# Beethoven vs Danzi



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

There is a question that has been driving crazy for years and I do not know the answer.

There may be members here who do.

The greatest composer of his generation was Beethoven. Yet he was not the only active composer of his time.

One of them was Franz Danzi. He composed some kick *** woodwind quintets and concertos for wind instruments. Some of the finest I have ever heard. Yet few people in the mainstream classical music world have heard of him (Most of the members here probably are familiar with his music.)

I became familiar with Danzi when I played with a woodwind quintet many years ago. Many times we would play at receptions, dinners and a few weddings. When we would play one of his quintets, many people would ask us who wrote the nice music. We would explain that is was Danzi who was a contemporary of Beethoven.

Why has Beethoven's music stand the test of time and Danzi's has not?


----------



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

arpeggio said:


> When we would play one of his quintets, many people would ask us who wrote the nice music.


Isn't that the answer to your question? A lot of composers wrote "nice music", but some of what Beethoven wrote has been regarded as far beyond that, giving him a reputation far beyond his contemporaries.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

‐


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

You've given me a new composer to listen to on Youtube.


----------



## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Note: I have no formal training in music so I'm just going off of what I've learned in on my own.

Having never heard of him, I put "Franz Danzi" into youtube and resolved to listen to the first thing that came up which may or may not be his best piece. I ended up listening to the cello concerto.






Let me start by saying this is obviously a competently constructed cello concerto that has many lovely moments (especially some rather nice harmonies); if you are looking for a new cello concerto to listen to in the late classical style this might be a good choice.

However, I think it's pretty clearly not on the level of Beethoven's concertos. The whole thing is generally too string-heavy; the orchestration is fine but with a cello as the solo instrument it would have been nicer if there had been more woodwinds written into the texture for some contrast. Furthermore, the orchestra-soloist interaction is often pretty limited with too much of the concerto being the cello playing over a repetitive orchestral line. There also need to be more variety as the first and second movement ended up sounding somewhat similar. Throughout all the movements, there didn't seem to be a strong musical narrative, something that is always present in a Beethoven concerto. These criticisms are quite nit-picky, but we are comparing him to Beethoven so its kinda hard to measure up.

In the end, it seemed like a very typical late classical concerto from a very competent composer, but certainly nothing to warrant Beethovian status, no?


----------



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

always have loved the Danzi WW 5tets - lots of good ones...very tuneful and colorful...fun to play and good listening. iirc he wrote some very good 4tets for bassoon and strings...


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Most people who attend symphony and opera and totally unaware of, and uninterested in, wind quintet music. Along with brass ensemble music, these are the poor step children of musical literature. There are two chamber music societies in my region which I support and 90% or more of their programming involves strings (quartets most common) sometimes with a piano, or a solo piano - what one founder calls "serious chamber music". On the rare occasions that they have wind groups they always are very well received. So a lot of it comes down to lack of exposure. The Danzi quintets are marvelous - witty, charming, exciting. Some of them are very, very difficult to play, too!


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

BachIsBest said:


> it seemed like a very typical late classical concerto from a very competent composer, but certainly nothing to warrant Beethovian status, no?


But do we know when this work was written by Danzi? (I couldn't find the date) Maybe it's his juvenilia ; using this sample to judge Danzi is like using Beethoven's piano concerto no.0 to judge him?

I honestly haven't been totally interested in Danzi's music either. Btw, I somewhat like Spohr's wind septet (he outlived Beethoven for decades and wrote the work in 1853)



hammeredklavier said:


> My vote goes to Louis Spohr's No.6 Op.116 _"Historical Symphony in the Style and Taste of Four Different Periods"_ (1839). Just thinking about it makes me LOL.
> I. The Age of Bach and Handel: Largo-Grave [0:00]
> II. The Age of Haydn and Mozart: Larghetto [7:30]
> III. The Age of Beethoven: Scherzo [16:51]
> IV. The Newest of the New: Allegro vivace [23:20]


----------



## Musicaterina (Apr 5, 2020)

Another cello concerto by Franz Danzi:






Played by Thomas Blees, Violoncello, and the "Rundfunkorchester Hannover des NDR" conducted by Willy Steiner


----------



## Musicaterina (Apr 5, 2020)

BachIsBest said:


> Note: I have no formal training in music so I'm just going off of what I've learned in on my own.
> 
> Having never heard of him, I put "Franz Danzi" into youtube and resolved to listen to the first thing that came up which may or may not be his best piece. I ended up listening to the cello concerto.
> 
> ...


