[hammeredklavier]

It just can't be right. January covers music from chant to popular and art songs to dramatic settings to multiple part organum to polyphonic motets and mass cycles. Classical style is basically Mozart and Haydn and a handful of also rans like Boccherini. You're going to get nothing significant out of January and be bored to tears in from 1 April to 30 June.

• January - Medieval & Renaissance music
• February - Baroque & Classical
• March - Romantic
• April - Modern
• May - Modern
• June - Modern
• July - Modern
• August - Contemporary
• September - Contemporary
• October - Contemporary
• November - Contemporary
• December - Contemporary

This is what you want, isn't it?

 

[hammeredklavier]

You know what this thread reminds me of:

Your avatar is absolutely dreadful.

H-- How absolutely... dreadfully...

 

[hammeredklavier]

I suspect the tenor part would be boring to sing for a large part of the piece, with long stretches of what seems like a pedal

 

[hammeredklavier]

I see no drone. I see a tenor.

Well, I see both. Let's just call it a DRONET or TENORD.

 

[hammeredklavier]

In the Renaissance composers definitely were aware of the chords resulting from all the parts they were writing, as is clear from the writing of theorist/composers like Gioseffo Zarlino, a student of Adrian Willaert, who wrote:
"A composition may be called truly perfect when, in every change of chord, ascending or descending, there are heard all of those consonances whose components give a variety of sound. Where such consonances are heard, the harmony is truly perfect. .......

I wish MR was here to see this.

 

[hammeredklavier]

I think Corelli was at the beginning of the most significant deterioration in the history of classical music. Classical music doesn't really thoroughly recover until the middle of the 20th century.

How? Can you elaborate on this a bit more?

 

[hammeredklavier]

I'll be in the office all day so it may work out.

You listen to music in your office, Mr? Classical music?

 

[hammeredklavier]

Vivaldi "In furore iustissimae irae"

 

[hammeredklavier]

I don't think that Bach wrote anything that sucked.

None of 18th century composers didn't adhere to the 18th century "rules of good taste". There is this rhetoric often said about Bach and Mozart "they never wrote a bad work", -but it depends on what you mean by "bad"- There's stuff people consider as "potboilers" or "juvenilia", just like other 18th century composers. But of course, there's stylistic emphasis on harmony, something Germanic composers of church background shared.

something that wasn't necessarily written as entertainment

"Bach gave the title Das Wohltemperirte Clavier to a book of preludes and fugues in all 24 keys, major and minor, dated 1722, composed "for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study"."
The purpose of the Art of the Fugue was most likely the same. Lots of 18th century composers employed by the church wrote versets (eg. look at Pasterwitz) and other similar collections of contrapuntal pieces out of necessity (for educational and recreational purposes). That was part of their tradition of profession and craftsmanship. Also, due to the Baroque idiomatic use of rhythm and dynamics in Bach, it may sound to the modern ears like it's not for "entertainment", but the same can be said about just about anything Baroque; Purcell fantasies for viols and Biber sonatas. Once you understand how a fugue or a canon from those times works, there's nothing hard to "get" (I'm not implying Bach lacks inspiration or mastery, by this). I think it's nonsensical to think Bach somehow had an "avant-garde" mindset, actually intended to write things not for "entertainment". Bach himself in his time never actually thought in that way, just like how he thought the Doctrine of the Affections was always the way to compose music; he would have thought the music of the later eras with their mood swings (involving multiple themes), for instance, as lacking focus and confusing.

A while ago MR posted a topic where he suggested Bach was critical of Rameau's theory of harmony and he suggested Bach was old fashioned in his outlook on music. I responded that Rameau's theory was a simplification of the contrapuntal approach to composition. So yes, I have basically thought this for a long time (I don't think MR does, he views counterpoint as a more old fashioned and outdated approach to music making as far as I can tell).
Perhaps this is also related to why Bach didn't write any books on composition but used his music as his teaching material.

 

[hammeredklavier]

This is kute (BWV70 opening chorus):

 

[hammeredklavier]

CPE Bach: Magnificat in D Major

Et misericordia eius

 

[hammeredklavier]

A new week and a new time period. The music from the transition from Baroque to Classical, referred to as Galant and Empfindsamkeit styles. Not to say that all of the music this week demonstrate those styles. Just that these composers are most often associated with them. So, a week of music from Carl Frederich Abel, CPE Bach, JC Bach, WF Bach, Christoph Graun, Domenico Scarlatti, Johann Stamitz, Giuseppe Tartini and the non-operatic work of Christoph Willibald Gluck - his operatic work to come in our first full opera week next week.

Also, we'll uncover a bit of the "tradition" of singspiels as we go; involving figures such as Adam Hiller (although pretty much none of his stuff has been recorded), Jiří Antonín Benda (Mozart's favorite Lutheran kapellmeister) Johann Friedrich Reichardt, Michael Haydn (though his later singspiels haven't been recorded).

