Organization: York University
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.allmusic
Date:         Fri, 16 Oct 1992 01:35:53 EDT
From:         MMORSE@YORKVM1.BITNET
Subject:      Re: Classical Music Poll - part III

Dear Ken,
 Thank you for your shrewd and perceptive reply, and for raising this
whole problem. (And I hope we're not gonna bore the bejesus out of the
list; ah well, fuckem if they can't take a joke.)
 Please let me take your points in slightly revised order:
1. The "sustained" musical thought. Though of course the B minor Mass and
Beethoven's Ninth are sustained thoughts on a staggering scale, I was
referring to the opera as a whole, but also to the individual *act* as a
unit; in Don Giovanni, for instance, both acts are close to 90 minutes,
and, number-division or no, very much organized as entire dramatic experiences.
Even the passions and masses do not present genuinely equivalent problems and,
therefore, do not offer the kinds of solution presented by Verdi, Mozart,
Berg, or Wagner. Believe me, I'm not trying to offer some idiotic "size
counts!" argument, but point to the kinds of inherent and necessary accomp-
lishments required to "bring off" the two acts of Don Giovanni, or the
three of Tristan, as well as their correlation. In my understanding, the
whole approach to the organization of musical time is different. Take the
reprise of the overture to Don Giovanni in the appearance of the Commendatore,
or, similarly, the reprise with a dramatically different outcome of the
Tristan-Isolde duet in act II in the Liebestod of act III; is there any
equivalent large-scale, gross correspondence in the B minor Mass or the
Messiah? I think not. This, again, does NOT make the stage works "superior"
or "oh-wow-man-heavier" than the sacred pieces, but suggests the peculiar
intensity of the problems involved in organizing dramatic music (which of
course in the larger sense INCLUDES Bach and Handel; the great wisecrack
is that Handel succeeded, once he realized that the English like their opera
without costumes) for the stage demanded especially imaginative solutions.
2. Among these "solutions," of course, are the dazzling dissonances of Don
Giovanni, Fidelio, Tristan, and Wozzeck.  But, you say, aren't Bach (and
Telemann) also formidable harmonic innovators? Let me suggest an even more
radical harmonic adventurer, one whose greatest successes, we feel today,
lie offstage: Haydn. I'm not going to argue that Haydn is a great operatic
composer; he is, clearly, a great harmonic thinker. Thus, what I *would*
argue is that Haydn's profound skill was in translating the drama of buffa
and serioso to the media of string quartet, symphony, and (later in life)
oratorio and mass. In a blunt and simple paradox, Haydn's greatest achieve-
ments as an operatic composer were instrumental.. the sound ideal is vocal;
just as Charlie Parker's  saxophone playing is based in (eg) Bessie Smith
as a model, so Haydn's quartets take the operatic voice (in sound, compass,
and organization) as their paradigm. Though the level of abstraction here
is, I admit, broad, consider the following: it is customary to praise the
slow movements of classical quartets for their "lyrical" quality; rightly
so. Where do you think the *model* of lyricism came from? To take an example
from the spur of the moment, compare Haydn's opus 76/#3 quartet, second
movement, with "Porgi Amor" from Nozze di Figaro. The Haydn melody is
of course well known as the Austrian/German national anthem, and formally
treated as a basis for variations in the quartet. It has obvious and
deliberate connections to folk/popular practice, BUT: so, too, does "Porgi
Amor," and for *the same reason*: the operatic stage was the general
clearing house for ALL varieties of musical thinking, including "folk"-
style tunes (cf. Papageno's tunes in the Magic Flute). Thus the argument
is not that opera *caused* the string quartet or symphony, but rather that
it provided the fundamental secular models of tension and release, of
melodic beauty, of emotionally meaningful sound, and of economy of con-
struction. As you allude to in your reply, the symphony as a form is a
fabulously elaborated stepchild of the operatic overture. But, as I'm
sure you also know, so too are the formal constructions and bases of musical
thinking which, thanks to Beethoven, we think of as exclusively instrumental
in character and origin: the variation, rondo, sonata, etc. It is in fact
beyond dispute that these "forms" of musical thinking are nothing other
than instrumental adaptations (albeit sometimes extensively so, as in
Haydn and Beethoven) of operatic practice (see the New Grove articles on
"aria," "sonata," etc.).
3. You say that sonata and concerto don't owe anything to opera, nor do
suite, and "of course" mass:
  a. to begin with the latter, have a listen to any of Mozart's masses,
and also the late masses of Haydn; even if you hear these as somehow
"primarily" symphonic (eg in some wild contradistinction to "operatic"),
that still folds them into the *formal* field of operatic influence;
  b. for the concerto: consider either of Bach's double concerti (for
2 violins in d minor, oboe & violin in C minor/d minor); is it even
POSSIBLE to hear the slow movements of these pieces without immediately
recognizing the (instrumental) protagonists as characters in dialogue?
Of course, liturgical music had itself offered a version of dialogue
(ie antiphony) for a millenium before Bach; but, if somehow obliged to
choose between sacred and secular (which one should NOT be in music; the
opposition is moronic, finally), which seems more the model for these
concerti?
  c. the heavily dance-based suite is, I agree, at the farthest pole from
stage music; but, so too is it removed from church music, even more so;
in fact, however, opera had for its part begun to "co-opt" dance rhythms
and musical thinking from the very beginning (cf. the final "Moresca" from
Monteverdi's Orfeo), so that, even by Bach's time, the distinction is not
as well anchored as one might think; that is, if the suite owed very little to
opera, bu Bach's time opera owed a very great deal to the dance resources of
the suite, so much so that it could be rather difficult to assign "property
rights" for particular rhythms.
(To be continued, if the rest of the list doesn't try to kill us.)
Cheers,
Michael
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