BBC Radio 3 "Beethoven Experience"

[urtextmeister]

I am truly in awe of composers who work with great speed.

I believe that, in part, the ability of a composer to write quickly is due to the era in which he is writing and how comfortable with the stylistic norms of the day.

I hestitate to use words like "formula" and "cliche" for fear of any negative connotations, but the music that Handel and Telemann were writing was full of very standard procedures.

Then there is the fact that much of the orchestration in the baroque that was "written" was four or five parts including a bass line to be filled out by a keyboardist.

By contrast, a modern composer writes for a larger orchestra and is usually more complex and he has to grapple constantly with much more puzzling stylistic decisions.

This certainly explains part of the difference between Handel's efficiency and that of a modern composer.

I'm not sure it has a lot to do with different outputs from baroque composers versus classical composers, but it could...

What do you think?

[Michael]

To say that Mozart could compose an entire symphony in his head and that Beethoven had to struggle with endless rewrites into his sketch-books is really missing the point. What we are talking about here are two different methods of composing and surely what matters is the finished result?
Mozart is a truly great composer. He had it all – perfect pitch, perfect memory and bloody great tunes. He should be my favourite composer because I much prefer the high classical style to the bombast of the Romantics. His last symphonies are utter perfection and if I had bought a copy of the “Jupiter” symphony back in 1968 instead of the “Pastoral”, I would probably be singing the praises of Wofgang Amadeus on another website.
But I will be eternally grateful that I discovered Beethoven before Mozart. Mozart is seductive - even his operas sound great and I personally cannot and will not ever get to love opera. He should be the greatest composer of all, but he blew it. It wasn’t his fault – he was hopelessly locked into the eighteenth century and he accepted all its rules and its forms and he stayed inside the box. I know I am simplifying to a huge degree but Mozart is the ultimate contradiction in terms – a conventional genius.
Coming to Beethoven after Mozart can be a bit unnerving because our friend is not out to please the ear alone. He has his own agenda and it takes a lot of patience and effort to appreciate what he is doing. The rewards are tremendous.
Beethoven had the great advantage of starting where Mozart finished. He struggled with his ideas because he had outgrown the strict classicalism of Haydn and Mozart and had to forge his own musical language. No two symphonies or string quartets are similar – his idiom changes from work to work. He is not merely a great composer – he is ten great composers. And his range is so huge that mere “perfection” is almost irrelevant.
The “Jupiter” symphony, as I have said, is perfect – I defy anyone to find a flaw in it. The Ninth Symphony is far from “perfect” and I haven’t the energy to point out all the flaws in it but, in my humble opinion – (and all this, by the way is IMHO) it is much, much greater.
The only analogy I can offer is the comparison of a novel like “Pride and Prejudice” to “War and Peace”. The former is beautifully written and constructed – there isn’t a page too much in it. “War and Peace” is all over the place, however. The story stops and starts - the writing is variable, to say the least, and in the second half contains pages and pages of Tolstoy’s crackpot theories about Napoleon. Yet, I know the one I would take to that desert island. With all due respect to Jane Austen, “Pride and P.” would fit into a corner of “War and Peace” and I’m not talking just about size. Tolstoy can convey all the drawing-room drama of Austen but Austen cannot take you onto the battlefield at Borodino.
Sorry – I didn’t mean to write an essay but I sort of like Beethoven.
Now removing anorak.

Michael

[spaceray]

Great post Michael.

[Uniqor]

Rod honestly, I've never heard of anybody saying that the finale of Jupiter is to his dislike. Not being inventive enough? Well, maybe for most people the greatness of a piece isn't justified by its inventiveness at all.

Beethoven is the master of decorating sound without a doubt, but there is something in music that lies beyond any composition related issues. We have Mozart's not so inventive music, but his genius made sure that pieces like the Jupiter will never be surpassed by anyone - you can't surpass something that lies deep, with something that's relatively shallow. That's exactly why no matter how hard and how long most of us study to compose music, we'll never be able to produce something that's as untuchable as the Jupiter.

It would require an extremely intensified amount of qauntity to increase quality. Compositional techniques being quantitive; supreme inspiration and way of expression being qualitive. The greatest genius knows exactly what's in the core, so he wastes no time floating on the surface, wandering, searching. The searching for the supreme beauty resluted in what we have today: a vast world of music, no matter which continent you belong in this world, your music rely on the universal and most fundamental attraction that is best presented by the genius of Mozart.

[This message has been edited by Uniqor (edited 05-11-2005).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by Michael:
He should be the greatest composer of all, but he blew it. It wasn’t his fault – he was hopelessly locked into the eighteenth century and he accepted all its rules and its forms and he stayed inside the box. I know I am simplifying to a huge degree but Mozart is the ultimate contradiction in terms – a conventional genius.

