Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037. Directed by Ben Niles. 2007.
While professional pianists may sit down at a modern concert grand piano and dominate the instrument, or get to know it, I think most of us approach the massive structure with some degree of reverence. The big shiny thing, usually the largest and often the only instrument at a concert, at least commands a lot of attention. It has quite the history too, from primitive designs in the middle ages, through the refinements of the Cristofori, the variations of the Viennese and English actions, and its ascendancy to dominance in the 19th century. Today it's hard to imagine a piano concert without a shiny grand, and arguably the biggest name in grand pianos is Steinway & Sons.
In part, then, this 80 minute documentary feels a tad like a commercial for Steinway. We don't get a look at other manufacturing techniques and no other brands are mentioned except to mention that Steinway is the only company which still does so much work by hand. Still, the tour of their facility in Queens, NYC makes quite an impression. What comes off most from this documentary is the tremendous degree of specialization needed to produce such a massive and intricate instrument. Indeed until recently pianos were likely the most complicated devices most people came into contact with and as such the tour of picking out the wood, the case's shaping, the painstaking fitting of the soundboard, the laying and stretching of the strings, the many phases of tuning (degrees of pre-tuning aka "chipping," rough-tuning, and fine-tuning) and the finishing is quite revealing.
Still, though, considering the tremendous energy and variety of specialization needed to bring you a pencil,[1] the process of bringing you a piano must be considerably more than depicted and I would have liked to see more of it. I'd have liked to see more about the shaping, weighting, and balancing of the keys, the construction of the hammer action, and the treatment of the wood. As wonderful as it is to see the shiny new Steinway arrive at a family's home and to see their son start to play for his parents and grandparents, I couldn't help feel we had skipped a beat somewhere.
Nonetheless Steinway is rightly proud that so much of their process is done by hand, from shaving off infinitesimal layers of wood for a perfect fit to the subtlest adjustments of pitch. Parts of this process, some of the craftsman say, you really cannot explain. There is no precise measurement for how much to cut or stretch or shave. There is some, considerable perhaps, intuition involved. Those variables, the variable of the different experiences the many craftsman bring to how they work, and the variety of material makes each piano a little different. They all have their own personality. Some fight back a little and some are easy going. Some have a massive sound, others more subdued. More interesting indeed is this point, but still too belabored. It seems this aspect was mentioned by everyone in the film and by the time pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard finds a suitable one in the great cellar of Steinway and Sons on 57th St. we've had the drift for a while.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard made the best point about the instruments the Steinway method produces, which is that it would be a tremendous bore and a great loss if every piano were identical. The variety produces not only the opportunity to find an instrument especially well-suited to a particular piece, but to find one which brings something totally unexpected to a performance. Harry Connick Jr. commented on this apparent capriciousness inherent in musical and piano performance: unlike in other mediums, what you create at the piano disappears when you are done. Each performance is a new experience, with differences in both the performer and the instrument.
Too, then, each performance contains the work of the many craftsmen who built that instrument, and they are rightfully proud of their work. They're quite a diverse lot, but they all looked middle-aged and older. I saw a couple of younger fellows here and there in the background, but I certainly hope there are more waiting in the wings, studying under the master craftsmen. Someone in the film mentioned how sad it would be if one day people wondered how Steinway made such instruments. Indeed, and let it not be necessary to have to rediscover it. Making this instruments is certainly demanding physically, but the concentration needed to maintain such attention to detail, and the persistent risk of ruining someone else's hard work (at great expense too), seems to me quite enough to keep you on your toes. More importantly, though, if so much is indeed intuitive in this process it is even more important that they pass on their knowledge to successors.
Note by Note is an affectionate little documentary, and you come away with a great appreciation for the company which has remained in this business for over 150 years and succeeds by making a unique product, and the many craftsmen who put painstaking work (and their own personality) into each instrument. All of that work and variety in each instrument, from each performer, and each composer, added to the differences of each listener, make ever concert a unique experience. We ought never take one for granted.
I cannot figure why this sonata has not a greater notoriety. A contrapuntal masterpiece with a symphonic drive and with one of Mozart's best and most haunting slow movements, it ought to be performed more. Perhaps the notion of a work of this scale for keyboard four hands is not a common conception. Regardless of its fame it is a genuine advance in style. The interplay of the voices produces not a rollicking or mischievous banter but a tense dialogue. Abert has pointed out that the voices rise from the role of accompaniment to independence by contrapuntal (canonic or imitative) procedures. "In short, the usual concertante procedures and reciprocal accompaniment on the part of two players at the same instrument are replaced by a compact, genuine four-handed keyboard style." [Abert, 989] This sustained use for dramatic effect is also a new and distinct variation in Mozart's use of counterpoint.
I would recommend examining the score of this sonata, here is an arrangement on four staves for two keyboards: PDF (via the IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library.)
opening of the allegro to the 1st movement, m.30-36
The whole movement rests uneasily on the opening adagio and even where the mood brightens there still vibrates an implacable nervousness. Abert identified the dreamlike, or rather nightmare-like, nature of this movement. We are drawn into it by the opening adagio and driven through it by the relentless drive of the imitative procedures. In the equally massive andante we again see large-scale canonical treatment of the themes and while the last movement recalls the ebullient rondos of the concertos its theme seems to hold a secret, one it never gives up even when we see the darker side of the seemingly innocent theme. Tovey ranked this theme with that of the phrase from the finale to the C minor concerto, about which Beethoven said, "Oh, my dear Ries, things like that will never occur to the likes of us."[9]
With its veiled energy this sonata presages the mood of Die Zauberflöte and with its polyphonic structure the G minor symphony. It was written in August 1786, the year in which Mozart wrote Figaro, the C minor and C major concertos (and also several small canons for three voices, KV.507, 508, and 508A), and the Symphony No. 38 in D.
Like the preceding sonata this symphony begins with a slow introduction of about 35 bars. Similar also is the contrapuntal treatment, which is a vigorous contest among three of the movement's motives in double counterpoint.
KV.504, themes. (via Abert's W. A. Mozart) (click to enlarge)
Theme C enters at m.143 in canon in the violins before it is joined by themes B and D. The contest between these themes is great but not terrible. It is energetic and full of bravura but does not rend at the heart. It is a vigorous, healthy contest. The transitional motive E leads us back to A for the recapitulation.
The Final Three Symphonies
We ought to take pause before discussing the "Great Three Symphonies." Perhaps the first thing we notice when looking into the history of these symphonies is the sheer volume of analysis they have invited in the last two hundred years, and in the last hundred from Abert, Dearling, Della Croce, Floros, Jones, Keefe, Mila, Robbins Landon, Sadie, Saint-Foix, Schenker, Sisman, Steptoe, Tovey, and Zaslaw. Like the Requiem the Symphony in C, KV.551 has a substantial literature of its own. Besides analysis there is much criticism of the symphonies and discussions of their nature.
