'The Classical Style' reading group, week three

Portrait of Haydn by Ludwig Guttenbrunn

[If you tuned in late, this continues the new reading group for The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven by Charles Rosen. Previous posts one week ago and two weeks ago. Feel free to participate in the comments. -- The Management] 

I  INTRODUCTION 

 1. The Musical Language of the Late Eighteenth Century 

By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest villain blogger

When Tom Jackson lists me as “Special Guest Blogger,” it makes me think of the 1960’s Batman credit “Special Guest Villain,” especially since last week’s post mentioned the opera Die Fledermaus (“The Bat”). I remember a Batman episode where a German man called Batman “Der Fledermausman!” 

The medium seems part of the massage. I remember around 1981 reading an article by a guy who said his dad had spent his life traveling around Germany so he could hear all nine Beethoven symphonies. With the arrival of long-playing (LP) vinyl records, one could purchase all nine symphonies relatively inexpensively and listen to them repeatedly. With internet, one can listen to multiple versions of all nine symphonies for free on YouTube. In elementary school I had LP’s of about five Haydn symphonies and the Trumpet Concerto, so I got to know those pieces. In the CD era I got a two-CD set of six late Haydn symphonies which included one of the ones I had on LP (the Surprise Symphony). Now I have Spotify and I can pull up any Haydn symphony without the annoying ads on YouTube. 

This week I have listened to a bunch of the Op. 17, Op. 20, and Op. 33 string quartets by Haydn, six quartets in each opus. I had never heard the Op. 17 quartets before, so far as I recall. I had an LP of two of the Op. 20 quartets my roommate Jai had given me around 1980 or 1981, and a CD of the same LP on CD which my mom bought me around 1999. I have a CD of three of the Op. 33 quartets which my wife gave me in 1997. I found it interesting to listen to the four Op. 20 quartets and three Op. 33 quartets this week which I had never heard before as well as the quartets I had listened to for decades. 

Pg. 26 – In the key of C Major, C (I) serves as the tonic; F (IV) the subdominant; and G (V) the dominant, so G7 serves as the dominant seventh. A plagal cadence goes from IV to I, F to C in C Major. Some call this the “Amen Cadence” due its popularity in older Christian church music. In the eighteenth century the plagal cadence became less popular in favor of the dominant cadence, G to C in C Major. If you can play guitar or a keyboard instrument, you might play these cadences to hear the difference: F-C (“A-men”) and G-C. A ton of rock, jazz, blues, and country songs have dominant cadences. 

See you next Monday, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel!