios, leads me to this (since I also write) -- that Beethoven so clearly wrote a lot of "what he wanted" and while writing it was more than likely completely unconcerned with any other aspect of the piece other than writing it, and only later would his mind go to "popular."

Some people know what they write will be well received: that is not a construct of "writing to please the people," but merely a coincidence.

Just ask any number of non-commercial yet pro classical composers.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> I have come to associate this as coming from you...


Again, the ad hominem! What is your motive?

I would not agree that a professional composer being motivated by income is something evil or degrading. Beethoven, in particular, had some major worries. He lost a good deal of his income when he had to stop performing publicly. He was extraordinarily concerned about having enough money to raise Carl properly. Commissions from nobility had pretty much dried up by 1810. And the value of his stipend was decimated by inflation, default, and the death of one of the grantors. Who wouldn't be worried?

BTW a matter of terminology: Beethoven was probably the most "popuar" composer around in his field of "serious music" (as opposed to the Rossini crowd), as evidenced by the continuing high demand from publishers and the prices they were willing to pay. But is this different from a "populist" composer? If so, how?


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2013)

KenOC said:


> What is your motive?


Just a guess, but maybe to get you to look at yourself?



KenOC said:


> I would not agree that a professional composer being motivated by income is something evil or degrading.


I would like to know when and where anyone has said this. This tactic is one I'd like to see you drop.



KenOC said:


> Beethoven, in particular, had some major worries. He lost a good deal of his income when he had to stop performing publicly. He was extraordinarily concerned about having enough money to raise Carl properly. Commissions from nobility had pretty much dried up by 1810. And the value of his stipend was decimated by inflation, default, and the death of one of the grantors. Who wouldn't be worried?


Wait a minute! The last thing I remember reading from you about Beethoven's popularity was that he could absolutely rely on selling his stuff, even his late stuff. Worry? Who, Beethoven?

What's it gonna be? Was he so popular that he didn't need to worry or was he so worried that he obsessed about popularity? Or was the real picture much more nuanced, as real picture's tend to be. I still haven't heard a peep from you about his popularity outside of Germany or after his death. I haven't heard any acknowledgement from your favorite historical sources about the (apparently illusory) effort Berlioz and Liszt spent several decades putting into trying to get people to listen to Beethoven. Trying to convince performers that Beethoven would be worth playing. You know, that popular guy that everyone already loves....

And what about that London concert organization? I'm sure you know the one I mean. The Musical Union. The one that told Charles Halle in 1840 not to play any Beethoven; "too abstruse," you know.



KenOC said:


> Beethoven was probably the most "popuar" composer around in his field of "serious music" (as opposed to the Rossini crowd), as evidenced by the continuing high demand from publishers and the prices they were willing to pay. But is this different from a "populist" composer? If so, how?


By the way, we just got through reading that Beethoven's money worries were real. Well, were they or weren't they? And don't we know, because we can read, too, that Rossini was wildly popular, so much so that practically every other contemporaneous composer had a chip on his shoulder because if it? In one parenthesis, that popularity is gone? Vanished? Relegated to a "Rossini crowd"?

Well, it's great work if you can get it!


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

ArtMusic said:


> The D minor piano concerto was totally new but it did not alienate. Never did then nor now. Nor in between. That's the monumental key difference between perceptions of this Stockhausen - Mozart analogy.


Why is it that if someone doesn't care for Bellini, they just don't care for him. But if someone doesn't care for Stockhausen, they are ALIENATED  As if they are the victim of some horrible, devastating tragedy.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Again, the ad hominem! What is your motive?
> 
> I would not agree that a professional composer being motivated by income is something evil or degrading. Beethoven, in particular, had some major worries. He lost a good deal of his income when he had to stop performing publicly. He was extraordinarily concerned about having enough money to raise Carl properly. Commissions from nobility had pretty much dried up by 1810. And the value of his stipend was decimated by inflation, default, and the death of one of the grantors. Who wouldn't be worried?
> 
> BTW a matter of terminology: Beethoven was probably the most "popuar" composer around in his field of "serious music" (as opposed to the Rossini crowd), as evidenced by the continuing high demand from publishers and the prices they were willing to pay. But is this different from a "populist" composer? If so, how?


Who the hell said any artist actually concerned about making a living is evil or has sold out? Projection 101a, methinks.

