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What makes Mozart's music so great?

24K views 149 replies 53 participants last post by  DavidA 
#1 ·
I know there have been lots of similar threads, but I wanted to post one in the Music theory for a more technical perspective. Let's keep this strictly nerdy and cut out the sentimental "voice of God" nonsense. It may be impossible (and some might argue detrimental to dissect music like that, but those shouldn't probably hang around Music Theory form), but we can try. Ironically though I am very much a fan, I find it almost easier to "argue" that it's not that great.

I think Septimal posted somewhere a fairly technical explanation about Mozart's greatness but I don't remember where.
 
#2 ·
Wolfgang, being an egalitarian sort of fellow, wanted to write music where no tone gained precedence over any other. He proposed doing this by a system where no tone could be repeated until the other eleven had been heard.

Leopold, who was distinctly old-fashioned, put his foot down. The rest is history.

However, when Leopold's back was turned, he did invent a method of writing aleatoric or "chance" music. (this part is true...)
 
#8 ·
Charles Rosen is poetic about how he feels what makes Mozart great:

Perhaps no composer used the seductive physical power of music with the intensity and range of Mozart. The flesh is corrupt and corrupting. Behind Kierkegaard's essay on Don Giovanni stands the idea that music is a sin: it seems fundamentally sound that he should have chosen Mozart as the most sinful composer of all. What is most extraordinary about Mozart's style is the combination of physical delight - a sensuous play of sonority, an indulgence in the most luscious harmonic sequences - with a purity and economy of line and form that render the seduction all the more efficient.
 
#10 ·
Mozart music isn't really poppy kind of tuneful though. His movements typically don't have the kind of big tune analogous to a "chorus" in a pop song (even though sometimes classical music does have those, like the opening tune of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto for example).
 
#14 ·
Mozart is a strange composer, I think. I came to him late. I had been exposed to his music as a child (my dad certainly had a recording of Eine kleine Nachtmusik and the Jupiter symphony) but found it too 'nice' and not interesting enough. He just didn't grab my attention.

It was the Requiem that first interested me, though I don't think that's a typical work. The piano concertos now...there's something 'perfect' about them; they seem to meet a sort of musical 'golden ratio'. Every note is somehow inevitable and just so; harmonies are lush and the melodic inventiveness is such that that there are always fresh ideas arriving: things never get stale.

I know the piano sonatas, string quartets and quintets and some of the violin sonatas best these days - all the mature works seem to have this 'effortless', 'just right' quality. It's very skilled work, but not musically adventurous or challenging from today's perspective, and given the choice of one pre-20th century composer only to listen to for ever more on a desert island, I would probably choose Beethoven, Bach père or even Schumann. But I'd always come back to listen to more Mozart, given the choice.
 
#15 ·
I know there have been lots of similar threads, but I wanted to post one in the Music theory for a more technical perspective. Let's keep this strictly nerdy and cut out the sentimental "voice of God" nonsense. It may be impossible (and some might argue detrimental to dissect music like that, but those shouldn't probably hang around Music Theory form), but we can try. Ironically though I am very much a fan, I find it almost easier to "argue" that it's not that great.

I think Septimal posted somewhere a fairly technical explanation about Mozart's greatness but I don't remember where.
Did you mean this post? It talks a lot about interaction between opposite categories, motion vs. non-motion, texture 1 vs. texture 2, all both running alongside each other and interacting with each other.

Some people find Mozart cliche, probably because of the balanced phrasing, the half cadences or imperfect cadences, and the long cadential "padding" at the end of sections. But for me, those elements are (part of) what makes him so good! They give the medium/large scale harmonic motion of a movement a distinct identity and grace.

As far as Mozart's counterpoint goes, remember that it's usually a different kind of counterpoint from the imitative/canonic/fugal counterpoint. Of course, Mozart could write that kind of Bachian counterpoint, see the finales to the G major quartet, the D major quintet, the 19th piano concerto, or of course the Jupiter.

But more important than that (not to mention an extremely effective bassline rhythm and melodic inner voices, even if slow) is a slow counterpoint between textures. Take the opening of the 27th piano concerto. The strings have a melodic texture. Then, the winds play a dotted rhythm descending arpeggio B flat -> F -> D. This happens again.

