Re: Why do you like Mozart's music?

Michael Schaffer wrote:
> Lena wrote:
> > Michael Schaffer wrote:


> > > > 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).
> > >
> > > I didn't say music his music imitated speeach in exact ways. But the
> > > connection with language of the tone and phrase structure of a lot of
> > > his music is very obvious and striking.
> >
> > But that's just it. The connection is not exact. Or close, like some
> > transcription of a cuckoo call. So what you're offering is an
> > interpretation. There's only one problem: the speech thing omits as
> > much of the music as it explains.
> >
> > > It doesn't really matter how a theme is constructed,
> >
> > (With Classical era composers, it does matter... but let's ignore
> > that.)
> >
> > > it's more the general "feel" and tone, the ups
> > > and downs, the little inserted sidethoughts, etc. All that is very
> > > obvious if you understand the language really well,
> >
> > Wait a minute. If you do have a decent idea of the feel of German
> > phrase flow, *and* you have looked at the score carefully, you may
> > start realizing that the correspondence between the two is not quite
> > that obvious and striking.
> >
> > Look at this theme in the score: the phrase construction, the
> > articulation, the prevalence of dotted notes, the presence of an
> > underlying pulse. Take all those into account in your speech
> > interpretation. So, if this is a German speaking, it's a German with
> > a curious 3/8 lilt to his speech, a German who is out of breath, a
> > German who keeps making odd skipping sounds with his vowels. He also
> > seems to be engaged in a process of repeating himself, as if he were
> > entered in an auto-parody contest.
>


> Where did I ever say it was a direct representation of speeach
> patterns?

You talk about speech here:

> I didn't say music his music imitated speeach in exact ways. But the
> connection with language of the tone and phrase structure of a lot of
> his music is very obvious and striking.

and here:

> and many German composers write themes which reflect the phrase
> structure of German, which [...] is often very long phrases with a
> lot of side clauses and inserts, [...] 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.

[Beethoven Symphony 5/ii, first 8 bars. The remaining bars are left
as an easy exercise for the reader. :):) ]

> But let me say this: didn't it occur to you that it might have more to
> do with the sung language rather than the spoken language, we are
> talking about music after all, and that there is a very direct
> connection between spoken and sung language?

Not such a direct connection, necessarily. Songs are frequently in
strongly patterned musical forms whose original main use may not be
language/speech but something else (movement); and the needs of
that something else override words.

> The theme from the second movement of Beethoven 5 is based on a
> popular Viennese song of the time, BTW, so it is no surprise that
> you can hear clear echoes of the German language in that melody.

It would be a surprise... Because this theme consists mainly of two
things: a simple rhythmic pattern (a dance snippet) and some pattern
manipulation techniques; neither have fundamentally anything to do
with words.

So what parts of the theme do you think are due to Beethoven, first of
all?

The theme uses a typical Beethoven phrase manipulation method
("fragmentation"), applied to a short subphrase with a strong rhythmic
design - that is a very brief snippet of a dance-like melody. Words
will inevitably get distorted, a melody like that is not a vehicle for
language, really (whether there are words or not).

And, fragmentation is not connected to language either; its use is
strictly in musical pattern manipulation. (It's not terribly
complicated - in it, an initial subphrase is progressively shortened.
Beethoven uses it a lot, and he uses it also more in initial themes
than, say, Haydn and Mozart. Op. 2/1/i has a typical example.)


What's Viennese here is not any connection to the 'phrase rhythms' of
any local language, but the ubiquitous $#$*$& 3/8 and 3/4 thing... (And
the art music vs. ethnic dance forms debate is another matter, from
which I will excuse myself today.)

Lena

PS. There is an additional component of auto-parody in the
construction,
as I said somewhere. In this version, it's a tune which tries to
start up, gets repeatedly imitated, until eventually a figurative
piano lid gets banged down on the whole thing in m. 7. That, even
though I'm not totally convinced parody is the intention.

.

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