String Quintet Op.4

[Peter]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rod:
I didn't say it was worthless, I say B's is better than a work M rated extremely highly, yet B's work is constantly belittled in comparison to the M work.

OK - but not by me!

My ultimate point doesn't really concern M per se, but rather the continual underestimation of some of B's works. Your own remark stating that M's admiration of K452 was 'meaningless' I hold to be not the case.

I agree that much of early Beethoven is underestimated - we're trying to rectify that on this site!
I didn't say his admiration for K.452 was meaningless, only the remark that it was his greatest work in the context of this debate -had he said it in 1791 then it would have been of greater significance as well as rather questionable and I might agree that his faculties were rather impaired!

I'm sure B believed these words, but compare them to what he said about Handel at the same time and even later - 'the greatest..', 'the most able..', 'here is the truth' etc. Yet I'm sure in the 1790's he would have been saying those things about Mozart.

No one can doubt that Beethoven came to regard Handel as the greatest of all, nor that he held Mozart in high regard throughout his life - a regard that I share. I believe Beethoven to be the greatest composer, but it doesn't stop me from recognising that Mozart produced great music of extreme beauty and sublimity.

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'Man know thyself'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:

I didn't say his admiration for K.452 was meaningless, only the remark that it was his greatest work in the context of this debate -had he said it in 1791 then it would have been of greater significance as well as rather questionable and I might agree that his faculties were rather impaired!

Well. as far as I am concerned an opinion from Mozart at the age of 28 is worthy of consideration, especially considering he didn't live too much longer! In the context of K452 it is valid to the debate regardless, as it is directly compared with op16 written by Beethoven at an even earlier age. But you can't really comment about this until you have heard both works.

Originally posted by Peter:

No one can doubt that Beethoven came to regard Handel as the greatest of all, nor that he held Mozart in high regard throughout his life - a regard that I share. I believe Beethoven to be the greatest composer, but it doesn't stop me from recognising that Mozart produced great music of extreme beauty and sublimity.

Fair enough...but remember whose complete works volumes B was flicking through during those last days. B had learned much from Mozart but, by his own words at this late time, he had still much to learn from Handel.

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

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
Fair enough...but remember whose complete works volumes B was flicking through during those last days. B had learned much from Mozart but, by his own words at this late time, he had still much to learn from Handel.

At last we can agree!



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'Man know thyself'