On 12 Jan 2007 at 4:07, Kim Patrick Clow wrote: > On 1/11/07, David W. Fenton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > quoting me: > > > > 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 > > David replied: > > > I think you're running off the rails here. The whole idea of "who > > did what first" is a discredited, 19th-century style of approaching > > music. It's not innovations that keep music from being boring -- > > it's much more a matter of having musical materials and processes in > > the piece of music that hold our interest. > > Remember: I asked Johannes why he thought so many find early or > "preclassical" music boring. Then I made a personal observation on a > fallacy: that simply because later composers were writing in the > preclassical period, that music was somehow more "modern" than the > baroque, or that the music was "more interesting." The liner notes to > the CPO Benda disc go to great lengths giving examples of how music > never really developed in a linear fashion (you agreed with this > notion later in your reply). My personal research with Graupner was > showing this to be true, with the examples I gave. I believe > Graupner's music is interesting because, well, it is. Of course, > YMWV.
That's very different from what I responded to, in which all your examples were of the "who did it first" type. > > Anyway, the whole point is that "who did it first" is only > > meaningful when you know 100% of the music composed, and that's > > never going to happen, so it's completely stupid and hopeless to > > ever worry about it. > > Boy, I'm really glad you don't teach history ;) But I do! And I just make sure I avoid a pseudo-evolutionary approach to it. Each composer has stylistic aspects that stand out and help students recognize the music. That to me is more important that cross- composer comparisons (except for contrasts that help one distinguish composers working in a similar style). I don't really think the kind of synthesis aimed at by the "who did it first" types has much of a place in a music history class. You don't teach the conclusions before you teach the evidence, and you can do the latter with much more useful framing to draw it into a coherent whole for the students. > > I don't know that Mozart's youthful music was praised except as the > > achievement of a child, basically a trained monkey ... > > Really? That's not the words Hasse used when he wrote about Mozart > and the opera "Ascano in Alba," Hasse stated "This boy will cause the > rest of us to be forgotten." Remember, Hasse was the leading opera > writer of that time; and had been to just about all the large centers > of music in Europe. Er, that was 1771, *after* the period I explicitly identified (I said I was talking about Mozart's pre-teen music, especially the pre-1770 compositions), so the "child" comments don't really apply. There's no question by the time Mozart was 15 he was writing sophisticated adult music. But before the age of 10, I don't believe that to be the case, and that's what I was saying in the quote above. > And if you look at what Mozart did to J.C. Bach's sonatas when he > turned them into harpsichord concerti, the musical form of the pieces > were improved. [they weren't all by JC Bach] No, they were simply transformed to match the changed genre. That's the kind of basic musical training that all musicians got. The ever- reviled Süssmayer was actually a rather talented arranger, despite his modern reputation as a talentless hack. The art of arrangement is, I think, a prerequisite to composition and was used as preparatory study up until the 20th century, when the traditional music curriculum was basically abandoned (as it moved from an apprenticeship type of model for training to a modern academic model). Those concerto arrangements are nothing more than the young Mozart demonstrating that he could do this kind of transformation from one genre to another. > Not bad work for a 'trained monkey.' On more than one > occasion, While I wouldn't say there aren't small turns of art in the transformation of the sonatas, I think that, overall, it *is* the kind of thing you could give a talented music student, along with the appropriate instructions, and come up with something reasonable. Reworking existing material into a related genre is not at all the same level of difficulty as composing artful music from scratch. This is why I'm more of an arranger than a composer -- I am better at transforming someone else's ideas than I am at developing my own. > it was suggested that Mozart's father was the real > composer; While Leopold was a better composer than he is often given credit for (most of his works that are known to the modern audience are not his best at all), he was no genius. He was a good craftsman, but his works didn't often rise beyond the competent. > and there are several accounts of Mozart being locked up in > a room with just paper and ink to make sure that indeed there was no > funny business going on. A stunt for a trained monkey. It really has nothing at all to do with the essential musical gift that Mozart possessed. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
