Delving deeper into Mozart?

Let us remember that Beethoven had great admiration for Cherubini, so much so that he wrote to him in a letter:

«Vous resterez toujours celui de mes contemporains que je l'estime le plus»

CromaDiBrera wrote:

Counterpoint is just one of the writing techniques; to detest 18th-century music because it more or less supplanted it is a bit like despising oil on canvas because it would have supplanted fresco.

In music history, there are many pedantic and boring works despite rigorous counterpoint, just as there are many compositions (both before and after Classicism) that did without it, without being artistically inferior for this reason. Luigi Cherubini, whom I mentioned above, was an absolute master of counterpoint and was a contemporary of Mozart (and I don't know why, after Mozart, when talking about the recovery of counterpoint, the usual Beethoven is always cited, with all due respect), opposed the galant style by polemicizing with Napoleon, yet history has relegated him to a secondary position compared to others, perhaps even wrongly (counterpoint aside).

I take your intervention to clarify an issue - and thus also answering Luca -: I have nothing against monody; on the contrary, much of monody, starting from medieval monody, is absolutely listened to and loved by me.

I do not love how the galant style used monody, that is, by producing music - always from my point of view, naturally - which is in its entirety - shall we add a 'nearly'? - boring, repetitive, and banal.

Cherubini was a great composer who should certainly be valued for what he was.

Why Beethoven? The simplest, most provocative, and most obvious answer is: because he was Beethoven!

The most intelligent and appropriate answer: because he was contested by all his counterpoint teachers, as according to them he understood nothing about it, but instead, not only was that not true. It was true, however, that across all music he had ideas that went outside the patterns, outside of time and outside of space - and consequently incomprehensible to the ears of his contemporaries - and this made him - but only him - an absolute brilliant visionary. So, in short, he was simply Beethoven! That's all!

I understand tastes and opinions, but in my view, the meaning of certain terms should be clarified; saying that the galant style was monodic seems a bit excessive to me...

Monody is that of the Middle Ages; one can speak of "monodic style," but it is something else entirely regarding single-voice genres with accompaniment (the lied, for example). It should also be remembered that polyphony and counterpoint are not synonyms at all: the latter is an aspect of the former, as is harmony. The fact is that music history has evolved in a harmonic direction and therefore counterpoint has no longer been "functional," unless it is endowed with new "rules" (and thus also emptied of meaning, as happened in the fugues of Mendelssohn, Liszt, or Franck).

Beethoven's fugue op.133 is a separate matter, but it only has the spirit of the fugue and the counterpoint is "annihilated" because it is subordinated to other formal criteria. In many of his other works there are fugatos, such as in the Ninth, but it seems to me that there is very little counterpoint; perhaps he would have made more use of it if he had ventured into sacred music, but that is not how it went. This is why I wrote that I do not understand the reason why, when speaking of the recovery of counterpoint, one thinks of Beethoven.

If anything, the person who recovered counterpoint from the past to develop it in a modern sense (i.e., harmonic) was J.S. Bach, although he was not the only one (I like to remember Jan Zelenka, twenty years older and highly esteemed by Bach as well). In this regard, it must be remembered that Bach's operation is already retrospective: his "successful" contemporaries, such as Telemann, are already in the galant style.

Finally, one could say that Mozart was among the few who remembered Bach and studied him thoroughly, whereas for his recovery, one must skip Beethoven and go to Mendelssohn.

P.S. See the quadruple counterpoint at the octave in the finale of the Jupiter.

Yes, I know that in the Jupiter there is counterpoint and for no reason do I consider it Mozart's greatest symphonic expression, as I have already said. As I have already said that in Haydn and Mozart there is a return to counterpoint, but it is with Beethoven that the use of counterpoint: a counterpoint not, annihilated - your opinion, let it be clear -, but certainly renewed, different, revised, compared to the Bachian one, announces itself to the history of music.

Just as the Fugue of Sonata op. 110 reveals a good knowledge of Fugue XVIII of The Well-Tempered Clavier (Part II), so for the theme of the "Fugue in 3 voices, with some licenses" that concludes op. 106, one can point to certain models in Bach that were perhaps present in Beethoven: such as the theme of the fugue BWV 944 or that of Fugue X of The Well-Tempered Clavier (Part I), i.e., long and fast themes, "walking" as they used to say in the Baroque era, such as to constitute a sort of "perpetual motion": articulated in three main sections, this grandiose composition, with the combinatory possibilities of its variants, with all the artifices of the science of counterpoint (augmentations, inversions, double fugue) is a kind of Beethovenian Kunst der Fuge, a paradigm of ancient art combined with modern sonata dynamics.