I think each symphony has been dubbed "Romantic" by someone at some point and the reasons for this moniker can be adduced with relative ease, though we ought not easily adopt it. Those who think of Mozart and think only of galanterie and "good taste," those who prefer Romantic effusiveness indeed ought to re-consider their view of the composer especially in light of his minor key works. Likewise he who considers Mozart to be "essentially Romantic" is off the mark too. Both conceptions lead one astray and they typify misunderstanding Mozart. Indeed in 19th century the two most popular Mozart concertos were the D minor and the last D major, the former seen as the pinnacle of his passion and the latter his taste. Instead we ought to strive for a more thorough and less taxonomic understanding, we ought to get to know the music and then later consider issues of style and genre.
When we consider these symphonies, like the minor-key concertos we must wonder how surprising they must have been to their first audience. The following works are undoubtedly unprecedented particularly with regard to the bold harmonic modulation and the contrapuntal aspects of their construction. Yet alongside the passion there is restraint, just as in the C minor Concerto KV.491. In the case of the E-flat symphony there is even humor alongside the passion, as there was in the D minor Concerto KV.466. Yes, there are "typically Mozartian" features like scalar figures, a songfulness, and the frequent modulation. Yet the E-flat symphony is a surprising work from its implacable opening theme to its concluding forte chords which manage to intensify the sense of resignation with which the work concludes. There is lyricism, passion, modulation, and a measured restraint. More still we have both the intimate and the ethereal, the personal and cosmic. All of this, the passion and the play, the tunes and the arias, is Mozart. And more. One ought not to have a bag of adjectives at hand when listening, ready to pull out "Grecian" when we feel spaciousness or "Romantic" whenever we sense passion. Yet I cannot now suggest how one ought to approach these symphonies, other than to listen, and listen, and listen. . .
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N.B. We might make a few practical notes too. Zaslaw's "Mozart's Symphonies: Context, Performance Practice, Reception" (1989) is a very good start for what its title suggests. It has much information on instrumentation and references to other primary sources (letters, reviews, et cetera.) Georges de Saint-Foix's "The Symphonies of Mozart" (1949) contains many comments on the symphonies, from early reviews to 19th century accounts but his analyses do not differ substantially from Abert's. Both Zaslaw's book and Simon P. Keefe's essay "The 'Jupiter' Symphony in C, K.551: New Perspectives on the Dramatic Finale and its Stylistic Significance in Mozart's Orchestral Oeuvre" (Acta Musicologica, [Vol.] 75, [Fasc.] 1 (2003) pp. 17-43) have good bibliographic information on all three symphonies. Abert devotes much space to these symphonies and Tovey devotes a few pages to each but still is, as usual, well worth reading. Peter Gutmann's essay on the trilogy is also great and it's available online. [10]
Lastly, given the specific nature of this series and the tremendous volume of work already done on these pieces we will not be treating them as fully as possible. I have attempted here and there to point readers in the direction of other scholarship.
22. Symphony No. 39 in E-flat, KV.543 - Andante con moto
The three final symphonies were all entered in Mozart's catalog in the summer of 1788, along with the Sonata for Piano in C, KV.545, the adagio to the fugue in C minor (originally for two keyboards, KV.426: see here), and the series of short canons KV.553-562. The symphonies in G minor and C always seem to have dominated this landscape and in particular the E-flat symphony is the least famous in the trilogy. Neal Zaslaw asks a few penetrating questions in trying to account for the disparity:
Could it be this is because it has neither the proto-Romanticism of the G minor symphony nor the nickname and extraordinary finale of the "Jupiter"? Could it be that the kind of ideas Mozart chose to explore in this work survive the translation from the lean, transparent sounds of eighteenth-century instruments to the powerful, opaque sounds of modern instruments less well than the more muscular ideas of the G minor and "Jupiter" symphonies–that the flat key, which creates a somewhat more muted string sound compared to the brilliance of C (K. 425, 551) or D major (K. 297, 385, 504), makes less of an impression in large modern halls on twentieth-century instruments than it did in small halls with the instruments of the period? It is also Mozart's only late symphony, and one if his relatively few orchestral works in any genre, without a pair of oboes, which imparts to it a particular timbre. [Zaslaw, 443]
All plausible suggestions but it is also caught between the more generally "muscular" symphonies 38 in D and 40 in G minor, suffering the same fate of position as Beethoven's Fourth Symphony. Such is of course unfortunate since the symphony is of extraordinary dimensions. We will look in particular at the second movement, which one does injustice by classifying it as a binary structure with a coda. We would be likewise foolish to underestimate the measure of the main theme:
KV.545, m. 1-4, andante con moto
This main theme, which the strings introduce alone in A-flat but which modulates to the relative F minor in its recapitulation, will inform the whole of the movement. It too is a perplexing little theme containing apparent opposite features, Abert calling attention to the songfulness of its cantilena and Saint-Foix its "faintly martial character," but this contrast will not seem inappropriate when we see where this little theme will take us. With the plagal harmonies and discrete scoring for the cello the opening unfolds with a delicate loftiness. Yet after the theme's recapitulation the winds enter (m.28) in F minor with an arresting figure, piano, of staccato quavers and descending semiquavers into a menacing tutti forte, where another theme ratchets up the tension against staccato figures until we trot to a halt piano with semiquavers on B in B-flat. Now the clarinets and bassoons trade the second part of our opening theme back and forth with the bass strings.
At last the strenuous theme in the winds which introduced the second subject enters, now tamed, in imitation in the winds rising from the bassoons through the flutes against the pedal point in the strings. This counterpoint in the woodwinds over the sustained strings is a wondrous and serene gift of a moment, one which paves the way for the return of our gentle opening theme. This theme begins as before in the strings but rises to the woodwinds after which the strings add a counter-melody. The dialogue with the winds continues but now the winds offer a playful descending scale staccato as the first violins and bass strings take the main theme. Now the A-flat minor version of the theme we heard early on leads to B major and the recapitulation. Another dialogue between winds and strings initiates the coda and a chromatic descent leads to the close, tutti forte.
Here the counterpoint and ensuing texture proves a brief but still striking role in a work whose genius is in the handling and subtle modulation of the themes, of "grave and calm echoes, almost always veiled. . . but sometimes illuminated as if by lightning flash." [Saint-Foix, 122]
23. Symphony No. 40 in G minor, KV.550 [11] [12]
Allegro
Hearkening back to our discussion of creative power we might look at the opening of this symphony and ask from whence its creative power comes? Tovey pointed out that it is, at least on paper, not so dissimilar from the overture to Il barbiere di Siviglia. Yes, and as Tovey says, what a world apart they are! The difference, slight in practice but vast in conception, is that between intelligence, competence, cleverness, even inventiveness, and the "highest poetic power."
