Less tidy.

Mozart is too refined, too gentile for me. There's really very, very little Mozart that I can stand. Haydn though is much more enjoyable to listen to and to play. It's more down to earth and human. But then Mozart wrote the G minor symphony - and it gets no better than that.

 

By less tidy, do you mean Haydn was heavier where you find Mozart to be light?

 

I'd say Haydn is more "rustic" than Mozart. If that means more muscular clog dances, then great. There are far more works from Haydn that I love unreservedly than there are of Wolfgang's, especially the Symphonies, but also the quartets, trios and choral pieces.

 

Just call him the "not gay Mozart" and be done with it :lol:

I like the "down to earth" bit. I think it was Andras Schiff who said that Haydn and Beethoven were fundamentally "human" composers, while Mozart was an otherworldly creature. Not to imply he is the greater composer, but that there's something fundamentally incomprehensible about him.

 

I like the "down to earth" bit. I think it was Andras Schiff who said that Haydn and Beethoven were fundamentally "human" composers, while Mozart was an otherworldly creature. Not to imply he is the greater composer, but that there's something fundamentally incomprehensible about him.

When I listen to Mozart I have no sense of who he was; I don't feel any particular sort of man - or woman - behind the music, which is like an exquisite silken garment which I know must conceal a person only because clothing doesn't walk by itself. When I hear Haydn I feel as if I'm sitting with an unpretentious but well-dressed middle-aged fellow in a pub, enjoying a pot of ale, talking politics and laughing at his puns as the sunlight streams in through the window.

 

Haydn's music is great, but he ain't a Mozart, and he knew it.

 

Haydn's music is great, but he ain't a Mozart, and hew knew it.

I find the two very similar...if anything, I think Haydn is more consistently interesting. Take his Piano Sonatas for one, and I'm starting to listen to his SQs more!

I'm trying to avoid saying it, but I just think Haydn had much bigger ____.

 

Well, that's just rude

 

I wasn't trying to be. I love Mozart!

 

I would call Mozart is a more impulsive Haydn in general. Personally I find Haydn’s music more charming, and Mozart’s more beautiful, while more harrowing at times, but when he was neither he was more boring. Haydn was more gentlemanly, and restrained in general.

 

how fitting do you find this description of Haydn' music to be?

:tiphat:

........
No at all.

 

This may not make much sense but I've always found Mozart's orchestral, chamber and instrumental music spontaneous and flighty whereas Haydn's seems more deliberate and earthbound. However, with many of his later choral works Haydn cut the guy-rope and soared aloft.

 

I would consider it a poor comparison. While both were classical era composers, they did not sound alike, even if sometimes the listener can be fooled. When Haydn was "muscular," he was being rhythmically muscular as Haydn and not as another Mozart. He came first to begin with, and while he greatly admired Mozart, he maintained his own identity and consummate craftsmanship, especially in his symphonies and string quartets. When Haydn and Mozart were being forceful or muscular, I would describe what they were doing as Art as well as self-expression and they did not go beyond a certain line of balance and proportion where their passions seemed to be controlling them rather than the other way around, though depending upon the composer, there's nothing wrong with that. The Romantics were more willing to let it all hang out and say what's on their mind personally, and one can really hear the anger, explosiveness or muscularity in some of their work. But I would be leery of drawing a comparison between the two composers and describing Haydn's power and force in Mozart's terms. I don't think that works in characterizing Haydn's music. Both were great masters, and so was Beethoven. But Beethoven's use of muscularity and force was off the charts compared to them, and he didn't care who knew it because the world was ready for something different when he came along. If one wants to draw a comparison, it might be more accurate to say that Beethoven was a muscular Haydn.

 

But did Mozart consistently reach the "muscularity" in his music as Haydn did? I see the Jupiter Symphony as quite Muscular.

 

Mozart was only muscular when it was called for. Haydn took steroids and constantly failed his pee-in-the-bottle tests! He was banned from the musical Olympics from 1772 through 1788. Something we often forget today...

 

Thanks Captainnumber36 - Does it matter to us who is documented to be the composer of this work or that work? Why?

So if I answer, I think it's important to know that an inspiring sequence of works comes from the one man who's traditionally accepted to be the composer. If not? and if many different creators penned various pieces in an important series, then we're really lost I think.

This question seems ditzy and fatuous, but it came up in a music theory presentation I recently gave. The reason we care seems obvious to me, but not to this sincere questioner..

 

It's the muscle between your ears wot counts... :tiphat:

 

I just started to listen to Paul Johnson's biography of Mozart because I have been astonished by how many kilobytes have been spent on TC attempting to devalue Mozart's music (and Mozart the man).