This excerpt from Giorgio Pestelli - thanks to Terenzio I extracted it from your site - actually summarizes everything there is to say about Beethoven and thus it is reductive to speak only of the Great Fugue Opus 133.

Beethoven came into contact with The Well-Tempered Clavier - and thus with Bach - from his very first lessons in 1781 with Neefe and, when he decided to compose his Missa Solemnis, he studied Bach and his sacred music very deeply, in addition to Palestrina, naturally.

Well... From your peremptory judgments and your redundant and reverberating tones, it seems to me that you have a somewhat passionate attitude (Beethovenian, if you like) in establishing categories of merit.

I am only saying that others used counterpoint before Beethoven (Clementi in the Gradus, the aforementioned Cherubini, Mozart himself and not just in the Jupiter... even Salieri composed an exemplary fugue) and, in any case, I do not believe this means anything regarding the artistic value of a composer. Even Chopin in the preludes has solid roots in Bach, but he is certainly not remembered for that.

I don't know, should we esteem Schubert or Schumann less because they neglected counterpoint...?

Perhaps I am less prepared than you, but I prefer to approach it with the detachment of someone reading a history book, trying to understand the period without expressing "rankings". This is because I am deeply convinced that criticism is a child of its time, and therefore its parameters are always relative and subject to revision. Who can say if in a century Stockhausen will not be remembered as much as Bach is nowadays (I say this not by chance, given the evolution of electronic music)? Or that Gluck will not be definitively forgotten (and he is already well on his way)? With the passage of time, we look at the past in a continuously different way.

You are right about this: I am passionate and, above all, I am a Beethovenian.

I am not sure about being peremptory instead, since, in reality, I am expressing my personal tastes, so much so that I always interject with phrases of this kind: from my point of view, in my opinion ...

What I can certainly assure you is that you are definitely more prepared than I am!

Ah, I wanted to clarify one thing once again because the way you respond to me always makes me doubt that I am.

My criticism of the galant style is not solely linked to the disappearance of counterpoint, but to the fact that I find that music - I'll say it once and for all - truly ugly.

Schubert and Schumann, on the other hand, are greats regardless of the counterpoint.

A.S. ... and see also the Kyrie from the Requiem (by Mozart). ok.

in this discussion I have nothing to add. And I find the contributions of both of you very interesting.

However, I would like to clarify two or three things in which I feel I have been misunderstood (*). If instead you understood correctly, please disregard this.

CromaDiBrera wrote:

«detesting 18th-century music because it would have more or less supplanted it is a bit like despising (...)»

If this statement stems, even if only in part, from my words in the previous post:

«I too, like Daniele, have a bit of suspicion towards an era (...)».

Well, in short: I want to specify that I do not detest and I do not despise. On the contrary: some works belonging to the galant style are among the 'favorites' of my mp3 player.

CromaDiBrera wrote:

«saying that the galant style was monodic seems a bit excessive to me...»

Yes. It is true. Let's just say it's not "a bit excessive" but wrong. In fact, I was wrong.

What I meant to say - when I made that comparison with two different types of light - was this:

a type of writing where one melodic line is clearly the main one and all the other parts are more or less at its service to make it stand out.

Said in one word? Perhaps 'melodic' style?... Anyway, this is what I meant.

(Neither do I, like Daniele, have anything against monody. On the contrary...)

(*) Misunderstood . . . he was a monk that no one could ever quite understand properly

Yes, it is an interesting discussion, but also a very complex one. On one hand, the period in which both lived seems contiguous: Mozart, as a pre-romantic, seems to pass the baton to Beethoven, who finally emancipates the artist from the frippery and antics of the court. On the other hand, it seems to me that we tend to forget that between the two there is a huge wall of History with a capital H: the French Revolution.

Now, it is known that our culture is post-romantic, there is no doubt; for us, the affirmation of art can only be free, and therefore it is natural that we better understand the stature of the Romantics rather than those who preceded them, because the latter belong to a world that is now irreconcilable with our sensibility. But was it really just a world of dandy gentlemen with wigs to the rhythm of the minuet? I have my doubts, because that was also the season of the Enlightenment; which, in turn, is an emancipation from another previous world: that of obscurantism, of the predominance of theology over science, of witch hunts, and where everything that is not sacred is inevitably profane.