Then, the strings play a melody one more time, and full cadencing. But note: that wind arpeggio, especially from ending on the "weak" note D rather than the tonic note B flat, still has to be resolved! It's an independent entity, that progressed with the strings in parallel, that requires resolution too. In other words, two textures are progressing at the same time, resolving the needs each other.

And how is this wind arpeggio that I mentioned resolved? By the whole orchestra. The strings, where the first violins play a higher D with that very dotted rhythm, into a descending scale and full cadence, and the viola/cello play a dotted F, into a common perfect cadential pattern. The flutes then play that dotted F and go up to B flat, descending into cadence as the violins.

Only with such outwardly simple materials could Mozart achieve such a grammar of interaction of textural opposites, tonic and dominant opposites, rhythmic opposites, and others. But because music CD pamphlets tend to ignore these strengths and focus on how Mozart was proto-Beethoven or proto-romantic (really?), or how he was very chromatic for his time (This is true, but it's not completely right because there are chromaticisms that Haydn would do in his expositions that Mozart wouldn't dare do, and it begs the question: why wasn't Mozart even more chromatic? And why do we still like the music of his that's quite diatonic? It turns out that these basic grammatical elements would be marred if Mozart did more chromaticism than he did.), or how "perfect" his music is (which doesn't help).

And, finally, as Mahlerian said, the irregular groupings of bar counts: these are largely possible (as are the textural shifts) because of such grounding in tonic and dominant. if Mozart was too "out there" harmonically, his music would be much worse.
 
#28 ·
I'm sick of zombies and 4'33" jokes...
 
#29 · (Edited)
I just got through listening to Mozart's early sonatas for violin and harpsichord, K. 6-9. The one in G reminds me of the Sonata in A major, done much later.
This leads me to surmise that part of his greatness might be due to the fact that he was taught so early and intensely that music was virtually "hardwired" into him.

Check this out at 9:37 and compare it to the familiar Sonata in A major.

 
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#31 ·
John Cage might say that "the ego" is just a zombie.

Christianity says that these bodies are not the real 'us,' and that we will all get new bodies in Heaven.

In this sense, we are all zombies.

And then there was the unfortunate case back in the 60s of the guy on LSD who realized he was just a zombie, and jumped off a building.
 
#35 · (Edited)
John Cage might say that "the ego" is just a zombie.

Christianity says that these bodies are not the real 'us,' and that we will all get new bodies in Heaven.

In this sense, we are all zombies.

And then there was the unfortunate case back in the 60s of the guy on LSD who realized he was just a zombie, and jumped off a building.
Actually that's not what Christianity says! Our bodies are part of the 'real us' until we leave this life and after that we will be given new bodies. St Paul says, 'We eagerly await the redemption of our body' but that doesn't mean the body is not part of the real us in this life. I mean, when I hit my finger with a hammer the body is very much part of the real me!
 
#32 · (Edited)
I've always heard about Mozart being a master of harmony but to my ears he sound quite simple.
Recently I've heard this interview with Ed Bickert who's one of my favorite jazz guitarists ever, and who's known for his sophisticated approach to harmony (actually he's not so out there like I don't know, Joe Diorio or Ben Monder) and at a certain point (3:20 in the video) he said that after many decades when he was interested in discovering interesting harmonies he started to listen to "very basic stuff like Mozart" ("the harmonies there were very basic" he adds).
http://www.jazzguitarlessons.net/getting-a-thrill-from-harmony-and-arrangers-ed-bickert-interviews-part-2/
So I wonder who's right about it, Bernstein or Bickert?
I mean, sure you can say it's simple for a guy listening in 2016 to see that music made in the eighteen century is not that harmonically complex, but when I listen to Gesualdo, or certain things made by Bach or other guys I still hear their music as much more harmonically interesting, I don't have the sensation of "very basic" that like Bickert I hear in Mozart (besides certain things like the quartet of dissonances or few other novelties).
 