What energy there is bound up not just in the opening theme but in the opening bar. Why is this so full of portent? We begin with only the strings, piano, with the violas divisi, i.e. that they should be in two groups to play full chords, double in thirds, et cetera. Likewise on first beat the basses pluck off the tonic. Yet the violins do not enter until the next beat with the main theme, whose anapestic weighting (i.e. short-short-long) will induce the rhythmic drive of the piece.Yet the third of those anapestic groupings ends with rising crotchets from V-III. Also the second half of this main theme ends with two crotchets both on IV falling from V. Thus this main theme itself is a sort of tense and unstable unit melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically.
The consequent of the main theme is cut off by the introduction of the woodwinds who with their rise and fall six semitones from and to D#, piano, and the lack of oboes makes an eerie entrance which heightens the tension. The winds then add some punctuating chords as the strings hammer the anapestic figure on D. After a restatement of the main theme heightened by pedal points in the winds a new theme enters at m. 26. Now in the relative B-flat major this new figure rises in staccato quavers against the basses flickering with quavers in thirds, until launching into a rising scalar passage in the violins and amplified by sforzato half-notes in the basses.
KV.550, second subject, m. 44-46
Now the second subject enters, first in the strings and then the winds before "sinking dreamily" (in Abert's words) into A-flat major. Now all of a sudden we enter a whirlwind crescendo which sweeps us back into the main theme and with a descending scalar figure a quiet moment forms in which the woodwinds treat the little anapestic figure imitatively. Then another forte outburst, and the violins follow suit. Concluding in B-flat the section ends.
Incredibly we're now whisked off to A-sharp minor in which the main theme repeats before we are shaken by the most abrupt and simultaneous entry 1) of the main theme in the basses, forte, in E minor, (which feels particularly raw and aggressive) and of a new theme in counterpoint in the violins:
KV.550, m.114-117
This contrapuntal explosion "rages in double counterpoint over the regular harmonic sequence in E minor, A minor, D minor, G minor, C major, F major and B flat major, not stopping until it reaches the dominant of D minor, while the first element of the theme, which has been hurled through every tonality but which is now compressed into the semitone step of its sigh motif, brings the whole section to an end like a shrill outburst." [Abert, 1125] Now the strings and winds trade the first figure of the main theme back and forth until it is replaced in the winds by a ghastly figure which slices in sforzato. The flutes and oboes now trade the figure, which now holds all the weight and tension of the piece, as it descends in a chromatic passage and the tension unwinds before the main theme returns piano.
This is not the healthful vigor of the Symphony in D KV.504 we looked at earlier but something altogether less restrained and most surprising. A volatile theme is worked up through modulation and contrast into an explosion wherein "theme and counterpoint strive to go their separate ways." [Abert, 1125]
The recapitulation is rife with innovation even though we don't reach the heights of tension we did in the development. After a restatement of the main theme our figure from m. 26 (which Abert dubbed the counter-subject and Foix the sequel to the first subject) enters is itself plunged into vigorous counterpoint between the 1st violins and basses, from which it emerges in G minor. Saint Foix was certainly right to call this essentially another development section.
Now the two main forces of the work, the tense main theme and the resigned second subject, are finally directly juxtaposed. (Like in the overture to Don Giovanni, we have antithetical ideas in sharp contrast, albeit differently developed.) For even more tension the stabbing sforzato figure and the sighing anapest figure return, again all brought now into the most direct comparison. All of the force of the movement is concentrated one last time before plunging into the final run and the final three chords, based on the very first figure.
Andante
Why is it that people seem to be more transported by the preceding, aggressive movement than this more tender but equally expressive movement, at least if popularity is any indication? Let us hope we are wrong in our inference. This sonata-form movement with a double exposition shares with the preceding movement of course a certain gravity, an opening in the strings only, intensification via imitation, and many and bold modulations. Yet here the mood shifts not between rage and resignation but. . . one can only crudely and glibly describe this movement. What expression Mozart has made with this lyrical figure, and again with another incredibly simply figure, this of but two thirty-second notes.
Menuetto (Allegretto)
Who would expect the vicious struggle of the Allegro to return here? Yet here too we find genius in the effects of these rhythms which are treated in counterpoint in which they interrupt each other, producing a tremendous agitation.
KV.551, Menuetto incipit
The Trio in contrast picks up the resigned motif from the allegro, trading its theme between the strings and winds. The opening measures establish one group in the strings moving from the tonic triad and the second group in the winds modulates to the fifth in D major. In D now we cannot conclude and too a little coda interrupts the phrase and more still D is extended after the repeat, delaying the return to the tonic. This dialogue between strings and winds and its graceful little phrase brings us the idyllic peace we long for after the trio which brought back and amplified the struggle of the allegro. The winds have the last word with the theme.
Though this trio does not figure substantially in our look at this symphony, the reader is encouraged to seek out Leonard B. Meyer's Grammatical Simplicity and Relational Richness: The Trio of Mozart's G Minor Symphony. [13] It is excellent and contains a wealth of information both directly pertinent to the study and of the incidental type one might never seek out or find by itself. Meyer reveals a wealth of craftsmanship in this tiniest of pieces.
KV.551, Trio incipit
Finale: Allegro assai
We find here another deceptively regular theme, in two equal parts, the first piano in the strings and the second a forte response from the tutti. The ascending figure from V to I followed by the triad marked staccato launches us forward into the frustrated desperation that lies in that jump of the third up to B and the following suspension. This movement amplifies the energy from the opening one last time, to the point of "demonism" to both Saint-Foix and Abert. Here is the so called "daemonic" Mozart, a phrase itself a bit hackneyed after the many attempts to combat the view of Mozart as the composer of prettiness and taste.
KV.550: Allegro assai. Incipit
In the consequent phrase with the repetitions and the tutti's interrupting forte chords, the tension is amplified as we wait for the energy of those first bars to erupt, which it does in a fury of 1) rushing descending scales in the lower strings and a wickedly aggressive four crotchet figure in the other voices. The violins and the lower strings then trade the scalar figure back and forth in a whirlwind until we come, disoriented, to a halt at VII-V at m. 70.
m.71-76
It is then intensified in the winds and with a chromatic motion until the return of the first theme which brings back its aggression. The main theme returns in the development and after a highly disorienting chromatic passage (of simple crotchets and rests) the winds starting with the flutes begin to imitate the theme in the strings. One cannot overstate how remarkable the following fugato passage remains. It brings the tension of the whole movement and the whole symphony to a fevered pitch from which it will not relax. With continuous and restless modulations and the relentless stretta entries of the theme, all maintained forte this finale is a positively exhausting climax. Finally in the recapitulation the second subject, long silent, returns and is heightened by being in the tonic G minor and taken up and extended in the strings before the aggressive second half of our main theme drives us to the end.