In practice, what happens is that musicians who were at the service of priests now go to the service of courts. Then, after the revolution, they go to the service of the bourgeoisie: there are patrons, publishers, high society salons, circles, etc. So, my final consideration is this: Beethoven found himself at ease in his own time: he was a Romantic and lived in Romanticism. Telling the powerful person of the day to go to hell in the name of the people could have made sense. Mozart, however, definitely no: he did not even have the satisfaction of seeing his last symphonies performed, because they were already beyond the wall (while he lived on this side). He had to humble himself infinitely, begging for this or that permanent position at court to survive, and yet a large part of his music was never entirely subservient. And it is not just the last symphonies, but also the dissonant quartets, or the K183 which was certainly not something for dandies.

Therefore I ask myself: who is more romantic?

In the sense of who between the two had a more romantic life (misfortune, misunderstandings), or who composed more in the spirit of Romanticism?

If we look at adverse fate [and to be a romantic artist, bad luck is a "positive" factor] then, in addition to the things you indicated (unperformed final masterpieces, humiliations), Mozart can "count" also on a meager funeral, the mystery of his mortal remains, the mystery of the Requiem...

Beethoven, on the other hand, can "count" on deafness (Mozart had a proverbial ear) and on a disastrous family situation (Leopold Mozart, instead, was an excellent teacher; we would probably remember him even without such a son). . . . I wouldn't know how to express myself on who was more romantic.

If we look at the music composed, we must first outline, at least a little, the traits of Romanticism in music.

Without the obligation to be exhaustive... I'll try:

1) use of strong tones, contrasts, passion, lyricism, mystery....

2) dramatic affirmation (in music) of the artist's individuality: "extreme" biographicalism (like the Symphonie Fantastique)

3) compositions with a strong identity physiognomy (Mahler's motto applies: "every symphony must be a world")

And here, who is more romantic between Mozart and Beethoven?... Meh.

If I consider factor 3, I would say decidedly Beethoven. If I consider the first two factors instead, I wouldn't know what to say.

In the sense that in Mozart, the romantic poetics seem to me a "destination" (what is more romantic than the Dies irae or the Lacrimosa?), whereas in Beethoven, the romantic poetics seem to me a "passage" (towards something else, towards the beyond).

We can never thank Spoonful enough for giving the starting impetus to this topic!

LucaCavaliere wrote:

in Beethoven, the Romantic poetics seem to me a 'passage' (towards something else, towards beyond).

We can never thank Spoonful enough for giving the START to this topic!

Here, I think this is the most sensible and right thing to say!!!

I am perfectly aware of History! In fact, those who have read me in the past know very well how historical-social events are absolutely paramount in my way of reasoning and relating to facts. Contextualization is my basic principle on every subject concerning human affairs.

Now, it is sacrosanct: there was the French Revolution and this certainly makes a difference. However, the great difference between a composer like Mozart and one like Beethoven lies in the relationship they had with their art and that, although certainly influenced by the historical events of their time, ensures that the former was substantially a synthesizer with tendencies toward innovation, while the latter was a revolutionary regarding any given rule.

Mozart lives very well within tradition; he knows he can bring it to expressions of unheard-of perfection and he does so.

Beethoven knows he has composers like Haydn and Mozart behind him and is aware that to emerge and to demonstrate his greatness, he must go beyond.

The historical moment is extremely favorable, and he is genetically and genially the right composer at the right time.

In the so-called first period, he adapts to the stylistic elements of Classicism while already demonstrating a certain intolerance; then "fate" gives him a bad surprise, and this leads him closer to what is certainly his most "Romantic" or "Heroic" period.

Finally, the collapse of the ideals born from the Revolution, the restoration followed by the Congress of Vienna, absolute deafness, the resignation to not being able to have a "normal" family and emotional life, lead him to internalize his musical thought, closing himself within his own self. And from this closure is born, in his final period of life, that music outside of time and space.

We know it was composed between 1815 and 1826, but if we could manage to forget it and someone asked us: when do you think this music was composed? We wouldn't know how to answer: it is no longer Classicism, it is not Romanticism, but it isn't even the 20th century? It is all this, but it is not this!

This is the genius greatness of Beethoven and it is what makes him unique and probably unrepeatable in the context of music history.

CromaDiBrera wrote:

That is why I wrote that I do not understand the reason why, when speaking of the recovery of counterpoint, one thinks of Beethoven.

