Was Mozart an innovator?

I'm not knowledgeable enough to make my own argument here, but Charles Rosen argues convincingly in his book The Classical Style that Mozart, along with Haydn, basically invented the style with which they're associated. Slightly earlier composers developed the "gallant" style but Haydn and Mozart were the ones who made it a vehicle for large-scale dramatic structures based on tonal relationships and symmetrical proportions.

Mozart also introduced a degree of chromaticism to this style that was unprecedented at the time.

In terms of genre, Mozart is credited with creating the classical concerto as well as German opera.

That alone makes it an easy "yes" for me.

Yes, I was thinking about Rosen and his "Classical Style" book. Wich I haven´t read. I must search for it. Thanks isorhythm, it is quite interesting what you said.

In addition to his expansion of the concerto and his chromaticism, Mozart's treatment of operatic form also deserves to be mentioned as having greater variety and also greater overall unity than the works of his peers or immediate predecessors. If none of the other works existed, the great operas alone would have made Mozart immortal.

YES!
And, like every great composer, he showed us that even a genius like him needs to study great masters of the past! As Verdi said : Let us turn to the past: that will be progress.

He took the concert aria for female voice to new and innovative heights. For that alone, a resounding YES!!!

Mozart: symphony no. 41, second movement. I vote yes even of just for this moment in music!

Of course Mozart was an innovator. One of the greatest ever in all western classical music. Ever.

Yes, of course!
All the reasons I can think of have been given above.

I voted honestly "I don't know." If the experts and aficionados say he is, then I'll defer to them.

Also, Mozart was so subtle with innovation that many would think he was not. A true innovator. Listen to his clarinet quintet for example. This can be considered the first Romantic chamber music of epic scale.

I made a thread similar to this not too long ago. My answer here will be pretty much the same as the OP I wrote up in that thread.

http://www.talkclassical.com/36094-mozarts-musical-adventerousness-underplayed.html?highlight=

Does a bear defecate in the woods?

No, not really, he worked within a set tradition even if he wildly expanded some of his favourite genres. So innovative with in established genres don't really give that the composer is an innovator, Haydn was, JC and CPE Bach was!

/ptr

I don't know. But I voted yes because his music does sound to me like a wind blowing in from the sea over the (once magnificent, but now dusty) baroque landscape.

ptr said:

No, not really, he worked within a set tradition even if he wildly expanded some of his favourite genres. So innovative with in established genres don't really give that the composer is an innovator, Haydn was, JC and CPE Bach was!

/ptr

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Uh... it's pretty much widely accepted that Mozart was a huge innovator in the ways he expanded the depth and scope of the Opera artform, both musically and libretto-wise. In fact, the greats that followed like Wagner, built upon the expansions Mozart was single-handedly the architect of, and could not possibly have done what they did without Mozart's considerable improvements.

I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on how CPE was an innovator and Mozart not. While I think most, if not all, of us can agree that JS Bach put an immeasurable stamp upon history and was a huge innovator in his own right, I fail to see how his son CPE was in any considerable such, other than perhaps for the fact that he was composing at a time in history that is generally seen as a transition or bridge from the Baroque to Classical period. Other than that, am I missing something?

Mozart was a principal force in the development of the piano forte.
Mozart operas were revolutionary in their dramatic integration of plot, character, character development, and music.
I even think the violin-viola riffing in the Concerto Consonants prefigured jazz. The same dynamic is at work in Batti batti, o bel Masetto between the soprano and the cello (it could be described as intercourse) but only in performances by conductors like von Karajan who.understood such potentials.
Mozart was more than innovative; his work was revolutionary.

Nystrand said:

Mozart was a principal force in the development of the piano forte.
Mozart operas were revolutionary in their dramatic integration of plot, character, character development, and music.
I even think the violin-viola riffing in the Concerto Consonants prefigured jazz. The same dynamic is at work in Batti batti, o bel Masetto between the soprano and the cello (it could be described as intercourse) but only in performances by conductors like von Karajan who.understood such potentials.
Mozart was more than innovative; his work was revolutionary.

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What's this Concerto Consonants? It sounds good, but I can't find it on YouTube.

MoonlightSonata said:

What's this Concerto Consonants? It sounds good, but I can't find it on YouTube.

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Mozart wrote it just after his famous vowel movement.