I like the cello concertos by Franz Danzi. I think it is difficult to compare them with the concertos by Beethoven because Beethoven did not write any cello concertos. I my opinion this would be like comparing apples and pears.


----------



## Musicaterina (Apr 5, 2020)

ORigel said:


> You've given me a new composer to listen to on Youtube.


I would suggest to listen to the cello concertos. The recordings played by the German cellist Thomas Blees are in my opinion really excellent; I know this cellist personnally. He is now 82 years old but played the violoncello publically (and really wonderfully) until about one and a half years ago.

Danzi wrote also a lot of concertos for other instuments, like the flute, the piano and even the bassoon.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Musicaterina said:


> Beethoven did not write any cello concertos


always remember, always remember:


----------



## FastkeinBrahms (Jan 9, 2021)

Never heard of him and just listened to his E Flat major symphony P. 219 played by the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by Howard Griffiths. What a delight! He certainly loved his woodwinds. This is a decidedly haydnesque piece. The final movement could be an alternative finish to Haydn's best known E Flat major symphonies 103 (Drum Roll) or Hob. 85. It also reminds me of the final movement of the 104 London symphony. He even shares some of Haydn's humor, when he slows the music to a tragic sounding minor towards the end - for a second, fooling the audience, but then seems to say: "nah, nothing of that", and jumps back to major for the conclusion.
Even though the Haydn influence is obvious, he does have his own voice, again with his lovely use of woodwinds and slightly lusher instrumentation. Thank you for introducing Danzi to me!


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

Clarification: There are many outstanding 19th century composers that have been forgotten: Raff, Fibich, Reicha (Reicha composed a band symphony). I picked Danzi since I have performed all of his wind quintets and I am familiar with many of his other works through the Naxos Music Library. As a amateur bassoon player I think his bassoon concertos really kick ***.

It is not possible to judge a composers entire worth based on just one work. Even Beethoven wrote his fair share of turkeys.


----------



## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

arpeggio said:


> Some of the finest I have ever heard. Yet few people in the mainstream classical music world have heard of him (Most of the members here probably are familiar with his music.)


Really? I've been a huge fan of his (and Anton Reicha, in that other thread) for years. I don't think the "mainstream classical world" has forgotten Danzi. Maybe people who only know "The Big Three" classical composers -- people for whom "classical" is enough of a delineator on their iPod genre descriptions -- but we can safely ignore THEM as classical aficionodos, yes?


----------



## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

arpeggio said:


> There is a question that has been driving crazy for years and I do not know the answer.
> 
> There may be members here who do.
> 
> ...


Though I know Tony _Danza_ of _Taxi _and _Who's the Boss_ fame; I've never heard of Franz _Danzi_. Someone asked a question along this line in another OP, and I'll provide my best guess along the some track. As I understand it, the standard repertoire of classical music is hardly "Classical", at all, at least not with big "C". By-and-large the bulk of the repertoire is Romantic, Late Romantic and Early Modern. Baroque is represented by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and just a few works by some others. Likewise, the Classical era belongs to Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and Beethoven, it can be argued, had one foot in the Romantic era, unless you want to place him in a category all his own. The pre-Baroque and post-WW2 era were hardly represented at all, though some interest in Claudio Monteverdi was coming to light in the 1980s and 1990s. As for post-WW2 classical music, or "contemporary", we can only call it "contemporary" as the lag time between when a composer is active and when the composer becomes deemed as great moves at a glacial pace compared to other genres, so there's that, but also a basic unwillingness to alter the said canon in classical music for some reason. Now that the internet and YouTube has made it possible for people to access any music they want any time they want, this may change, and NAXOS was already exploring those possibilities even before the internet became a household word.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

If you like Danzi's wind ensemble pieces, try Franz Krommer's (1759-1831). I think I prefer his works - a little weightier, maybe.


----------



## etipou (Dec 4, 2020)

I'm afraid I don't know Danzi's wind quintet pieces, but I suspect part of the problem is the genre itself. Five individual instruments with such strongly differentiated tones do not make a very natural ensemble. Mozart always wrote for winds in pairs, or with a piano to dissolve the hard edges of the sound.