24. Symphony No. 41 in C, KV.551
Allegro vivace
We come to it at last, the Great C major Symphony. There comes a point in the life of great works of art at which their own fame and history have created such a world around them that they are in danger of becoming obscured. KV.551 has generated such a world of both sentiment and scholarship around it. Eventually all of that sentiment and scholarship starts to ossify into an impenetrable mass and one has trouble experiencing the work. The sentiments have turned into epithets and the scholarship has murdered to dissect. Thus you have the "Olympian symphony with a fugal finale." I will, then, attempt to be brief and elucidating at the expense of being thorough.
Charles Rosen made an exceptionally apt example of this symphony in discussing the "Classical Style" in his landmark book of the same name. One of its characteristics, he argues, is synthesis. Consider the opening:
KV.551, incipit
It is treated, as Rosen says, [The Classical Style, 82-83] twenty measures later with a counterpoint. Thus the two contrasting elements of this musical phrase are reconciled. The first half of this theme is akin to a martial fanfare and recalls the Viennese tradition of grand trumpet and timpani celebratory pieces. (see Brown's essay in "Other Reading" below.) In contrast to this exuberant and earthly theme is the lofty and ethereal one which follows. This contrast and subsequent reconciliation form the heart of the exposition as the great celebratory dancing (in ingenious and varied imitation) does in the development.
Of the second movement marked Andante cantabile I will add only one remark from Arthur Hutchings, that "Mozart's spirit is an operatic character with a human soul, and no supernatural personage of Apolline art." [Hutchings, 141]
Menuetto
Like in the G minor symphony this movement resumes the theme of the first. Its theme also has something both earthy and lofty about it and it too receives contrapuntal treatment.
KV.551. Menuetto. Incipit
Molto allegro
What is perhaps most ingenious about this movement is perhaps also obvious: the manner in which all of the themes so satisfyingly combine in the contrapuntal synthesis in the coda. The conclusion, though, is not contrapuntal but as Rosen says, "pure concerto style" [Sonata Forms, 324] in its reprise of bars 13-35. Contrapuntal procedures in this movement are employed, then, for both development and synthesis. We also see here so many of Mozart's practices: contrast of homophonic and contrapuntal textures, many modulations and modulations through the circle of fifths, a cantabile line, dialogue between the winds and the strings, rushing scales and sliding figures, contrasting themes, chromatically descending lines, and fugato development. Here these practices are explored and synthesized on a grand scale, with a release of energy paralleling the sinfonia to Figaro, drive paralleling the preceding G minor symphony, and an enervating, exalting effect unparalleled.
Other Reading on KV.551
Broder, Nathan. The Wind-Instruments in Mozart's Symphonies. The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1933), pp. 238-259
Brown, A. Peter. Eighteenth-Century Traditions and Mozart's "Jupiter" Symphony K.551 The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Spring, 2003), pp. 157-195
Sisman, Elaine R. Mozart: The Jupiter Symphony. (Cambridge Music Handbooks) Cambridge University Press. 1993.
Sisman, Elaine R. Learned Style and the Rhetoric of the Sublime in the 'Jupiter' Symphony in Wolfgang Amadè Mozart: Essays on His Life and Music. ed. Stanley Sadie. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 1996.
Wollenberg, Susan. The Jupiter Theme: New Light on Its Creation. The Musical Times, Vol. 116, No. 1591 (Sep., 1975), pp. 781-783
Woodfield, Ian. Mozart's 'Jupiter': A Symphony of Light? The Musical Times, Vol. 147, No. 1897 (Winter, 2006), pp. 25-46
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Bibliography
Abert, Hermann. W. A. Mozart. Yale University Press. New Haven and New York. 2007.
Hutchings, Arthur. A Companion to Mozart's Piano Concertos. Oxford. New York. 1942
Rosen, Charles. Sonata Forms. W. W. Norton and Company. New York. 1980.
Rosen, Charles. The Classical Style. W. W. Norton and Company. New York. 1971.
Zaslaw, Neal. Mozart's Symphonies: Context, Performance Practice, Reception. Oxford University Press. New York. 1989.
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[9] Not to be confused with the sonata fragment KV.497a.
[10] Tovey, Donald Francis. Essays in Musical Analysis. (Six Volumes.) Volume I: Symphonies I: Sonata in F Major for Pianoforte for four hands, KV.497. 1935.
[11] http://www.classicalnotes.net/classics/mozartsyms.html
[12] The Norton Critical Score (W. W. Norton and Company, NY. 1967 ed. Nathan Broder) is a handy volume, containing 1) the score edited by H.C. Robbins Landon, 2) Abert's analysis, 3) Alfred Heuss' hermeneutical analysis, and short reflections from ten other critics from Hanslick to Tovey to Einstein.
[13] Meyer, Leonard B. Grammatical Simplicity and Relational Richness: The Trio of Mozart's G Minor Symphony. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Summer, 1976), pp. 693-761
223 years ago today Don Giovanni premiered at the Estates Theater in Prague. We discuss the opera here from time to time (See the Mozart and Opera tags) but this year on the anniversary of its premiere I thought I would look at some contrasting interpretations of the finale, specifically the penultimate scene. Obviously these productions all share the commonality of the libretto and music, but each also makes a different aspect the chief characteristic of the scene.
With its horrific visions of demons and the punished this production picks up on the lines "Da qual tremore insolito / Sento assalir gli spiriti! Dond'escono quei vortici / Di foco pien d'orror?" and Tutto a tue colpe è poco! /Vieni, c'è un mal peggior!" and emphasizes the punishment that awaits the Don for his sins.
II. The Manic
Terfel's wide-eyed and manic performance is the center of this production. Seeing the Commendatore his shock turns to glee and we see the Don as a sort of unleashed id, acting and reacting not rationally but wholly unconstrained. The Commendatore's arrival, then, feels particularly paternal.
III. The Defiant Don
Here our attention is nealry all on the Don himself, the camera focusing on him even when the Commendatore is speaking. By that and Raimondi's seething scowl Giovanni's sense of defiance is the crux of this interpretation of the finale. Recall that the Commendatore came not to condemn but to offer repentance (Pentiti scellerato!) and here we see the Don's disgust at the thought of bowing to anything other than himself. In contrast to Terfel's Don, Raimondi's is rationally rejecting repentance.
IV. Disbelief
Initially this performance seems to be playing it straight, not calling attention to any one element. Yet Siepi's Don walks around rather casually. Then he attempts to stab the Commendatore and, having failed, grows more and more nervous as he becomes persuaded that the Commendatore is not of this world. We sense the Don didn't really believe this was possible and we sense this terror as he cannot break free from the Commendatore's grasp. In his final moments when the lights go out, as he tries to escape but is finally carried off, we seems to say, "This wasn't supposed to happen, this wasn't supposed to be possible!"