I wouldn't say Mozart blew it! We have to remember that he died at about the same age Beethoven was writing his 4th piano concerto. To say he accepted all the rules and forms of the 18th century doesn't really mean anything - yes he was a classical composer (though you'd be hard pushed to find many sonata movements that conform to the rules), so was Beethoven, and in this sense he to could be labelled a conservative as he became even more stictly classical in the late works which is why he was not considered fashionable.

During the last decade of Mozart's life there is a distinct advance in his style, especially in the last 5 years with works such as those late symphonies, the Requiem and the G minor and C major quintets - who knows in what direction he would have gone had he lived just another 10 years?

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'Man know thyself'



[This message has been edited by Peter (edited 05-11-2005).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:

I hestitate to use words like "formula" and "cliche" for fear of any negative connotations, but the music that Handel and Telemann were writing was full of very standard procedures.

Well Handel often expanded the form, using double chorus and expanded orchestra - sometimes dividing a section, in addition to the soloists. So the part writing could be 15 parts or more in some of the oratorios.

Beethoven too often followed well established forms of musical composition. Who understands sonata form better than Beethoven?


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Rod]

Originally posted by Michael:

The “Jupiter” symphony, as I have said, is perfect – I defy anyone to find a flaw in it.
Michael

I already have in this chain, an almost fatal flaw.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Michael]

Originally posted by Peter:
I wouldn't say Mozart blew it! We have to remember that he died at about the same age Beethoven was writing his 4th piano concerto.

You’re right, Peter. Of course Mozart didn’t “blow it” – only as far as I’m concerned (which would distress him greatly if he only knew). And who indeed knows what he would have accomplished if he had lived as long as Beethoven. For that matter, Schubert could have been the darkest horse of all.
What I was trying to get at was the mystery of why I find Beethoven greater than Mozart. I read an interview a few years ago with a famous musician, whose name eludes me, in which he stated that in Mozart and Schubert he got the impression that the music was merely relayed through them from a higher plane (!) – that it didn’t sound “composed” – whereas in Beethoven he could always feel the cogwheels turning. I get exactly the opposite impression – in a sense. I can see – or rather hear - why Mozart and Schubert are great but not Ludwig van whose idea of a great tune might sometimes be the same note repeated twenty or thirty times (as in the funeral march from the A flat piano sonata).
This might sound like self-deluding twaddle but I’ve felt this way for nearly thirty years. Take the opening of the first Razoumovsky (however you spell it). There is no great melody there – the actual notes are fairly humdrum – but it never fails to mesmerise me. I hate that cliché about the hair on the back of the neck but it does rise with this music. How did Beethoven know that this sequence of fairly “plain” themes would get this response from listeners? The only answer is that he knew, better than Bach, Mozart et al, how to string notes together.

Michael

[Peter]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Michael:
I read an interview a few years ago with a famous musician, whose name eludes me, in which he stated that in Mozart and Schubert he got the impression that the music was merely relayed through them from a higher plane (!) – that it didn’t sound “composed” – whereas in Beethoven he could always feel the cogwheels turning.

Yes I remember reading this as well, but likewise I can't recall who actually said it!

The only answer is that he knew, better than Bach, Mozart et al, how to string notes together.


I can't agree here - they simply had different approaches and each was a master. I do find it odd the number of people I've met who are either for Mozart or Beethoven, but not both!


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'Man know thyself'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:

I can't agree here - they simply had different approaches and each was a master. I do find it odd the number of people I've met who are either for Mozart or Beethoven, but not both!

[/B]

What about this Mozart fugue Peter? Call me Mr. Strange, but I dont think it's all that special - grand in scale but only average in design.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
What about this Mozart fugue Peter? Call me Mr. Strange, but I dont think it's all that special - grand in scale but only average in design.

Well it isn't really a fugue but a short five part canon. Mozart skillfully combines all five motives that had been introduced previously in the movement to produce a truly exhilerating coda.

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'Man know thyself'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
Well it isn't really a fugue but a short five part canon. Mozart skillfully combines all five motives that had been introduced previously in the movement to produce a truly exhilerating coda.

Fair enough, but I find it rather boring to be honest. I'm not sure this is top-drawer contrapuntal writing (whatever you want to call it). I would demand and expect better from Beethoven even in his 30s, though perhaps wisely he never wrote a symphonic movement quite like this.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
Fair enough, but I find it rather boring to be honest. I'm not sure this is top-drawer contrapuntal writing (whatever you want to call it). I would demand and expect better from Beethoven even in his 30s, though perhaps wisely he never wrote a symphonic movement quite like this.

Well you may not think it is top draw, but most musicians regard it as some of the finest contrapuntal writing of the 18th century!

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'Man know thyself'

[Uniqor]

Hey what about me guys? Was my rant somehow hard to understand due to my unusual ideas and lame english, or simply irrefutable, or you just agree with most of it, or what?... Let me know, I'll light this sleepy forum up!

[jdidlock]

This thread has strayed well away from its original intent - I was looking for views on the BBC Beethoven Experience project.