https://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2020/03/beethoven-canonic-iconoclast.html
What I was doing in the post was contrasting Beethoven, at the core of the classical music canon, with Mendelssohn, a composer whose position seems to be sinking a bit, and Shostakovich, a composer who is rising in the musical world's estimation. My commentators presented some statistics on the one hand, showing that Mendelssohn is performed quite a lot, and with some words in support of Mendelssohn's piano concertos and of Hummel, a rather neglected composer. Let's set Hummel to one side for now and look at the piano concertos of Mendelssohn alongside those of Beethoven.
But before getting into that, I want to briefly note that mere statistics of how often a composer is performed can be deceiving. As I said in my comment, it is where and by whom that is more important. For example, when Leonard Bernstein conducted the Symphony No. 9 of Beethoven on the occasion of the falling of the Berlin wall, that was acknowledgement that Beethoven, and that work in particular, is at the heart of Western musical culture. When Igor Levit, one of the most promising young pianists today, made his recording debut on Sony he chose to record all five of the Beethoven late piano sonatas. This coming summer, the Salzburg Festival is programming all of the Beethoven piano concertos in one mammoth concert--oh, and Levit is playing all the sonatas in a series of eight recitals. Sure, this is partly because of the Beethoven 250th anniversary. But programming all the sonatas, or all the string quartets, or all the symphonies is not that unusual in a serious European festival. When I was there as a student they had the Alban Berg Quartet playing all the string quartets in a series of concerts and it wasn't any kind of anniversary.
Mendelssohn does not get the same attention. Yes, during 2009, the 200th anniversary of his birth, there was some celebration--a performance of the rarely-heard Symphony No. 2 "Lobgesang" at the 2009 Proms, for example, and a conference at Oxford University. But, very telling, the conference was devoted not just to Mendelssohn, but to four composers who all had an anniversary that year:
This conference combined a consideration of four major composers Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn. Each composer had a relevant anniversary in 2009 – Purcell, 350 years after birth; Handel, 250 years after death; Haydn, 200 years after death; and Mendelssohn, 200 years after birth...Let's get to the music. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Here is the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Mendelssohn with Stephen Hough and the Radio Philharmonic:
Let's put that alongside the Piano Concerto No. 1 by Beethoven, here played by Krystian Zimerman and the Vienna Philharmonic:
Now, try and remember the opening theme of the Mendelssohn. No? I think that the most salient element in a really outstanding piece of music is its individuality and hence its memorability. Sorry to say, but the Mendelssohn seems almost generic next to the Beethoven. The pianist is playing a forest of notes, but to little effect. Is this just my subjective impression? Do you agree? I don't want to sit down and start analyzing the scores and I think that we can easily hear the difference. How about a different pair of concertos? Here is Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 2:
And Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3, chosen because it is also in a minor key:
Hm, well, more of the same. Undistinguished music from Mendelssohn and really memorable themes from Beethoven. But don't take my word for it. Here is what Robert Schumann had to say about the Mendelssohn:
This concerto, to be sure, will offer virtuosos little in which to show off their monstrous dexterity. Mendelssohn gives them almost nothing to do that they have not already done a hundred times before. We have often heard them complain about it. And not unjustly! ...One will ask how it compares with his First Concerto. It's the same, and yet not the same; the same because it comes from the same practised master hand, different because it comes ten years later. Sebastian Bach is discernible in the harmonization. The rest, melody, form and instrumentation are all Mendelssohn.
"This conference combined a consideration of ... Purcell, Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn ... " and every last one of those composers wrote far better choral music than Beethoven ever wrote.
ReplyDeleteI get how if the point of comparison was concerti Beethoven would seem more substantial but in terms of choral music most choral singers I've known in my life have not hesitated to say Felix was the vastly better choral composer.
The one area that Beethoven was weak in was the human voice. Indeed, his choral writing was always awkward. I wouldn't disagree that these four composers all wrote better for choir than Beethoven.
ReplyDeleteI think the term that is most useful here is breadth or perhaps amplitude. The central artists in the canon almost always have either an epic work or consensus masterworks in a variety of major forms. So Machaut wrote monophonic and polyphonic songs and the first unified Mass, Dufay, Josquin, Ockeghem wrote great songs, motets and masses. Going forward the same applies. So lesser artists can have masterworks but if non epic or in mostly just a few genres they seem a secondary part of the canon. Francois Couperin and Chopin would be examples of that as would quite a few others. But these are not what I would call fringe figures either. Opera is the only musical genre where one can be a specialist and still central. I'm not sure why that is if the operas aren't epic such as Wagner.
ReplyDeleteAnother one is Domenico Scarlatti: one instrument, one genre. At least Chopin wrote in different genres for piano! Opera composers might be the exception because the opera itself is such an all-encompassing form: vocal, instrumental, drama and so on.
ReplyDeleteYes, opera is the tradition where you have to master everything else in the concert music and vocal traditions to make even a single contribution. That would ensure that if the opera has any success at all the composer who writes the opera makes it into the "central" or "influential" category. That could be why Hindemith, whose operas were "meh" at best (and I say that as a Hindemith fan) was less central than Berg, whose operas are riveting or Shostakovich or Bartok (Bluebird's Castle is great).
ReplyDeleteThe consensus masters who didn't write an opera or didn't write a successful opera really often seemed to master everything else that could lead up to that. Bach and Haydn spring to mind. They didn't write operas but the Passions and the Creation oratorios are just about there, for instance. If you master enough of the other idioms your operatic or vocal works can be lame but, like Beethoven, you're still "in".
a figure like Chopin gets me thinking about how he mainly wrote piano music but the innovations he introduced were far-reaching enough on other composers he became important even though there were doubts as to how "significant" he was in his lifetime.
ReplyDeleteI kind of think that every great composer is exceptional in some way, which is largely why they are great. Yes, Chopin stands out from the herd of piano composers because of his exceptional innovations in structure and expression.
ReplyDeleteHaydn actually wrote a bunch of operas, but none of them have made it into the repertory (yet?)
True, haydn wrote operas but they don't seem to have been particularly successful and some of the operas attributed to him may not have been written by him (The Burning House, for instance, which the Seattle puppet theater presented years ago that I wanted to see but jobless people can't attend a marionnete opera show) if they can't spend money on tickets.
ReplyDeleteHaydn is one of a host of composers whose operas are not performed today. As we have seen revivals of Rameau and some others, maybe Haydn will see a comeback.
ReplyDeleteI'm in favor of a Haydn comeback. :)
ReplyDelete