Masters before J.S Bach

[orpheus]

Originally posted by Gurn Blanston:
No, I looked around and found nothing but references to him which appear authentic. I do know, however, that one of my favorite 20th century fiddlers, Kreisler to be exact, delighted in "finding" pieces that he actually composed himself. You can hear one of them if you listen to Gil Shaham's 4 Seasons CD on DG, it is called now "Concerto for Violin in the Style of Vivaldi" by Kreisler, but it masqueraded succesfully for years as an authentic Vivaldi concerto. This was not Kreisler's only practical joke in this manner, I have heard that he did this many times, and always successfully fooled the "connoisseurs" of his time. My kind of guy!
Regards, Gurn

Sounds like I've been misinformed. It was a harpsichordist friend for mine who told me this. I guess he was playing a hoax on me!

[This message has been edited by orpheus (edited April 18, 2003).]

[lysander]

Originally posted by Troels:
Lassus first of all. Actually he is my favourite composer. (Yep, above Beethoven!)

And then Monteverdi, Purcell, Gesualdo, Schütz, Dowland, Tallis, Hildegard, Byrd in no particular order.

Lassus and Beethoven are very different kinds of composers and cannot really be compared, I think.
Lassus was writing towards the end of the great perioid of religious faith and he wrote for religious audience. n His music is devotional and there is no progression or development in it as such in musical terms.
Beethoven was a man of intense private feeling of religion and devotion but not necessarily of public profession.
He was writing in a scientific and industrial age and he would have regarded the music of Lassus,beautiful though it is, as belonging to the redundant world of the ancient regime, and therefore, to be discarded. Also we should't forget that Beethoven was the champion of the new and saw himself as the harbinger of new musical forms and tastes and a member of the vangaurd of the future. We know that the ninth Symphony and other works have express religious conotations such as the Choral Fantasia, but the secular works in which Beethoven embodies a religious perspective have a distinctly Beethovenesque take on the absolute, viewing God not in terms dogma but in terms in the Brotherhood of man of peace joy and hope for the future.
Beethoven would I am sure have regarderd Lassus as one of those Medieval types of composers ceaselessly churning out essentially curcular works, whereas he himself saw music in terms of a progress or unfolding of ideas and themes and mans potential.
Personally though I do really like Lassus's music, ' I do really love Beethoven'.


In the west we are all very much the inheritance of Beethoven's spirit, but I do wonder whether the Brave new World that he was driving towards with such ferocious single mindedness with one moment being inexorably following the other has not now become for many of us a bit of a nightmare of the treadmill of existance ever marching but never resting. This is why I suppose Laussus's music has a sense of sublime sense of peace and rest that was also attained by Beethoven .



[This message has been edited by lysander (edited April 18, 2003).]

[orpheus]

And yet Beethoven learnt so much from Palestrina, for example. This is clear in the Missa Solemnis and op.132.

[lysander]

Originally posted by orpheus:
And yet Beethoven learnt so much from Palestrina, for example. This is clear in the Missa Solemnis and op.132.

Indeed he did! Beethoven held Palestrina in high esteem and often said, "only Pasestrina's style was suitable for ecclesiastical music," though this does not mean that he was a mere imitator of another man's style.
Beethoven's interests included works by a number of renaissance composers in contemporary anthologies of music of the past, and at various times he copied out pieces by Palestrina and Byrd as well as contrapuntal works by such baroque composers as Georg Muffat plus instrumental works by his heroes of the past - Bach and Handel.


Beethoven's breathtaking Missa Solemnis is most beautiful, passionate, powerful and deeply moving for me. It is his most heartfelt paean to the deity. I love it.