#33 · (Edited)
Take a look at one of Mozart's most famous melodies:



Starts off very simple, of course. I-V7, V7-I in the key of F major. Could anything be less complex? Well, note even then the complementary use of chromatic voice leading and also the three bar phrases. One would expect a continuation in the same or a similar vein, but what follows is completely unexpected and destroys all of the regularity we had come to expect. The 4-bar continuation ends up in the parallel minor, emphasizing this with a V9 chord, the minor ninth of which is held for an entire bar. A circuitous phrase around this area of F minor continues for 5 bars, filled with suspensions and dissonances. Normalcy is restored, but not immediately, as we return with a pair of complementary 3-bar phrases, one ending on vi and the other on I, but in a very different fashion each time. D minor is reached via a diminished seventh chord on a weak beat, while we approach I through a V7-I cadence on a strong beat.

I (1 bar intro)
I-V7 (3 bars)
V7-I (3 bars)
V/IV-IV-viio7/V-i6/4 (4 bars)
Vm9-i6/4-V7-i6/4-V7 (5 bars)
I6-ii6-V7-viio7/vi-vi (3 bars)
I6-ii6-V7-I (3 bars)

The discussion of phrase lengths may seem superfluous when talking about harmony, but music is heard in time and harmonies heard in relation to musical context, so it's significant that the furthest digressions in this melody are emphasized with differing phrase lengths.
 
#38 ·
I think the Piano Concertos are the best stuff he did.
 
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#40 ·
I like Mozart because he knows how to treat a diminished chord: like a diminished chord, not a friggin' b9 dominant like beethoven!
 
#43 ·
mozart's music is not for everyone at all times. I came to him late because I preferred more turbulent stuff at first- scriabin, ravel, liszt, prokofiev, and then the atonal composers. But After I got out all of that tension pain i realized that mozart made me super super happy and euphoric. Sometimes you just have to be in a different place in your life to be able to appreciate certain artists. At first I thought mozart sounded downright stupid. Now I think he's one of the most magnificently witty and lyrical and beautiful composers there ever was. And also one of the most exciting to listen to. It can't be the only thing I listen to. after a while I need a rest from all the zippyness.
 
#44 · (Edited)
Ha ha! As Townes van Zandt said, "There's the blues, and there's Zip-Ah-Dee-Doo-Dah."

Mozart was operating in a "system" where things were done a certain way. This is part of what is meant by "Classicism" to me.
So I look at his work in that light, and try to see the craftsmanship, always impeccable, and the ideas. When he uses diminished chords, I see that he is "straining at the bit."

I wish that he had been more of a "free agent" like Bach, who I see as much more harmonically radical and chromatic, even though he was earlier Baroque.

I think Mozart was operating "under restraints" of his situation. He did not occupy a crucial era of a changing paradigm in music, but rather a less mannered "classical" period of restraint and "keeping up the status quo." This must be due to historical and political forces in play during his time, don't you think?
 
#46 ·
I think a large part of my problem with Mozart is that he is largely homophonic in his approach, I suppose from writing so much opera. He's thinking in terms of a single-line of singing, and whatever counter-voices are in there seem to be going according to a blocked-out harmonic scheme of chord progressions, and are really not as independent as in, say, Bach. And he was not very harmonically daring; a melody note goes where it is supposed to go, harmonically, without any surprises, like you'd find in Wagner, where the singer might hit a note that changes the harmony, makes it go to a distant chord, etc. But I suppose that's an unfair comparison; but I find Bach more daring.
 
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#56 ·
I think a large part of my problem with Mozart is that he is largely homophonic in his approach, I suppose from writing so much opera. He's thinking in terms of a single-line of singing, and whatever counter-voices are in there seem to be going according to a blocked-out harmonic scheme of chord progressions, and are really not as independent as in, say, Bach. And he was not very harmonically daring; a melody note goes where it is supposed to go, harmonically, without any surprises, like you'd find in Wagner, where the singer might hit a note that changes the harmony, makes it go to a distant chord, etc. But I suppose that's an unfair comparison; but I find Bach more daring.
You really listening to the same guy I am?
 
#47 ·
this is (among other pieces) why I like Mozart:



abundant yet dignified

powerful yet joyful with just a slight touch of melancholy.

Can someone point out the key features of this piece musicologically? I've read somewhere that he uses a lot of chromatism, does he use it in this piece too? I haven't had a musical education but I'm happy to learn!

To me his genius is in his chamber music.

Hard to get back to my Debussy edition after listening to this abundance :)
 
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