Likewise, most wind instruments are not well suited to serious efforts in the classical (dramatic) concerto form, through being some combination of weak in volume and tiring to hear. The clarinet is the exception, but Wikipedia does not list a clarinet concerto among his works.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

etipou said:


> I'm afraid I don't know Danzi's wind quintet pieces, but I suspect part of the problem is the genre itself. Five individual instruments with such strongly differentiated tones do not make a very natural ensemble. Mozart always wrote for winds in pairs, or with a piano to dissolve the hard edges of the sound.
> 
> Likewise, most wind instruments are not well suited to serious efforts in the classical (dramatic) concerto form, through being some combination of weak in volume and tiring to hear. The clarinet is the exception, but Wikipedia does not list a clarinet concerto among his works.


Nielsen's wind quintet works fine for example, but it also belongs to a less constrained age stylistically. 
I think Rejcha and Danzi quintets can be nice though.


----------



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

etipou said:


> I'm afraid I don't know Danzi's wind quintet pieces, but I suspect part of the problem is the genre itself. Five individual instruments with such strongly differentiated tones do not make a very natural ensemble. Mozart always wrote for winds in pairs, or with a piano to dissolve the hard edges of the sound.
> 
> Likewise, most wind instruments are not well suited to serious efforts in the classical (dramatic) concerto form, through being some combination of weak in volume and tiring to hear. The clarinet is the exception, but Wikipedia does not list a clarinet concerto among his works.


The ensemble of a quintet of winds is a long standing chamber group. A number of composers have written for it, one of Schoenberg's most famous chamber works is for wind quintet. It was more popular in the 18th century with some composers writing a large number of them, but it is not an unusual or problematic chamber group.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

etipou said:


> Mozart always wrote for winds in pairs, or with a piano to dissolve the hard edges of the sound.
> Likewise, most wind instruments are not well suited to serious efforts in the classical (dramatic) concerto form, through being some combination of weak in volume and tiring to hear.


I once read that this was the reason Mozart eventually transcribed his serenade K.388 as a string quintet piece.


----------



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Woodduck said:


> If you like Danzi's wind ensemble pieces, try Franz Krommer's (1759-1831). I think I prefer his works - a little weightier, maybe.


yes Kramar-Krommer wrote some very excellent wind ensemble works - excellent Harmomie-musik - pairs of woodwinds... neat stuff. fun to play, fine listening...


----------



## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

etipou said:


> I suspect part of the problem is the genre itself. Five individual instruments with such strongly differentiated tones do not make a very natural ensemble. Mozart always wrote for winds in pairs, or with a piano to dissolve the hard edges of the sound.
> 
> Likewise, most wind instruments are not well suited to serious efforts in the classical (dramatic) concerto form, through being some combination of weak in volume and tiring to hear.


I scratch my head. The only way I can explain how you could possibly make such statements is if *you've never actually heard* Reicha's and Danzi's wind quintets.


----------



## GucciManeIsTheNewWebern (Jul 29, 2020)

etipou said:


> Likewise, most wind instruments are not well suited to serious efforts in the classical (dramatic) concerto form, through being some combination of weak in volume and tiring to hear. The clarinet is the exception, but Wikipedia does not list a clarinet concerto among his works.


This is something I've mulled over myself. When comparing a wind instrument to a violin/cello and weighing their respective versatility, timbral and expressive power, the violin/cello wins have the edge. While I love wind instruments (and all instruments, I think they all have something unique to offer, except the electric triangle due to logistical/safety reasons) I think they're somewhat limited by nature. However, the only thing limiting a skilled composer is their imagination, and a creative and skilled enough composer can absolutely write a dramatic concerto for a wind instrument if they set their mind to it, I just imagine it'd be harder. There's some very excellent Bassoon Concerti out there I need to listen to, I've always thought of the bassoon as a wind cello!

EDIT: Saxophones didn't come to mind as I was writing this, which have a super wide range of versatility and timbral variance and expression.


