On 1/11/07, Johannes Gebauer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
The problem with pre-classical and early classical music is quite complex. There are very good reasons why we find a lot of that music boring today.
Could you list some of those reasons? I've always been curious how the "preclassical" music was able to become the musical rage of the time, because in many ways-- it seems so boring compared to what was going on in the baroque. My work on Christoph Graupner's music reinforces this hunch, because in many ways, his sinfonias are more interesting than sinfonias that were being written just a few years later in Vienna. And while all the Viennese composers get credit for their innovations using wind instruments in the symphony, Graupner was doing it consistently decades earlier (in the baroque). Haydn's use of timpani and brass in a slow movement in the late 1780s set the musical world reeling (see H.C. Robbins Landon's discussion about this); but Graupner was using that innovative technique as early as 1730. Graupner was also using tympani solos to make thematic statements in a symphony (Beethoven typically gets credit for that with the 9th). So here you have specific instances of compositional techniques that were "invented" during the baroque; skip the "early preclassical" only to be picked up at the end of the classical period or romantic periods. There is a wonderful Benda harpsichord SACD on CPO. And the liner notes talk about this notion specifically-- there was never really any single block of compositional technique in place in 18th century Europe: ideas about the forms and how to compose would come and go. Some of these would influence other composers; and the technique would have a unbroken line of use. Other techniques could be developed by a composer, then only die out, never used again. Comments about early Mozart being "boring": I do find it interesting that the most cosmopolitan and jaded composers from the 18th century, who no doubt heard compositions of many other composers, always describe the young Mozart's music in very complimentary terms. And you never see the word "boring" used. Thanks for an interesting discussion! Kim Patrick Clow _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