Unless Paul Johnson is grossly in error Mozart was highly conscientious and serious about his music, while at the same time he loved humor of all kinds, including humor IN his music. Yes, he mentions that scatological humor was very common in Mozart's day and from other reading I know that it was popular in Luther's time as well as Bach's. Mozart was also extremely intelligent, not only with regard to music, but with languages: He was almost fluent in English by the time he left England. He was very well-versed in singing technique, which apparently made him appreciated for his patience, sensitivity, and instructive-ness to the many singers he worked with throughout his life. He loved conversing with other musicians about music and thus learned the strengths and weaknesses of the instruments of the orchestra. His love and understanding of the viola raised it to the level of a solo instrument. I am not even a third of a way through the book yet.

At first I thought I understood what you all meant by "muscularity," the first that came to my mind was Beethoven's Fifth. The large number of technically more powerful instruments, performing dramatic, almost brutal short motives. I also immediately thought of Haydn's Creation. Unless I am not far enough in my reading, Mozart was composing early-on to prove his knowledge of music and composing abilities to courts, archbishops and the pope-his focus was on those requests. Clement XIV who according to Johnson was an expert in Ecclesiastical music knighted Mozart into the Order of the Golden Spur when he was only thirteen. It is my impression (yes, I could be mistaken), that he was also composing to support himself, his father and his sister on their extensive travels. So he was composing a great deal with the pleasure of his audience in mind.

Personally, I do NOT think this is a "sell-out" to the quality of music; in fact, I am extremely grateful to all the composers who have thought that music should be beautiful for the audience! I get annoyed at reading time after time that the primary purpose of art music is to be innovative, without regard for the aesthetic appreciation of the audience. Of course I understand that innovation is important, but in the majority of cases it should not be the type that shocks or rakes the audience over the coals. It's like the Theater of the Absurd; sometimes we need to be made to feel uncomfortable or feel our growing edges, but in greater part there should be beauty and other forms of enjoyment in art music.

Back to "muscularity." I remember when I was a young piano student and I wanted to perform a Beethoven sonata at an upcoming rehearsal. My teacher told me that a less dramatic piece would better demonstrate the control of my body (power of my muscles), my sensitivity, and my understanding of how to handle the pauses in Mozart's music. Looking back at that, it might have been a kind way of getting me to change my mind, but, then again…. It did make me smile when Johnson said the same thing with regard to why Mozart was a gifted viola player (although not for concerts, because of the length of his arms). Sounding "light" and "delicate" takes muscle and intellectual power.

 

I agree with you on innovation vs being pleasurable. It's annoying when composer's become pretentious and try force originality.

I agree it takes muscle and intellect to play Mozart, but when I stated Haydn's music is a more muscular Mozart, I meant in the way it sounds, not in what it takes to play the piece.

 

P.S. I know that Maynard Solomon has written a much longer biography of Mozart. I have so much other reading right now I had to choose a biography in audiobook format.

 

I'm also not trying to put Mozart's music down, I'm just looking for adjectives that describe the composer's music generally.

 

I think that is a futile journey, sorry to say. Mozart's range of expression is so vast -

 

By the way, I'm not ignoring you Luchesi, I'm just going in the order of my thoughts. I think you should begin to post your thoughts; I would say those of us who adore music are very well acquainted and comfortable with the deepest emotions--dark, light and blindingly sublime.

 

Thanks, at my age the order of my thoughts is becoming a jumble. So I have to just press ahead and not worry about it.

When I was young I constantly heard that Mozart was too repetitive and too transparent. I would always say, what do you mean? - he's clever and inventive and the clarity is so refreshing. But the reality of such a loss of appreciation by those friends of mine stayed in the back of my mind. They weren't talking about the repeats in the forms, they were complaining about the figurations which sounded so repetitive to them. But if you listen closely there's reflections everywhere and imitations and referring back. This is the classical style and this is for the audience of the time and this is for the integrity and symmetry of the forms as an intellectual achievement, so it only sounds to be cycling and unvarying to the casual listener.

Do you think there are probably people in this forum who think Mozart is too 'repetitive' or even monotonous? It's tiresome and uninvolving for them.

 

I'm also very hesitant to believe the accuracy of psychoanalytic, psychiatric, and/or psychological diagnoses from anytime prior to the 1980s. Highly skilled professionals in the "mental" health field still get it wrong today even when they have the opportunity to observe a patient in person.... Also, I understand there was an author or authors who wrote several books about the psychological state of many composers--I don't remember the name(s), but I discovered this when I wanted to find a biography of Anton Bruckner. If this is the same person(s) who wrote about Mozart and Tourette's, I would really have my doubts.

 

Yes I agree completely about psychiatry. Only recently have they found the places in the brain whereby they can scientifically explain things.

I was just reading somewhere how they found the length of an overlap in the temporoparietal junction in the right hemisphere to be an indicator of whether you hear voices or you never hear voices, and what you immediately conclude about them - if you're not schizophrenic.

 

I don't know about this muscular stuff, but I think that, compared with Mozart, Haydn is a bit couth-challenged.

 

I can see that. Mozart is more well mannered in his music.