Die Hochzeit auf der Alm, Schäfergedicht in 2 Aufzügen MH 107 (1768)

"Wo wahre Treue die Herzen verstrickt"

 

[hammeredklavier]

Georg Benda - Romeo und Julie (1776)
full playlist on youtube:

"Gotter's libretto eliminates many of Shakespeare's characters and most of the original play's comedic elements. It does, however, adhere to unities of time and place. Gotter's text also makes Julie the strongest and most important character in the opera, which is further reflected in Benda's score. Gotter also gave his version of Romeo and Juliet a happy ending, in accordance with operatic tradition at that time."
(In Act 3), "Romeo resolves to enter the tomb to bid a final farewell to his bride, and then to kill himself. As he is about to stab himself, Julie revives and they sing a rapturous duet of joy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romeo_und_Julie

"O, meine Julie"

"Beste, du lebest?"

 

[hammeredklavier]

There are C.P.E. Bach works I value, but with the keyboard works, I could not pass tests like this no matter how much I listened to the works. Howabout you?;

50 randomly-selected, unidentified 20-second excerpts from 50 different C.P.E. Bach keyboard sonatas (each excerpt extracted from a different work). How many can you identify?

 

[hammeredklavier]

Die Wahrheit der Natur, Ein Singspiel MH 118 (1769)

"Kann etwas Vergnügendes sein - Die Seele wird fröhlich..."

"The story of Die Wahrheit der Natur, or The Truth of Nature, revolves around Mentor's quest for true art, which here is aided by the three Graces, Aglaia (Brightness), Euphrosyne (Joyfulness) and Thalia (Bloom), the daughters of Nature. It is through this quest that they meet some more questionable characters including Herr Vollstreich, a vain master of song, and the boastful painter Herr von Wurmstich, as well as an ill-mannered schoolmaster and his wife. The comic text is from the allegorical poem by the Benedictine monk Florian Reichssiegel, which he based on antiquity and the tales of Greek mythology." -Stuart Sillitoe (musicweb-international.com)

"Bei zischenden Schrofen"

"Nimm von mir Aglaien hin! - Kritiker! Füllet mit..."

"Orpheus soll in der Mitte mit gespornter Laute sein"

"Der Trutzerl war a wackara Hund"

"Alexander und Philotas"

"Ich suche die Natur"

"Fähnium-Marche"

"Fürsten! Euch geht dieses an"

"Ich liebe das Essen"

 

[hammeredklavier]

With C.P.E.'s Wq.182, it seems to me that No.3 (with its sudden "attaca" to the slow movement) and No.5 are most popular.

 

[hammeredklavier]

Der Kampf der Buße und Bekehrung (1768)
The harmonies; "Jesu, der den Tod besiegt"

"Es ist nicht g'nug"

What I've found especially memorable about the work are the fluid juxtaposition of solos and choruses in the "Uns erhalte, uns regiere" (15:48), the harmonies of the extended arias such as the "Es ist nicht g'nug" (25:52), and the drama of the "Gedenk an Sinai" (32:59):

 

[hammeredklavier]

Is this singspiel?

an oratorio.

Die Hochzeit auf der Alm, Schäfergedicht in 2 Aufzügen MH 107 (1768)

"Wo wahre Treue die Herzen verstrickt"

"Gequaltes Herz! Entdecke mir die Wahrheit deiner pein"

Btw, it's also quite striking if you compare their similarities (in terms of general harmonic style) with Mozart's, for instance,

Gequaltes Herz:

Non so più cosa son:

Gequaltes Herz:

Missa longa K.262:

"Auf! Es kommt der Fruhling an"

"Lobet ihr Krafte den Schopfer der Welt"

"O Meine Phyllis! Ich lebe vergnugt"

 

[hammeredklavier]

Tell us more about singspiel.

Alas, not many have been recorded yet, it seems. There are a few more by Benda and one by Reichardt, composed in 1793.

Die Hochzeit auf der Alm, Schäfergedicht in 2 Aufzügen MH 107 (1768), which I posted in #434 is a singspiel, btw.

 

[hammeredklavier]

I'm only aware of 'singspiel' as a style of opera used by Mozart.

One interesting thing to note about the traditional singspiels, which I posted, Die Hochzeit auf der Alm, Schäfergedicht in 2 Aufzügen MH 107 (1768) and Die Wahrheit der Natur, Ein Singspiel MH 118 (1769) is that they lack foreign influences (compared to Mozart's), for instance, they lack coloratura arias of any kind in their numbers. Instead the numbers are more Lied-like; consisting of repetitious (since they're basically poems with stanzas set to music), rustic melodies that are catchy enough to not bore the listener each time they come back.