Domenico Scarlatti
3. The Origins of the Style
By ERIC WAGNER
Special guest blogger
Special guest blogger
Pg. 47 – Johann Sebastian Bach: born March 31, 1685, died July 28, 1750.
George Frideric Handel: born March 5, 1685, died April 13, 1759.
Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti: born October 26, 1685, died July 23, 1757.
Haydn composed his Op. 33 String Quartets in 1781.
This chapter outlines the musical world of Robert Anton Wilson’s The Earth Will Shake and The Widow’s Son: continuing influence of Scarlatti, Bach, and Handel; a very young Mozart; and Haydn toiling away in relative obscurity in Esterhazy in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Rosen writes:
The idea of a Form striving to define itself, to become flesh in all these different ways, is attractive, but even as a metaphor it sets a trap. It leads one to assume that there was such a thing as ‘sonata form’ in the late eighteenth century, and that the composers knew what it was, whereas nothing we know about the situation would lead us to suppose anything of the kind. The feeling for any form, even the minuet, was much more fluid.
- pg. 52
This passage helps to address Oz Fritz’s comment, “I don't know why Rosen calls the sonata a texture and not a form. Perhaps he will explain that as we move along.”
(It does bother me that Rosen always uses male pronouns when refering to generic composers or artists.)
In Sonata Forms Rosen writes:
In the eighteenth century, consequently, there was no notion of an isolated sonata form as such: all that existed was a gradually evolving conception of the composition of instrumental music – a pure instrumental style untroubled by the exigencies of concerto, dance music, or opera overture, unhampered by the old-fashioned procedures of fugue and variations. It is significant that eighteenth-century accounts of sonata form are all description of instrumental compostion in general.
- pg. 14-15
5 comments:
I have to wonder what the hell was in the water in 1685.
A similar explosion of talents happens around 1810: Mendelssohn in 1809, Chopin and Robert Schumannn in 1810, Liszt in 1811, and Wagner and Verdi in 1813. I remeber the wonderful tricentennial celebrations of Bach, Handel, and Dominico Scarlatti in 1985. I wish I had appreciated them more fully.
I had trouble following Rosen in this chapter. It's kind of frustrating.
There is some Mozart news; a "lost" piece he wrote in his early teens has been discovered. If I understand Rosen correctly, it is unlikely that this is a major piece: https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/composers/wolfgang-amadeus-mozart/news/dg-celebrates-rediscovery-of-early-mozart-serenade-a-very-little-night-music-with-three-world-premiere-releases-274179
I like the idea that our three Viennese masters composed music intended for women.
Rosen convinced me of the lack of an integrated style in music in the mid 18th Century which he says is tempting to call 'mannerist.' I conclude that, in part, the big 3 started developing the 18th Century style going against the 'mannerists' by composing for 'the ladies' as he puts it.
This sentence sounds like something Deleuze & Guattari might write: "A newly forged style is a formidable weapon in the conquest of new territory." They have a concept called the War Machine, which, at the end of the spectrum not concerning literal, violent war, means to rebel against conventional structure in order to nomadically move to new territory.
Thanks everyone for your comments. Tom, sorry about the frustration. I hope you find this study group worth your time. I suspect the going will get easier in two weeks when we reach chapters devoted to one composer and one genre.
Oz, I just read this article on the director Rivette that mentioned Deleuze: https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2022/05/rivette-s-rupture/ . In terms of the War Machine, Joseph Kerman wrote about how Beethoven tried to conquer all the genres of music that Haydn and Mozart had previously conquered. Beethoven struggled with opera (as did Haydn).
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