V. Ambiguity
With the removal of the Commendatore's presence from the scene Giovanni seems frustrated as he addresses the void. Might he have sought forgiveness had he known the identity, and authority, of who called him to repent?
VI. The Rake
Rather self-explanatory, it seems.
VII. The Cosmic
Clearly the simplest of the performances we've looked at, it reflects most the spirit of the overture. The simple staging reflects the cosmic contrast of the overture, that between being and non-being. Even the costumes have an elemental contrast. Here, Don Giovanni is not so much punished as simply unmade and scattered back into the continuum of the universe.
Selections from A Mencken Chrestomathy Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. New York. 1949.
XIV. American Immortals: Mr. Justice Holmes
I find it hard to reconcile [Holmes's opinions] with any plausible concept of Liberalism. They may be good law, but it is impossible to see how they can conceivably promote liberty. My suspicion is that the hopeful Liberals of the 20s, frantically eager to find at least one judge who was not violently and implacably against them, seized upon certain of Mr. Justice Holmes's opinions without examining the rest, and read into them an attitude that was actually as foreign to his ways of thinking as it was to those of Mr. Chief Justice Hughes. Finding him, now and then, defending eloquently a new and uplifting law which his colleagues proposed to strike off the books, the concluded that he was a sworn advocate of the rights of man. But all the while, if I do not misread his plain words, he was actually no more than an advocate of the rights of law-makers. There, indeed, is the clue to his whole jurisprudence. He believed that the law-making bodies should be free to experiment almost ad libitum, that the courts should not call a halt upon them until they clearly passed the uttermost bounds of reason, that everything should be sacrificed to their autonomy, including, apparently, even the Bill of Rights. If this is Liberalism, then all I can say is that Liberalism is not what I thought it was when I was young. . . To call him a Liberal is to make the word meaningless.
Let us, for a moment, stop thinking of him as one, and let us also stop thinking of him as a littératur, a reformer, a sociologist, a prophet, an evangelist, a metaphysician; instead, let us think of him as something that he undoubtedly was in his Pleistocene youth and probably remained ever after, to wit, a soldier. Let us think of him, further, as a soldier extraordinarily ruminative and articulate – in fact, so ruminative and articulate as to be, in the military caste, almost miraculous. And let us think of him still further as a soldier whose natural distaste and contempt for civilians, and corollary yearning to heave them all into Hell, was cooled and eased by a stream of blood that once flowed through the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table – in brief, as a soldier beset by occasional doubts, hesitations, flashes of humor, bursts of affability, moments of sneaking pity.
XVI. Economics: Capitalism
All the quacks and cony-catchers no crowding the public trough at Washington seem to be agreed upon one thing, and one thing only. It is the doctrine that the capitalistic system is on its last legs, an will presently give place to something more "scientific." There is, of course, no truth in this doctrine whatsoever. It collides at every point with the known facts. There is not the slightest reason for believing that capitalism is in collapse, or that anything proposed by the current wizards would be any better. The most that may be said is that the capitalistic system is undergoing changes, some of them painful. But those changes will probably strengthen it quite as often as they weaken it.
We owe to it almost everything that passes under the general name of civilization today. The extraordinary progress of the world since the Middle Ages has not been due to the mere expenditure of human energy, nor even to the flights of human genius, for men had worked hard since the remotest times, and some of them had been of surpassing intellect. No, it has been due to the accumulation of capital. That accumulation permitted labor to be organized economically and on a large scale, and thus greatly enhanced its productiveness. It provided the machinery that gradually diminished human drudgery, and liberated the spirit of the worker, who had formerly been almost indistinguishable from a mule. Most of all. it made possible a longer and better preparation for work, so that every art and handicraft greatly widened its scope and range, and multitudes of new and highly complicated crafts came in.
XVII. Pedagogy: The Educational Process
That ability to impart knowledge, it seems to me, has very little to do with technical method. It may operate at full function without any technical method at all, and contrariwise, the most elaborate of technical methods cannot make it operate when it is not actually present. And what does it consist of? It consists, first, of a natural talent for dealing with children, for getting into their minds, for putting things in a way that they can comprehend. And it consists, secondly, of a deep belief in the interest and importance of the thing taught, a concern about it amounting to a kind of passion. A man who knows a subject thoroughly, a man so soaked in it that he eats it, sleeps it and dreams it – this man can almost always teach it with success, no matter how little he knows of technical pedagogy. That is because there is enthusiasm in him, and because enthusiasm is as contagious as fear or the barber's itch. An enthusiast is willing to go to any trouble to impart the glad news bubbling within. He thinks that it is important and valuable for to know; given the slightest glow of interest in a pupil to start with, he will fan that glow to a flame. No hollow hocus-pocus cripples him and slows him down. He drags his best pupils along as fast as they can go, and he is so full of the thing that he never tires of expounding its elements to the dullest.
Few works so clearly demonstrate Mozart's genius for manipulating both harmonic and metrical rhythm. It also demonstrates his genius for variation, particularly in the Andante, here the third movement of the quartet. This is also a rather dense and complicated work in which Mozart draws not only on varying the theme, contrasting dynamics, contrasting texture, harmonic modulation, and variation of the meter (within the flexible 3/4 time) but all of these features and all in the opening Allegro. It has become trite to say a piece rewards repeated study and listening, but this quartet most certainly does.
While only the andante is in variation form the whole quartet is a journey of variations, the outer sonata-form movements in particular sharing a symmetry. In the opening Allegro Mozart begins imitative procedures on the main theme in the tonic (E) minor as soon as sixteen bars into the movement, development we would not expect in the exposition. At the near end of the exposition we see each instrument effectively in its own time before, in the development, we begin a new contrapuntal exploration. The last movement too, Allegro non troppo, is an exploration of a theme. It begins in dazzling imitation but at m.113 pauses and begins, piano, a tender and somber theme, an exploration which will run through all of Fux's species of counterpoint.
It is impossible not to mention the Andante to this work, which Beethoven saw fit to copy out (possibly along with the finale)[7] yet I don't want to yank it apart for study. The unfolding of the variations is so extraordinarily transporting I will just leave you with Abert's words, that rather than mere theme and variation, we have a "dreamily wistful transfiguration." [Abert, 858.]
14-15. Duo for Violin and Viola in G, KV.423 & Piano Trio in G, KV.496 - Andante
We group these two works together on account of their light and Rococo nature enlivened by the wealth of variety of technique Mozart imbues in them. Mozart's craftsmanship is visible in works like these also, not just in the monumental works. Here we have contrapuntal treatment of light and even slight themes.