It is an interesting discussion – although it risks paradox on one hand, and ideology on the other (but perhaps it is interesting precisely because of this).

Probably much depends on what we mean by counterpoint. If we mean it in a normative sense – which to some extent is historically inherent to the concept of counterpoint – Beethoven's position seems problematic to me. While he evidently dominates two- and three-part counterpoint with infallible confidence and an incomparable variety of solutions, I would not know how to pronounce myself on his four-part counterpoint instead; or rather, I should limit myself to acknowledging that I do not know examples of his four-part counterpoints that can hold up a technical comparison with the four-part counterpoint of a Haydn (to mention a contemporary), or a Mendelssohn or a Brahms (to mention later composers), or, on another level, a Wagner (who seems to me, along with Bach, one of the most instinctively gifted composers for counterpoint and, along with Bach, one of the few capable of defining a personal form of counterpoint). This is from a normative and artisanal point of view.

On the other hand, if counterpoint is understood less as a norm and more as invention, it is obvious that Beethoven becomes – along with Josquin and Mahler – the most representative example of an absolutely incomparable and even today disconcerting force in its combination of freedom/necessity. Perhaps only Monteverdi succeeded in doing something analogous – but Monteverdi was also a master of the counterpoint handed down by history.

RedScharlach wrote:

It is an interesting discussion – although it risks paradox on one hand, and on the other ideology (but perhaps that is precisely what makes it interesting).

Most likely much depends on what we mean by counterpoint. If we mean it in a normative sense – which to some extent is historically inherent to the concept of counterpoint – Beethoven's position seems problematic to me. While he evidently dominates two- and three-part counterpoint with infallible confidence and an incomparable variety of solutions, I would not know how to pronounce myself on his four-part counterpoint instead – or rather, I should limit myself to acknowledging that I know of no examples of his four-part counterpoints that can stand up to a technical comparison with the four-part counterpoint of a Haydn (to cite a contemporary) or of a Mendelssohn or a Brahms (to cite later composers) or, on another level, of a Wagner (who seems to me, along with Bach, one of the most instinctively gifted composers for counterpoint and, along with Bach, one of the few capable of defining a personal form of counterpoint). This is from a normative and artisanal point of view.

On the other hand, if counterpoint is understood less as a norm and more as invention, it is obvious that Beethoven becomes – along with Josquin and Mahler – the most representative example of an absolutely incomparable force, still disconcerting today in its combination of freedom/necessity. Perhaps only Monteverdi succeeded in doing something similar – but Monteverdi was also a master of the counterpoint handed down by history.

So, I see it – or rather, I feel it - like this.

More or less, about a thousand years ago, the history of music emitted its first polyphonic cries. From that moment on, there was a continuous ascent toward greater richness and a more refined culture. This continued until the end of the Renaissance, when it faced a true crossroads, of which Monteverdi and Bach are two sides of the same coin.

With Monteverdi, one found oneself facing two completely opposed aesthetics: the first practice based on learned polyphony, the second, a practice that was programmatically expressive and based on monody. In both, he was a supreme master.

Bach, on the other hand, was the high priest of tonal counterpoint, but he was so in an era when the requirements of music turned toward an accentuated simplification, frivolity, and simplisticness.

While the master closed himself off by composing gigantic contrapuntal works, such as *The Musical Offering* and *The Art of Fugue*, challenging new fashions and his own children, this first period of music was inexorably fading away.

When Mozart was born, the great Bach had been dead for six years and, a year later, the second great master of the 18th century, Handel, also died. In that period, in reality, neither Bach nor Handel were considered the greatest exponents of music; rather, this primacy belonged to Georg Philipp Telemann, an absolutely prolific composer: his works number between 5,000 and 6,000. Today, of this prince of the galant style, how many works do we remember? Very few, and even if they were proportionate to his immense volume of work: a mere trifle.

Haydn, first, and then the child prodigy Mozart, began to compose in this climate of great musical decay. *Sturm und Drang* began to bring a breath of cultural renewal and, starting from the 80s, Haydn and Mozart began to bring polyphony back to life in their compositions.

Mozart, in particular, began to surpass the galant style bit by bit after his encounter with Father Martini and later when Baron Gottfried van Swieten introduced him to the great Bach. But let us keep in mind that the Baron himself only became aware of him in 1774, when listening to a concerto by Philipp Emanuel Bach, his greatness was extolled to him by the King of Prussia. The Salzburg native began to practice counterpoint in an artful manner only in 1782, starting with the *Fantasia and Fugue K 394*.