 

Why on earth is anyone paying attention to anything that Newman ever posted light years ago. He has been debunked by everyone who has a shred of musical knowledge on this forum aeons ago. Dearie me. As every school boy knows Haydn laid the grundrisse and Mozart amplified it. Both have their position in the pantheon of great composers and comparisons are invidious and anathemic.

 

Originally Posted by KenOC
I don't know about this muscular stuff, but I think that, compared with Mozart, Haydn is a bit couth-challenged.
I can see that. Mozart is more well mannered in his music.

Ok, I'm taking EdwardBast as my model: Would you both please give us one or a few specific excerpts from their compositions?

 

Ok, I'm taking EdwardBast as my model: Would you both please give us one or a few specific excerpts from their compositions?

Well, take for example Haydn's famous bassoon flatulence in his 93rd symphony (1791), written for coarse and loutish audiences of tradesmen in England. Mozart, by comparison a model of decorum, would never have written that! Instead, he wrote dulcet and tasteful music such as his ethereal canon Leck mich im Arsch k.231/382c (1782), which was heard only in Viennese salons frequented by the better sort of person.

I rest my case, sir.

 

Such vigor in all three movements.

 

We mentioned biographies of Mozart in this and another thread. Last night I read in Schonberg's The Lives of the Great Composers that Mozart was extremely sensitive to loud noises. "His ear was so delicate that loud sounds would make him physically ill." IF this is true, it could be part of the reason that Mozart's music is dynamically less "muscular" than Haydn. Mozart composed for a small orchestra and avoided very loud dynamics. I say "IF this is true" because I was listening to a Great Courses program in which the lecturer said that Mozart used a small orchestra and soft dynamic during keyboard concerti because the keyboard instruments of the day could not produce a loud sound. The same person also said that most/many (I can't remember exactly) of the piano concerti were composed as harpsichord concerti. ....

 

Mozart luxuriates in the pleasures of the flesh; he spins out melody after melody, keeping us so absorbed in the beauty of invention that when he brings us back to his opening material at the end of a development we wonder how we got there. The mechanics of composition have vanished. Mozart conceals his bones.

Haydn wants us to know how we got there, and where we are at every moment. He exults in the control of musical time like the deist's watchmaker God, and he makes sure we understand and share his delight. Even his famed humor is a playing with time, with our expectation of the logical course of events. Haydn reveals his bones.

I don't know whether Haydn is more muscular than Mozart, but he is definitely more skeletal.

 

By Ken:
"Well, take for example Haydn's famous bassoon flatulence in his 93rd symphony (1791), written for coarse and loutish audiences of tradesmen in England. Mozart, by comparison a model of decorum, would never have written that! Instead, he wrote dulcet and tasteful music such as his ethereal canon Leck mich im Arsch k.231/382c (1782), which was heard only in Viennese salons frequented by the better sort of person."

By Woodduck:
"Mozart luxuriates in the pleasures of the flesh; he spins out melody after melody, keeping us so absorbed in the beauty of invention that when he brings us back to his opening material at the end of a development we wonder how we got there. The mechanics of composition have vanished. Mozart conceals his bones.

Haydn wants us to know how we got there, and where we are at every moment. He exults in the control of musical time like the deist's watchmaker God, and he makes sure we understand and share his delight. Even his famed humor is a playing with time, with our expectation of the logical course of events. Haydn reveals his bones.

I don't know whether Haydn is more muscular than Mozart, but he is definitely more skeletal."

I love these two posts!!! I love them SO much that I am going to just let them sit here together for awhile, so that I (everyone else?) can just bask in their rays without distraction....

 

OP: It's more complicated than that.

Haydn and Mozart were two very different composers. The only similarity for me is their time on planet earth overlapped.

Mozart's music for me can be tiring, due to its oft-labeled "perfection", which leaves me cold much of the time. Beautiful with nothing behind the notes.

Haydn's music always demonstrates its humanity to me-so warm and alive!!

Thank the Lord that Beethoven had the human Haydn as a teacher rather than Mozart!

Response to Josefina, down below:

Josefina-Mozart's music tends to be a bit too perfect. Lacking a wee bit of soul, at times.

I prefer the earthier, wittier, more "human", less "perfect" composer, Haydn.

I do love Mozart....but I love Haydn much more!! I respond to it very favorably.

Also, what I may have written months ago in no way reflects how I feel about that topic today!! My opinions can change DAILY!!!

 

OP: It's more complicated than that.

Haydn and Mozart were two very different composers. The only similarity for me is their time on planet earth overlapped.

Mozart's music for me can be tiring, due to its oft-labeled "perfection", which leaves me cold much of the time. Beautiful with nothing behind the notes.

Haydn's music always demonstrates its humanity to me-so warm and alive!!

Thank the Lord that Beethoven had the human Haydn as a teacher rather than Mozart!

I like Haydn but cant relate to your comments - Mozart's operas, for example, are notable for their humanity. Compare Fidelio with Le Nozze Di Figaro and you will find that Mozart had all the earthly humanity that Beethoven lacked. Mozart, esp in his concerti middle movements - oozes human emotion.