Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> I was joking in part, but really, I'm with Adorno, it's all about
> development, which is why Beethoven's so great. When I hear Mozart I
> hear pleasant tunes, but not much to chew on. I don't think he'd have
> been Bach, if he'd lived 70 years earlier; more likely Vivaldi.
In his own day he was considered by many "dissonant" and hard to understand. A lot of the "tinkle" of Mozart has to do with the way he's played.
The chewing in Mozart has to do with the organic wholeness of the compositions. They are extraordinary architecturally, from beginning to end. And he writes the most beautiful and interesting andantes of any composer.
Beethoven keeps promising big, big things, but he doesn't really deliver. When I listen to him I hear stuff like "the pen of my aunt is blue; blue is the pen of my aunt; my aunt has a blue pen; a pen that is blue has my aunt." When I listen to Mozart I hear the most engrossing musical development I have ever heard - a development in which it is impossible to untangle to content from the form -- the idea from the medium.
I grant however that Beethoven can do this too in his symphonies, and I really need to give his chamber music more attention.
As for Vivaldi: Bach was totally in love with him and thought so highly of him that he transposed a lot of his music for the organ. On the whole German music benefitted enormously from Italian influence -- for example, Vivaldi's influence on Bach, and the Italian opera's influence on Mozart.
Joanna