Even Mozart Said So...

Carlos wrote:

despite genius not being the subject I was thinking of when opening this topic

Ok, probably by reading other posts I have "misunderstood"

Anyway, I understood what you mean

Frank, you certainly know more about the subject than I do. But I read your intervention as if it were a supplement. Did you want to refute or clarify some of the things I said?

Anyway, the clarifications on pietism are fundamental, in my opinion, to understanding what I meant regarding the difference between enjoyment and composition. The idea that a sacred cantata was a reflection of the faithful on the biblical message was innovative (within the limits of the chronology provided by Frank), in the same way that the devotional sanctity of Italian oratorios was innovative, in an embryonic way with the first ones and in a theatrical way with the masses, requiems, and stabat maters that would follow. Sanctity between the 1600s and 1700s changes progressively. If the Lutheran Reformation and the Tridentine Counter-Reformation had initially led to a purification of the liturgy, what went out through the door came back in through the window, namely through devotion (which, if we want to be schematic, is different from liturgy). Now, if we want to understand what "sacred" means in Bach's era, we should also understand this. We are not talking about the numbers of the Sistine Chapel singing Palestrina, we are not talking about the beating choirs of San Marco, of cathedrals and theologians. But even Handel's oratorios were probably sung and played with greater splendor. Let us be careful not to insert OUR concept of the sacred into Bach's music, which is, as Hegel said, the night in which all cows are black, i.e., a cauldron into which we are used to throwing everything... A mass by Vivaldi, a cantata by Bach, and a Grand Motet by De Lalande are all three sacred but have disconcerting differences between them.

thallo wrote:

Frank, you certainly know more than I do about this subject. But I read your intervention as if it were a supplement. Did you want to refute or clarify some of the things I said?

... let's say supplement and clarify?

thallo wrote:

the clarifications on pietism are fundamental, in my opinion, to understand what I meant regarding the difference between enjoyment and composition.

From my point of view, I felt the lack of exactly this fundamental premise and a bit of chronology. Anyway, we are a bit OT, I wouldn't want Carlos to make us run

Very interesting thread... luckily it was linked from another discussion