Beethoven and His ForerunnersMason, Daniel Gregory
History
Beethoven and His Forerunners
Mason, Daniel Gregory
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827; Music -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Music -- 19th century -- History and criticism
this sense: that he laid the foundation for all their performance,
and that they made the advances, in the light of which he appears
old-fashioned, only by a wise use of resources inherited from him.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Haydn on C. P. E. Bach: “Those who know me well must be aware that
I owe very much to Emanuel Bach, whose works I understand and have
thoroughly studied.” C. P. E. Bach on Haydn: “He alone has thoroughly
comprehended my works, and made a proper use of them.”
[32] The numbering here refers only to the twelve great symphonies
written for Salomon.
CHAPTER VI
MOZART
CHAPTER VI
MOZART
Although Mozart, born twenty-four years later than Haydn, and
therefore belonging to another generation, was under heavy obligations
to his forerunner for technical resources and models of style, his
disadvantage in years was so much more than cancelled by the superior
brightness of his genius that he in his turn was able to exert a
potent influence upon the older man. The two great predecessors of
Beethoven, accordingly, can be understood only when they are considered
as subject to mutual influences, as supplementing each other through
a delicate play of action and reaction. Haydn led the way into the
_terra incognita_, did the rough work of clearing the ground, but it
was Mozart who turned the wilderness into a garden. The chief dates of
the two careers indicate concisely their interaction. Haydn was born in
1732, Mozart in 1756; yet Haydn, although he began writing symphonies
as early as 1759, when Mozart was but four years old, wrote none that
can compare with the younger man’s until 1791, or after Mozart had
written his three great symphonies of 1788. As with the symphony, so
it was with the string quartet. Haydn opened up the way, but Mozart,
outrunning him, became eventually the leader. It was a sort of hare and
tortoise race in which, to the confusion of morality, the hare won.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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