Which Composers Made the Happiest Music?
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I disagree-- Mendelssohn wrote a lot of anxious minor key music.
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Allan Pettersson springs to mind - one of those 'laugh a minute' guys.
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New item by Andrew Petersen
photos.app.goo.gl
He bleeds happy!
Just dramatic, not unhappy. Bach and Beethoven were his idols.Both wrote dramatic music he copied. Elijah is a copy of Bach's oratorios, Mendelssohn's violin concerto a mimic of Beethoven. He appreciated their emotional depth but that didn't make his music unhappy.
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This is going away from the topic but in what way does Mendelssohn's violin concerto resemble Beethoven?
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Shostakovich's Symphony #14, featuring songs of death and suffering is a laugh riot! Right up there with Tchaikovsky's Symphony #6 "Pathetique" and Mahler's Songs on the Death of Children.
Of course I'm kidding; neither is something you'd want to break out at a party.
It does, however, beg the question as to how a composer is supposed to write various emotions such as "happy", "sad", "frightened", "anguished", "angry", etc. Is it in the notes, the melodies, the harmonies, textures, dynamics? Is it something the composer can create as result of his/her skill as a craftsman; or is something the composer "feels". Was it beyond Haydn to create anything but that which reflected a happy and mentally uncluttered disposition? And was it beyond Mahler or Shostakovich to compose music that didn't reflect their own sense of existential angst?
In this sense, perhaps the greatest music of all is that which manages to reflect several feelings at once. Perhaps this is why Bach is considered to be so great and beautiful. Especially in Bach's religious works, I often experience in the music the joy of salvation, juxtaposed by the despair which is the human condition.
As for Beethoven and Mozart; while I see Beethoven as the most "heroic" of composers, I also sense a good deal of angst in Beethoven, but unlike Shostakovich and Mahler, the secret wars that Beethoven wages against himself are always very tight, restrained, and end up in a resolution and victory. And Beethoven also has his mellow side as with the beautiful and "happy" Symphony #6 "Pastorale".
Mozart, on the other hand, doesn't necessarily bring me "joy" as much as he brings me a sense of "peace". I like Mozart just for the craftsmanship, the "seamless" quality, the balance, In my youth I was dismissive of Mozart, and thought of his music as "pretty wall-paper". During those young years I loved Beethoven for the heroism. During my 40s I loved Bach for the religious element, as middle-age is often a time when we begin to see little or no value in material things and then attempt to seek for more spiritual answers to life's great questions. Now, in my 50s, I've suddenly turned to Mozart as a very beautiful place that reminds me that among life's many tragedies, there is ALWAYS some beauty to be found in this weary world.
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Very nice! I love it.
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Malcolm Arnold
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