Duo for Violin and Viola in G, KV.423
16. String Quartet in D major, 'Hoffmeister,' KV.499
This quartet too tends to get rather slighted, falling as it does between the sets of the "Haydn" quartets and the final set of three quartets KV. 575, 589, and 590. We see here as in the A major quartet KV.464 contrapuntal and often canonic treatment of the main theme amidst development. Alec Hyatt King hinted at the peculiar mood of this piece, pervasive through the movements: is it wry humor or veiled sadness?
Here is one of Mozart's most humorous statements in this "musical joke." Scored for strings and horns it is a symphony of sorts, sometimes classified as a divertimento. The piece is splendid piece of humor poking fun at a would-be composer, perhaps someone in particular. It is also a sort of contrasting companion to the contemporaneous Serenade Eine kleine Nachtmusic, KV.525. This joke is in four movements, all of which are filled with a variety of mistakes of the sort a bumbling composer trying to write a popular piece might make. In the final movement this "poor composer" twice attempts fugato and both times fails, the structure falling apart after a few bars. Who can repress a smile when the horns bumble in with their jocular them in place of a contrapuntal development?
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We must make a special note about the following two pieces, which are not only among Mozart's greatest works but among music's greatest, though they are not quite as famous as the final symphonic trilogy, the operas, and others of great popular esteem. They are also among Mozart's biggest structures, the first movement of the quintet at over 350 bars (over 1,100 total) and the first movement of the concerto at over 400. As such, and also consistent with our survey, we will but lightly be touching upon these works and while Girdlestone in his (and the) classic work on the concertos discusses KV.503 at length and Rosen in "The Classical Style" does the same for the quintet KV.515, study of these works is far from exhausted.
18. Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, KV.503 - Allegro maestoso
Years ago I attended a summer concert at which this concerto was performed. After the performance, during the intermission, a woman in the row behind me began to speak about the concerto, referring to it quite casually as "concert" music, i.e. "just concert music." You know, that pleasant-sounding but vapid sort of filler. Quite unlike the Beethoven which was to follow, of course. To this day I cannot account for the comment, I really cannot. You see, it is of course possible to be unaware of the structure of a piece. One can simply follow it and take in what one can, perhaps even drifting away here and there. Yet there is, of course, ingenious structure in Beethoven too.[8] My best guess is this poor women simply saw the Beethoven as "serious" and the Mozart as "pretty." Aside from the crudeness of such categories and the injustice it does composers to lump them into genres and styles, the statement reveals a particularly lamentable view both of life and of Mozart in particular. In his essay on the G minor symphony KV.550 Tovey quoted the English poet Edward Fitzgerald who wrote in the 19th century that "People will not believe that Mozart can be powerful, because he is so beautiful."
So let Mozart and this magnificent concerto, with its ingenious conception and painstaking working-out, with its soaring majesty, its vigor and its tenderness, its lyric songfulness here and marching there, teach us that to be beautiful and joyous is not to be weak or shallow. Far from it. Indeed this concerto is the life-affirming and life-exalting counterpart to its cataclysmic predecessor in C minor.
Both Hutchings and Rosen noted the great economy of color that is one of this concerto's hallmarks. Specifically here we see a great economy of color, contrasting between major and minor. We will also see the orchestra to be the predominant force of this concerto and its prelude is a masterpiece in itself.
We begin with a clear and bold tutti forte, with the tonic harmony contrasted with the dominant. The grand opening is immediately contrasted by the bassoons and oboes, which in turn offer a gentle little phrase. It is as if we have been thrust to great heights and the winds then keep us aloft. After another tutti outburst the bassoons and oboes repeat their work and trade the phrase an additional time. Now the violins trade a dotted triplet figure back and forth in imitation against a rising bass figure before a tutti forte outburst launches the violins into a sprinting ascending scale and their previous figure falls to the basses who now use it to punctuate the scales. They then trade again, the basses with the scales and the violins with the dotted figure. Now the first violins trade the figure against the rest of the orchestra and the tension builds until it overflows in descending scales in the violins. Only at last do a series of G major chords with the rhythm of three quavers followed by a crotchet arrive and slow us down.
It is important to repeat on of Girdlestone's points about this opening and piece overall: it is marked maestoso and not brillante. "The work is majestic, not festive; if it is taken too fast the majesty vanishes and breadth of line gives place to something skimped and curtailed." [Girdlestone, 422] Yet we cannot look here at this marvel in its entirety but cut to the height of the development section and ask pardon for doing so. Here is the climax wherein the figures of the subjects break up into different groups, delving into canon which then loosens into imitative passages. Charles Rosen describes this well:
The final triumph of the massive power of KV.503 is the second half of the development section which–in addition to the piano's figuration is in full six-part polyphony, with imitative writing almost strict enough to be called canonic, a tour de forceof classical counterpoint comparable to the finale of the Jupiter symphony or the ball scene in Don Giovanni. [Rosen, 257]
19. String Quintet in C, KV.515 - Allegro I
The contrapuntal heights in the development here serves as the climax of the movement as in the previous concerto. The addition of the viola to the string quartet gives Mozart more possibilities for grouping instruments and moving themes amongst parts and with that flexibility Mozart greatly expands the scale of this sonata-form structure. This expansion is that of the tonic section, in which he remains exceedingly long through ingenious turns of modulation.
The unprecedented majesty of this work comes from the long immobility and the firm tonic harmony, its lyric poignance from the chromatic alterations that made the proportions conceivable. . . If listeners measured their experiences by the clock, the development section of the C major Quintet would seem too short; but complexity and intensity are a more than adequate substitute for length. The development is one of Mozart's richest: the climax is a double canon in four voices with a free counterpoint in the fifth (second viola) and almost the whole development is in minor, making the return to C major grand and luminous. [Rosen, 272]
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Girdlestone, Cuthbert. Mozart and His Piano Concertos. Dover Publications, Inc. New York. 1964.
Rosen, Charles. The Classical Style. W. W. Norton and Company. New York. 1971.
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[7] see Yudkin, Jeremy. Beethoven's "Mozart" Quartet. Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Spring, 1992), pp. 30-74
[8] Of course given the structural similarities between this concerto and Beethoven's practice, such a shallow comparison is even more foolish.
This brief post has in fact several origins. Such is because its brevity had until now dissuaded me from posting it until I could write at greater length and significance. Yet now I am prodded into posting. Again, the origins are as follows:
1) I want to note that Frank McLynn's biography of Marcus Aurelius from 2009 is excellent and well worth reading. I'm not too keen on reviewing biographies, not quite knowing what to say. Aside from whether or not it held your interest and informed you, I suppose you "review" the ideas, in which case you could review those ideas by themselves. Anyway, it is well worth reading.