Well, each time the populist card has been laid down in one of your threads, it always cites Ludwig V  Those cants have the flavor of the contemporary meaning of the word, i.e. internet / CDs / large arenas/ and all the rest. Certainly there were "blue-collar" concert-goers in Beethoven's era, and plenty of amateur players willing and eager to get together to read through a string quartet.. most of that audience and those players thoroughly middle or upper middle class, their total numbers still probably coming to that infamous "just 3% of the population."

Yes of course he wrote 'Tafelmusik" and military marches, Ecosaisses, bagatelles, and all sorts of more readily "accessible" fare, but again, I have some notion that you think this composer, or Mozart, were calculatedly writing within a certain set of parameters while putting aside their more adventurous ears... in other words, as if they were their own record company board of executives telling their musicians to write more this way or that because it would be more accessible and sell better and more.

Beethoven's frenetic checking of his sales, once he lost the chance of revenues from performing, plus his other fiscal pressures, is a very normal reaction of any working free-lance stiff, not a sudden conversion with a prime concern to be "populist."

How about your citing something, where there was an abstract construct which was either revised or scrapped to "make it more accessible?" Yes, as a working composer he sometimes cobbled together several movements not originally intended to go together, and he did write those military marches, though if you listen to them, he managed within the format to write some of the most lampooning satiric military marches on record, you can hear the illusion of puffed up self-importance which is part and parcel of such parades. The isolation of the Grosse Fuga from the quartet was a decision I believe, directly related to that quartet's ultimate contemporary saleability... there is exactly one. A little after dinner party orchestral concert, something light and entertaining? Sure, Luigi delivers the triple concerto instead, anything but polite, and guaranteed to knock the silk stockings off of every one of the ever so genteel guests -- cracks me up every time I think about it.

I so so doubt that "what people like" was ever much on his mind when he was actually writing, and that is what so many of your posts of Beethoven, Mozart, and the other earlier composers paying attention to what the public wants read like.

For the most part, worth repeating, that they happened to write music which was popular was much more a coincidence vs. a conscious redirecting of their musical impulses in order to please the crowd.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Again, the ad hominem! What is your motive?


Don't be too bothered, KenOC. Some folks appear to be obsessed with how others react to music, while never realising everyone has a right to do so, as one of my threads overwhelmingly showed that many agree that we can express dislike to some music that we simply dislike (as an example of a reaction, which some are particularly obsessed by).


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> How about your citing something, where there was an abstract construct which was either revised or scrapped to "make it more accessible?" ... The isolation of the Grosse Fuga from the quartet was a decision I believe, directly related to that quartet's ultimate contemporary saleability....


I don't believe I ever said anything like that, nor am I aware of Beethoven ever "writing down" to his audience -- he was even inordinately proud of Wellington's victory, a negative review of which prompted his famous one-liner. He could, of course, write to the occasion, and did so quite well.

Re the Grosse Fuge, there is absolutely no evidence that the substitution of the new finale had any economic motive whatever. In fact, the quartet was already sold, and the new finale was composed for a very moderate additional amount. Again, I can only refer you to a good biography to learn more; I have already named one.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> Don't be too bothered, KenOC. Some folks appear to be obsessed with how others react to music, while never realising everyone has a right to do so, as one of my threads overwhelmingly showed that many agree that we can express dislike to some music that we simply dislike (as an example of a reaction, which some are particularly obsessed by).


Can you conversely admit that we have a right to the music we find beautiful and exciting? You seem to think the world would be better off if it just didn't exist at all.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2013)

ArtMusic said:


> Some folks appear to be obsessed with how others react to music, while never realising everyone has a right to do so,


Which alternate reality _do_ you get your material from?



KenOC said:


> as one of my threads overwhelmingly showed that many agree that we can express dislike to some music that we simply dislike (as an example of a reaction, which some are particularly obsessed by).


Actually, this thread showed something quite a lot more nuanced than this.

Anyone can like or dislike whatever they please: sure.

Anyone can express their dislike any old way they please (even about things they have never experienced): um, not so sure.

Anyone can make stuff up about what they dislike and bash it for qualities it doesn't even have: um, pretty sure this one's a no.

We all of us spent quite a lot of time trying to define boundaries for acceptable _expressions_ of dislike. To have that effort so summarily dismissed might even tick off some of your more ardent fans.

