Comments on: Haydn is a slow infiltration (and how to tell him apart from Mozart) http://classicalconvert.com/2007/11/haydn-is-a-slow-infiltration-and-how-to-tell-him-apart-from-mozart/ A beginners guide to classical music, by someone who switched at 23 Mon, 21 May 2012 05:15:01 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Ben http://classicalconvert.com/2007/11/haydn-is-a-slow-infiltration-and-how-to-tell-him-apart-from-mozart/comment-page-1/#comment-1988 Ben Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:21:34 +0000 http://classicalconvert.com/2007/11/haydn-is-a-slow-infiltration-and-how-to-tell-him-apart-from-mozart/#comment-1988 Jon: I know what you mean. This is the first time so far that any of the classical stuff has really struck me, or at least started to strike me perhaps. It doesn't have much of an emotional impact. JF: I should expand my Mozartian collection - I'm certainly intrigued by the dissonant quartet, I think i've heard it mentioned as one of the somewhat surprising examples of early dissonance (along with Beethoven's "Grosse Fugue") Jon:

I know what you mean. This is the first time so far that any of the classical stuff has really struck me, or at least started to strike me perhaps. It doesn’t have much of an emotional impact.

JF:

I should expand my Mozartian collection – I’m certainly intrigued by the dissonant quartet, I think i’ve heard it mentioned as one of the somewhat surprising examples of early dissonance (along with Beethoven’s “Grosse Fugue”)

]]> By: JF http://classicalconvert.com/2007/11/haydn-is-a-slow-infiltration-and-how-to-tell-him-apart-from-mozart/comment-page-1/#comment-1959 JF Wed, 28 Nov 2007 11:24:50 +0000 http://classicalconvert.com/2007/11/haydn-is-a-slow-infiltration-and-how-to-tell-him-apart-from-mozart/#comment-1959 Technically, a giveaway is that in his mature music, Mozart writes much more chromatically than Haydn. The introduction to the Dissonant Quartet is a notorious example, but again and again there are prominent lines that include all the semitones, such as the music for the commendatore's death in "Don Giovanni," the finales of the quintet K.593 and quartet K.464, and too many others to mention. Plus any number of thematic and transitional phrases, dissonant harmonies, etc. For me anyway, this quality gives Mozart's music a quite different emotional color from Haydn's, more complex, varied, and ambiguous. It's one reason why Mozart was by far the greater opera composer, but it's everywhere in the music of his last 10 years and more. Technically, a giveaway is that in his mature music, Mozart writes much more chromatically than Haydn. The introduction to the Dissonant Quartet is a notorious example, but again and again there are prominent lines that include all the semitones, such as the music for the commendatore’s death in “Don Giovanni,” the finales of the quintet K.593 and quartet K.464, and too many others to mention. Plus any number of thematic and transitional phrases, dissonant harmonies, etc.

For me anyway, this quality gives Mozart’s music a quite different emotional color from Haydn’s, more complex, varied, and ambiguous. It’s one reason why Mozart was by far the greater opera composer, but it’s everywhere in the music of his last 10 years and more.

]]> By: JonJ http://classicalconvert.com/2007/11/haydn-is-a-slow-infiltration-and-how-to-tell-him-apart-from-mozart/comment-page-1/#comment-1890 JonJ Thu, 22 Nov 2007 18:10:18 +0000 http://classicalconvert.com/2007/11/haydn-is-a-slow-infiltration-and-how-to-tell-him-apart-from-mozart/#comment-1890 I've always had trouble telling them apart, but that may be because I'm rather apathetic about that period in European music anyway. A horrible thing to confess, but my taste tends to jump from Bach to Beethoven and settle down pretty much from then on. Perhaps it's the aristocratic tinge that 18th century music tends to have--a lot of it was subsidized by the nobility, and it sounds like it. However, both Haydn and Mozart were somewhat unsympathetic to the nobility also, so there is something of the common man and woman in their music. I tend to prefer Haydn because of his "rusticity." I’ve always had trouble telling them apart, but that may be because I’m rather apathetic about that period in European music anyway. A horrible thing to confess, but my taste tends to jump from Bach to Beethoven and settle down pretty much from then on. Perhaps it’s the aristocratic tinge that 18th century music tends to have–a lot of it was subsidized by the nobility, and it sounds like it.

However, both Haydn and Mozart were somewhat unsympathetic to the nobility also, so there is something of the common man and woman in their music. I tend to prefer Haydn because of his “rusticity.”

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