2) Likewise for the Hicks' translation of the writings of Marcus Aurelius, the "exhortations to myself." Their translation is currently published by Scribner under the title, "The Emperor's Handbook." It is far and away the best translation I have read. Oddly, though, the thin volume is a hardcover and while the cover is of a high quality the pages are of a very poor quality: dry and slightly yellowed after only a few years.
3) Philosophy can be a very ascetic discipline, sometimes, even often, too ascetic. Likewise even moral philosophy, which considers others and their rights, always seems to reduce to what it is best that I do
4) As regular readers know we pay manners a good deal of attention here. We like to maintain a gentlemanly disposition and keep up at APLV a congenial yet vigorous atmosphere. One might say most briefly that we refrain from being needlessly intemperate. This requires some kind of understanding of one's self in relation to his surroundings. Now as you might guess I'm inclined to make a philosophical problem out of that situation: i.e. people need philosophy and there really ought to be an argument as to why manners are necessary. Yet many manners are simply traditional. Too I don't think many people really want to quibble about the philosophical roots and dimensions of manners. I think Fred Astaire was right too when he said, "The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any."
So lack of manners can be part lack of understanding and part lack of emulation. (Let's not split any more hairs about that, shall we?) Some people are, of course, rude. Yet something rather perturbed me just before. In the comments section on what I had considered a particularly civilized corner of the internet an author, scholar, and bright fellow reacted to a rather innocuous comment by saying, as if to someone else, "This nobody. . ." Aside from having seen arguments to better advantage, and what is that comment other than an attempt to discredit, what a nasty thing to say. It is even nastier upon further consideration. Now nasty things get said all the time and I wouldn't waste your time calling on everyone to be nice. I'm sure you could find something quite intemperate on cable news after only a few seconds.
My point is that he is a well-thought of and, I'm sure, normal person. Yet he just publicly referred to someone else as, essentially, being an insignificant non-entity, and when I read that I thought, "I don't want to be like him." That's what reminded me of Marcus Aurelius, since Book I of the sayings collected and usually published as his "Meditations" begins with a series of reflections on people in his life. He writes on about sixteen or so people, "From him I learned X."
Alexander the Platonist cautioned me against saying or writing in a letter, either too often or without absolutely needing to, "I'm too busy," as well as against using the demands of work as a constant excuse for ducking my social obligations and family duties.
Catulus taught me not to ignore a friend who is cross with me, even if I have done nothing to deserve his bad temper, but to seek to regain his affection.
My father enjoyed, without pretension or self-indulgence, the luxuries that his fortune lavished upon him; but when these were not available, he never seemed to miss them. . . He respected sound learning and those who seek the truth, and he remained on good terms with the rest, but from a distance.
From my father I learned "a cheerful and friendly disposition, within reason" and "a true regard for those who have mastered a particular skill or subject."
There is a great deal to discuss when considering these writings, but here I just want to note that this seems to me to be a fruitful exercise. The reflection is practical and personal, centered on people we know. It helps one see oneself in relation to others and to learn from and appreciate them. Also and considering our discussion of manners above, it helps one learn from the mistakes of others. Have we all not, at some point, met someone not so dissimilar from ourselves and not really enjoyed his company? On the other hand is there not someone we seek to emulate in some way? Surely most people we know are worthy of emulating in some way. This reflection seems also to emphasize considering character, our own and others', and not just isolated deeds. Do we like our character, do we work at improving it or is it a passive process of ossification by which it changes? What about the people we know? Do we want to be like them? Do we like them but still not want to be like them?
It seems to me this type of reflection might make for a third of a program of reflection. One like this which focuses on reflecting on others, one which focuses on one's personal character (perhaps something like Benjamin Franklin's "Thirteen Virtues" books) and something focusing on spirituality, like the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.
That probably sounds like a lot of reflection to some people, but consider the alternative.
Last week in a broad discussion of character and disposition, we discussed the Roman concept of comitas as relief from overwhelming seriousness. We concluded that a balanced disposition, predominately serious but relieved by humor, would be ideal. Let us consider the objects of humor. There would seem to be two choices: what you don't approve of and what you do. In the former case one is of course at great liberty to ridicule, satirize, and so forth. This can range from light mockery of the object to a devastating lampooning. Yet how does one see humor in something which one essentially takes seriously?
For example, of course we expect an artist to have a "serious" commitment to his craft and we expect him to have principles by which he creates his work. Whether the work is comic or serious we expect the artist to have a consistent vision for what he can, ought to, and wants to achieve. We would not like it if he had a trivial view of his craft, thinking his work disposable, ineffective, or slipshod. We expect a seriousness and consistency of purpose, or constantia.
Relief from this overwhelming seriousness, then, would have to be of a particular nature not to demean the craft. It would have to refrain from trivializing and not turn the craft into a farce. Humor at art's expense ought to poke fun at what is already odd or esoteric instead of turning its virtues into vices. One ought not mock its purpose but rather the often idiosyncratic means of the craft.
Enter Victor Borge
Our discussion continues below, but only read after you've watched the video.
First, the jokes are not broad but of a specifically musical nature. It is odd that in opera you sing the same thing over and over, it is odd that you sing a word with all sorts of effects, and it is odd when you're playing that you start to hum and sway. It's funny to see him call attention to curious conventions by doing something "wrong." He points out the oddness that what is really just a name becomes and immortal symbol, that Joe Green becomes "Giuseppe Verdi." We see the wacky gestures of conductors and what we all pretend makes sense in musical theater (see videos below.)
Other details simple tickle the funny bone, "Oh you don't tune," his shock when she bursts out singing, changing his playing style, and substituting a tune here or there.
Pardon this detailed look at comedy, but it seems we don't often analyze what we laugh at. I'm not sure why when we so painstakingly look at "serious" works, but it seems prudent to take closer look at least to make sure we're not trivializing something we do find important. For example, none of the conventions of performance Borge makes fun of are of value in themselves, but only at the service of performance and opera, i.e. artistic expression, which he does not mock.
Lastly, he pulls off the whole routine without either pretentiousness or vulgarity, and without demeaning his craft. It's not mean-spirited or divisive. He's a gentlemanly pianist just wondering why this lady's standing next to his piano and screaming. Oh, and he's hilarious.
We have, as we noted at the outset, not been comprehensive. We overlooked examples in Mozart's string quartets from 1773, KV.158, 168, 171, and 173, in which the teenage Mozart continues to react to the great advances thrown down in Haydn's series op. 20. Mozart would not return to the genre until 1782 with the great G major quartet, KV.387. We also overlooked one piece we certainly should not have, Mozart's variations on the French tune 'Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman' KV.265. Aside from being a charming and clever work the variations employ a variety of contrapuntal practices. As such and because many already know the tune it makes a great piece to start looking at different techniques like countering 4:1 and which dissonances are permitted under which circumstances. (Does Mozart follow Fux's rules?)
