Re: Why do you like Mozart's music?

Michael Schaffer wrote:
> Lena wrote:
[...]
> > So, although I can imagine someone deciding to write a work sounding
> > like a Norwegian fisherman (not desirable, necessarily :) ), if
> > someone really wants to make a claim for a specific speech dialect
> > being the inspiration of a musical work in the classical canon, I'd
> > need a bit more evidence...
>


> I don't know how specific it would have to be, but there are many
> more general examples. The typical style found in many of
> Sibelius' themes is definitely related to the speech melody of
> Finnish,

How definitely? :) I don't see any real resemblance between the
musical constructs and Finnish (which Sibelius spoke poorly) or, for
good measure, the language he actually spoke, Swedish. (And I
don't find a connection between his themes to either language, whether
I consider the grammar, or the pitch and rhythm of the sentences.)

It's not that music can't borrow from speech at all, or there isn't a
concept of rhetorics in music, but it gets so mutated and abstract
(say, "question-answer" phrase pairs, recitatives) that if you put
things in perspective, the composer's own language becomes a very
secondary item, IMO.

> and many German composers write themes which reflect the phrase
> structure of German, which, as you probably know, is often very long
> phrases with a lot of side clauses and inserts, kind of like the
> sentence I am writing now, and there are a lot of examples for this
> kind of theme, for instance the 2nd movement of Beethoven's 5th is a
> very good example for a them which very obviously reflects the
> typical "phrase melody" of the German language.

Yes, Beethoven does write complex phrase structures (known obligingly
as "sentences"), but again, I really doubt they have any deep
connection with speech. (The terminology, and things like the "muss
es sein?" business notwithstanding.) (Beethoven at least didn't seem
to be inspired by his own letter writing, which is not all that
complicated...)

In the Beethoven symphony 5/ii example, I'm not sure if you mean the
first 8 bars, but if you do, that's not actually a complex phrase
construction. It's a short theme built out of a single subphrase with
musical means very typical of the time (phrase extension, variation,
and fragmentation). The theme also uses a rhythmic trick; it
dislocates a pattern wrto to the barline in an unexpected way. Speech
or writing generally doesn't have any of this accuracy (although
writing as art can do similar things).

If you wish, I don't see why passages for either composer can't
evoke speech rhythms, for you, but I hope you see that there is no
necessary connection between the two - what you're offering is
an interpretation. Sort of like someone who offers a program for
abstract music.

> That has nothing to do with "Superiority", BTW, it's just a fact,
> although I can guarantee that some idiot will come back saying just
> that within no time.

Yes, but the insults part could be toned down on all fronts.
(One could begin with the 'idiot'...)

FWIW, I also don't think that what you say is quite on the fact level
here.

Lena

PS. The way Beethoven usually sketches his themes is by a lengthy
process involving the entire movement, not the theme alone. I'd
conjecture that a composer who really wishes to use a speech rhythm
directly might be more interested in a "transcription" of the whole
idea at one go, rather than the careful incremental, hierarchical
design done by Beethoven.

.

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