No one, no one in this reality, is at all obsessed with how others react to music. Though we are all interested in each other. We're a small community, an anomalous community in a world that can barely register Beethoven and Mozart on its radar. Maybe Vivaldi, if anyone remembers that that name goes with "The Four Seasons." So, one, we have a lot in common. (And two, because we're so small and so isolated, we unfortunately do a lot of squabbling.)

Oh well.

There is a concern, a legitimate concern among some of us, that people at least play fair. Yes, that would be nice. If we could play fair.... But it's hardly an obsession. Thread after thread after thread with the same anti-modernist slant to them. That might quality for obsessive. Sure.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

some guy said:


> Thread after thread after thread with the same anti-modernist slant to them. That might quality for obsessive. Sure.


Since you quoted me, I can only assume you're referring to the ongoing discussion of Beethoven's motivations as a professional composer. If so, perhaps you'll be kind enough to explain the "anti-modernist" implications of that.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I don't believe I ever said anything like that, nor am I aware of Beethoven ever "writing down" to his audience -- he was even inordinately proud of Wellington's victory, a negative review of which prompted his famous one-liner. He could, of course, write to the occasion, and did so quite well.
> 
> Re the Grosse Fuge, there is absolutely no evidence that the substitution of the new finale had any economic motive whatever. In fact, the quartet was already sold, and the new finale was composed for a very moderate additional amount. Again, I can only refer you to a good biography to learn more; I have already named one.


Irving Kolodin's The Interior Beethoven was superb, another which I cannot remember was, uh, less memorable. Fact is, I'm not so interested in reading yet another Beethoven biography... far overdone. If that means I lack your scholarship about the minutia of who was publishing which string quartet I beg your pardon while stating I really have no interest in that.

Remind yourself, if reading a more contemporary biography, that no matter how hard the author tries, contemporary sensibility may just rear its contemporary head, making of Beethoven a much more "populist" composer than he was.

At any rate, anyone who so near desperately wants Beethoven to have been a hands on populist is welcome to it, I suppose. I think they need that to shore up the run-regular-as-buses argument for the sorry state of contemporary music and that today's composers are not paying any attention to what people want.

The horror, not going for the big marketing kill. Imagine. Lady Gaga swoons.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

PetrB said:


> I lack your scholarship about the minutia of who was publishing which string quartet I beg your pardon while stating I really have no interest in that... At any rate, anyone who so near desperately wants Beethoven to have been a hands on populist is welcome to it, I suppose.


Yet again, I don't recall ever saying that. I can only think that your sensibilities are being rubbed the wrong way. We all have our ideas of the sorts of persons we want our favorite composer to have been, of course. Beethoven's legend began in his own lifetime, and he contributed to it.

History is at least an attempt to sort out facts from the truth. That you have no interest in the financial affairs of a professional composer hardly means that these things didn't matter -- and matter a lot -- to him.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Since you quoted me, I can only assume you're referring to the ongoing discussion of Beethoven's motivations as a professional composer. If so, perhaps you'll be kind enough to explain the "anti-modernist" implications of that.


The subject is about the authorship of polls, a specific one, by the first party quoted. Your quote is, incidentally, about that thread and said something well. You are being cited for what was said and said well about the nature of that thread: that was all.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Yet again, I don't recall ever saying that. I can only think that your sensibilities are being rubbed the wrong way. We all have our ideas of the sorts of persons we want our favorite composer to have been, of course. Beethoven's legend began in his own lifetime, and he contributed to it.
> 
> History is at least an attempt to sort out facts from the truth. That you have no interest in the financial affairs of a professional composer hardly means that these things didn't matter -- and matter a lot -- to him.


I live it, my colleagues and the majority of my friends live it. It is rather ridiculous preaching to a choir of practitioners in this case.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

violadude said:


> Why is it that if someone doesn't care for Bellini, they just don't care for him. But if someone doesn't care for Stockhausen, they are ALIENATED  As if they are the victim of some horrible, devastating tragedy.


I know, I know.

It took thousands of dollars and years of therapy to get over feeling alienated by half of Bach, all of Bruckner, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and many others.

Fortunately, I recovered some of that money back in guest fees by publicly whining about those agonies on the Oprah Winfrey show. But _the trauma_, well, you can never pay me back for that.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

It is hard to imagine the gems we know and love did not have an impact on 18thC ears. From all the evidence - Mozart had his followers - but few, if any - hailed him to be the genius we know he is today.


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