3 ms·

> That arrangement lands particularly hard on contemporary composers, who must compete with a group of semi-mythical figures who are worshipped as house gods.

> That arrangement lands particularly hard on contemporary composers, who must compete with a group of semi-mythical figures who are worshipped as house gods. Likewise, it's probably true that the popular history of modern science focuses on too small group of well-known 20th-century scientists. But if you're going to lay out that argument you probably should not choose John von Neumann as your example case. Same with W.A. Mozart. He's the semi-mythical gods' semi-mythical god. Where another composer might write a menuet Mozart might have three dances with conflicting time signatures sounding at the same time (yet agreeing in their harmonies). And that's just in passing-- it's not even a climactic moment of the opera (which itself manages to exceeds that moment in historical importance). Or he might throw a wildcard variation into a theme and variations and end up writing a folk-like melody so convincing that it's extracted for a 21st-century commercial to sell Irish whiskey.[1] The impact of Mozart is that you can strip away all the pretension and hero-worship from the classical world and his music would probably still take up its current proportion of worldwide performance time. It turns out his music really is that striking and stands out when people listen closely. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN2kxy--UiM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN2kxy--UiM

iosonofuturista 7y ago
> That arrangement lands particularly hard on contemporary composers, who must compete with a group of semi-mythical figures who are worshipped as house gods. Hardly a new phenomenon. Brahms could be arguably said to belong to that Pantheon, but he struggled hard with the old composers reputation. Of particular note its first symphony [0] But also one can do a search for his quotes relating to Beethoven, Mozart or Bach. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_(Brahms) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_(Brahms)
- jancsika 7y ago
  Right. What I'm saying is that any composer who would have struggled with Mozart's reputation would have very quickly hit up against a bigger problem: that nearly no other human beings have the capacity to remember, synthesize, and internalize the amount of music necessary to compose the way he did. That's why while Mozart was "grandfathered" into the Romantic period by early Romantic composers and writers, everyone emulated Beethoven in practice. At least obsessive motivic transformation is a tractable problem. (One which, btw, is a subset of Mozart's output.) Bach is in that same ballpark, though I'd argue that Mozart's output also includes examples of clear mastery of Bach's contrapuntal techniques.

iosonofuturista 7y ago

> That arrangement lands particularly hard on contemporary composers, who must compete with a group of semi-mythical figures who are worshipped as house gods. Hardly a new phenomenon. Brahms could be arguably said to belong to that Pantheon, but he struggled hard with the old composers reputation. Of particular note its first symphony [0] But also one can do a search for his quotes relating to Beethoven, Mozart or Bach. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_(Brahms) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._1_(Brahms)

jancsika 7y ago
Right. What I'm saying is that any composer who would have struggled with Mozart's reputation would have very quickly hit up against a bigger problem: that nearly no other human beings have the capacity to remember, synthesize, and internalize the amount of music necessary to compose the way he did. That's why while Mozart was "grandfathered" into the Romantic period by early Romantic composers and writers, everyone emulated Beethoven in practice. At least obsessive motivic transformation is a tractable problem. (One which, btw, is a subset of Mozart's output.) Bach is in that same ballpark, though I'd argue that Mozart's output also includes examples of clear mastery of Bach's contrapuntal techniques.