----------



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

etipou said:


> I'm afraid I don't know Danzi's wind quintet pieces, but I suspect part of the problem is the genre itself. Five individual instruments with such strongly differentiated tones do not make a very natural ensemble. Mozart always wrote for winds in pairs, or with a piano to dissolve the hard edges of the sound.


Harmonie-musik was the dominant form of wind chamber music up until the time of Beethoven...this basically used the wind section of the classical orchestra - pairs of oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns in various combinations...some very fine music indeed- the serenades of Mozart, the Haydn Divertimenti, the Beethoven works being some prime examples...there are plenty more...
but about this time, Beethoven's contemporaries- notably Cambini, Reicha, Danzi - began using the combination of the principal woodwinds of the orchestra as a performing ensemble - flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon...this is the beginning of the woodwind 5tet....
woodwind quintet is a fine medium, the different combinations of instruments provide a most fascinating and delicious variety of timbral possibilities....there is now a large repertoire and variety of 5tet literature...
I love woodwind 5tets, and managed and performed professionally with 5tets for many, many years....the sound is constantly interesting and varied, the tones most fascinating....
by contrast, I have real difficulty sitting thru a string 4tet program... I love 4tets, and there are indeed great masterpieces written for this combination- but the timbral "sameness", the lack of tonal variety make it difficult for me to stay engaged for the entire concert...same with piano recitals... my ear really craves the tonal variety of the woodwind or brass ensemble to stay interested....


----------



## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

etipou said:


> ...I suspect part of the problem is the genre itself. Five individual instruments with such strongly differentiated tones do not make a very natural ensemble.


In really good quintets those different tonal qualities evaporate. It takes a lot of time together and adjustments, but the results can be fantastic. The real oddball is the oboe - a player with a warm tone with lots of overtones can blend nicely. And the music itself must be written "correctly". There were a lot of late 19th and early 20th century composers who really understand the ensemble and could exploit it fully. The French composers in particular were quite adept at writing for this group - an not necessarily by the famous composers. Jolivet, Taffanel, Barthe, Chretien wrote masterfully. Johann Sobeck wrote several quintets that are like miniature symphonies of the highest quality.


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I like Danzi music, but I rarely remember any of it 5 minutes after the disc has spun. Beethoven’s best music also has that sense of inevitability, of taking you on a journey and making you feel that you have arrived, and that you have seen wondrous things along the way. Danzi is more like a pleasant trip to the market to buy a loaf of bread


----------



## etipou (Dec 4, 2020)

I did not intend to ruffle so many feathers! I don't mean to suggest that wind quintets are un-listenable, only that their prestige relative to string quartets etc. in Classical & Romantic music is not arbitrary. I also agree with those pointing out that later music in the genre is more successful (I would choose Milhaud's _Cheminee du Roi Rene_ as an outstanding example).

@NoCoPilot, I have cheerfully acknowledged that I do not know Danzi's quintets, though I have heard and even played some of Reicha's. You may be astonished that someone would object to something for the reason that they stated, rather than because they had no experience of it - but that is not my fault.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

NoCoPilot said:


> Really? I've been a huge fan of his (and Anton Reicha, in that other thread) for years. I don't think the "mainstream classical world" has forgotten Danzi. Maybe people who only know "The Big Three" classical composers -- people for whom "classical" is enough of a delineator on their iPod genre descriptions -- but we can safely ignore THEM as classical aficionodos, yes?


My remarks are anecdotal and based on my experiences.

I play with three volunteer music groups and each one is different: one orchestra, one light classic pops band and one more classical concert band. Most of the members of the orchestra and concert band are familiar with the works of Danzi and Reicha, especially the woodwind players. Most of the members of the light classic band are not familiar with Danzi and Reicha, especially the euphonium section.

My remarks are a guess and may not be accurate.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I have always considered Danzi a "lesser Reicha," so you can easily imagine how I might compare him with Beethoven.


----------



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I listened to the Op 68/3 Quintet, Bassoon Concerto no. 2, and the Horn Sonata in E Minor.

Danzi wrote okay to good music, but nothing special. I liked the Horn Sonata the most.


----------



## DLOinQUEENS (Nov 22, 2018)

I find Danzi’s music to be...pleasantly inoffensive? I best not say too much more about it than that.


----------



## arpeggio (Oct 4, 2012)

I am not interested in if I do not like it, it is not any good remarks.


----------