And here I open a parenthesis: I think that claiming Bach fell into oblivion is an absolutely wrong cliché. The reality is that Bach was the first great composer of the past who, thanks to his gigantic stature, returned to vogue. Until the 19th century, only contemporary music was listened to, and consequently all the greats of the past were the exclusive domain of those composers – very few, in reality – who had studied compositions from previous eras which, anyway, they did not perform. Only from Beethoven onwards – that is, when music is recognized as a high art – gradually, the music of the past begins to live alongside contemporary music, eventually surpassing it in listening and public favor in the 20th century.

Beethoven, therefore, revolutionizes practically everything and, regarding the fugue and how to compose it, essentially thought this: "Writing a fugue is easy, it [is]..."

I wrote dozens when I was a student. But imagination must have its role, and today another spirit, authentically poetic, must enter the ancient form."

The recovery that Beethoven made of polyphony was thus more meditated and tenacious compared to his two predecessors: he united the ancient richness of the past, enriching it in turn with the complexity, length, sonority, dramaticity, and expressiveness typical of his era. Beethoven remedied, scarred, mended that hole that had formed between that period which essentially starts from early polyphony and reaches Bach, and the subsequent prevailing homophony.

Beethoven was the first composer who aspired to be the heir to all music since its origins. An aspiration that, however, only in the twentieth century found its full realization in two composers, only apparently opposed: Stravinsky and Schoenberg.

Ps: without wanting to take anything away from Wagner's contrapuntal value, I would like to remind you that Brahms also knew how to say very remarkable things in this field, and it saddens me quite a bit to see him placed alongside Mendelssohn.

danielescarpetti wrote:

even Brahms knew how to say very remarkable things in this field and I am quite sorry to see him placed alongside Mendelssohn.

In reality, as far as exclusively counterpoint technique is concerned, without considering other aspects, Mendelssohn seems superior to me between the two: his choral music (the choir historically represents the paradigm par excellence of contrapuntal writing) always has a purity and effectiveness that does not fear comparison with Palestrina. Brahms, on the other hand, alongside absolutely perfect works such as the Liebeslieder Walzer and the Deutsche Requiem, also wrote some of the most artificial compositions I have ever had the chance to sing, such as the Motets op. 74, where the intentions are clearly elevated, but the result a little less.

RedScharlach wrote:

In reality, as far as counterpoint technique is concerned exclusively, without considering other aspects, Mendelssohn seems superior to me between the two: his choral music (the choir historically represents the paradigm par excellence of contrapuntal writing) has always a purity and effectiveness that does not fear comparison with Palestrina. Brahms, on the other hand, alongside absolutely perfect works such as the Liebeslieder Walzer and the Deutsche Requiem, also wrote some of the most artificial compositions I have ever had the chance to sing, such as the Motets op. 74, where the intentions are clearly elevated, but the result a little less.

Our divergences on Brahms are nothing new and, in any case, the discussion goes even further than what is already being discussed regarding the subject proposed in this topic.

Regarding Opus 74 no. 1, I could tell you that all critics consider it the greatest product of this genre since the era of Bach and, truth be told, I am not referring exclusively to the use of counterpoint in vocal music but, above all, to the use Brahms made of it in his piano variations and also, for example, in his Fourth Symphony.

But, I repeat, we are well off-topic, and if you or others want to talk about it, it seems more logical to open a new one on this subject.

danielescarpetti wrote:

Regarding Opus 74 no. 1, I could tell you that all critics consider it the greatest work of this genre from Bach's era

To tell the truth, I do not know the opinion of the critics but - based on my experience - I find that a page like Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen über dir - to stay within the same genre - is certainly superior to it: and, in this case, not only from a technical point of view. But I agree: by now I am completely off topic!

Interesting discussion and I think that all of us are attracted to a multiple variety of interests, including musical ones, and certainly some are preferred by us over others; therefore, Mozart must have also had preferences in taste, a propensity or a drive towards a certain genre and instrument, or could one define him as a musical polymath above any preference for genre and instrument? I would like to compare your thoughts. Mozart wrote a multitude of "pieces," all or many masterpieces, but in your opinion, what did Mozart prefer? What would he have preferred to listen to if he had a record player at the time? For example, I listen almost exclusively to classical music (not that Allevi or Einaudi stuff... they bore me and please don't scold me, those are just tastes and choices). I play the piano, but when I hear a violin, I stop and think of the divine!