Neither have we looked at every canon, fugato and instance of imitation, for example in openings to movements like those of the Presto to Symphony No. 27 in G major, KV.199/161b and the Allegro finale to the "Paris" Symphony in D, KV.297. Fine and effective as they are we have confined our look somewhat. Alec Hyatt King's essay, "Mozart's Counterpoint: Its Growth and Significance" [4] includes an apt survey of this period of Mozart's work and development as well as some other pieces we will not look at in great detail.
This time we will not look at all of the pieces in chronological order but rather look at the Da Ponte collaborations of Figaro and Don Giovanni. In turn we will then look at the final four symphonies, then the remaining chamber works and sonatas, and finally the late works Die Zauberflöte and the Requiem.
11. Le nozze di Figaro, KV.492- Act II, Finale
No one wrote a finale like Mozart, which was fortunate for him because theater-goers expected a big finale. The poet of Mozart's Figaro, Lorenzo da Ponte, was sensitive to this theater convention in which one simply had to produce the whole cast in a big and exciting finale with which to end the act,
The finale must, through a dogma of the theater, produce on the stage every singer of the cast, be there three hundred of them. . .and if the plot does not permit, the poet must find a way to make it permit. . . and if then the finale happens to go badly, so much the worse for him!"[5]
At over 900 bars this finale is astoundingly large. One by one another character joins the ensemble as the plot untangles onstage until at last Marcellina and her party (the remainder of the cast) burst onto the stage. The whole group erupts into a big argument with their individual lines contrapunting [6] off one another yet it feels so natural one simply gets caught up in the drama. Indeed the drama and music complement so that the scene feels a perfect whole; one is in fact quite disinclined to take it apart. How can all of this bickering and this great squabble be so beautiful and appealing? Milos Forman's 1984 film Amadeus put it like this:
Sire, only opera can do this. In a play, if more than one person speaks at the same time, it's just noise. No one can understand a word. But with music, with music you can have twenty individuals all talking at once, and it's not noise - it's a perfect harmony. Isn't that marvelous?
Indeed. Here the music, both the force of the development leading up to the finale and all of the voices bouncing around at the end, breathe life, beauty, poignancy, and of course excitement into what is otherwise a domestic squabble. We often get sidetracked looking for complexity and hidden profundity that we forget that making something beautiful is an end in itself.
In the Figaro finale we saw the counterpoint was more or less invisible; it did not really call attention to itself. Perhaps we might say it was hiding in plain sight given its form and function in the piece. Here we see a similar use: in Don Giovanni's great ball at his villa he has several bands playing different dances. Yet all of the bands play these dances at the same time! Mozart has written a scene for us in which all of these dances with their different rhythms play on together but with each one naturally coming to the forefront every so often.
Mozart's delicate act of balancing the rhythms of a minuet, a contredance, and an allemande goes practically unnoticed as the ball unfolds: the peasants dance, Don Giovnanni corners Zerlina into a contredance, and Leporello busies Masetto with an allemande. Indeed the scene unfolds so smoothly and we fall so readily into the dances that when they break away all of a sudden we are all the more startled.
This is a busy scene and it may help to follow the score here where the three bands are separately notated. See the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe Act II, Finale. starting with m. 360.
Act II, Sextet "Sola, Sola in buio loco. . ." and Quintet, "Mille torbidi pensieri"
This scene requires a bit of summary. Leporello, in his master's clothes, has lured Donna Elvira from her house so Giovnanni could woo Elvira's maid. Leporello and Elvira wander into the garden where they are soon joined by Donna Anna, Ottavia, Masetto, and Zerlina. The quartet corners Leporello, disguised as Giovanni and in a shocking admission Elvira defends him and confesses her love for "her husband" as the angry quartet demands he die. Fearing for his life, Leporello takes off his disguise to the astonishment of all and everyone launches into a great bother.
While Leporello clings desperately to small phrases and rapidly stutters his fears, the Quintet rages in anger about Giovanni and in desperation at their fate that they should not only be tormented by this man but impotent before him. Leporello gradually recedes from the scene and the remaining lines diverge into polyphony as each character is carried away with his and her personal despair. The sudden breaking off and change of texture is extraordinarily arresting and the quick change back only serves to intensify the effect.
Leporello
Quintet
Mille torbidi pensieri
Mi s'aggiran per la testa;
Se mi salvo in tal tempesta,
È un prodigio in verità
Mille torbidi pensieri
Mi s'aggiran per la testa:
Che giornata, o stelle, è questa!
Che impensata novità!
Fear and doubting quite distract me,
All my head is in confusion,
Would indeed 'twere a delusion,
And I safely from this spot.
Fear and doubting quite distract me,
All my head is in confusion,
'Tis a vision, a vile delusion!
Be this masking, be this masking ne'er forgot!
In discussing Piano Concerto No. 14 we quoted Arthur Hutchings referring to a particular aspect of Mozart's contrapuntal style and we would be wise to note it here also:
So sure is Mozart's sense of contrapuntal style that in all kinds of unexpected places–the finale presto of Don Giovanni, for instance– he makes a fugato gesture which makes us we are going to have something on the scale of the 'Jupiter' finale; yet when the parts disappear in smoke, or find themselves on firm homophonic ground, we are aware of no incongruity." [Hutchings, 87]
Once again calling for Giovanni's head the parties enter and harangue a terrified Leporello. Are they going to fly off in different directions as in the Act II sextet? No, larghetto they fall into separate asides about how they will continue their lives now that Don Giovanni is no longer. Then we launch into the D major Presto finale: are we building to some polyphonic extravaganza now? With rushing scales rising through two octaves starting on the tonic and alternating dynamics we are surely building to something. Yet we still find ourselves on homophonic ground. The sextet sings the moral and we go home. Fine dell' Opera. Having grown used to his style throughout the opera, here the absence of the expected is a great effect in itself.
[4] Music & Letters, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jan., 1945), pp. 12-20
[5] Quoted from p. 107 of Levarie, Siegmund. Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro: A Critical Analysis. University of Chicago Press. Chicago. 1952. Quote translation by Elisabeth Abbott, from the edition by Arthur Livingston (Philadelphia and London, 1929), p.133
[6] Credit to Dr. Levarie for this clever use of the word.
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Hutchings, Arthur. A Companion to Mozart's Piano Concertos. Oxford University Press. New York. 1948.
Earlier this week we looked at some issues surrounding democracy and government. Our look at some popular music also tended in the direction of looking at democracy but in the context of culture, a vantage from which Sven Wilson of Pileus [1] and Damon Linker of The New Republic have looked today. Before we begin we ought to make the distinction that we're looking at not just democracy but a specific blend of liberalism and democracy. By democratic we mean that the law is determined predominately by the will of the people and by liberal we mean that the law tends to favor liberty over other goals like stability, security, et cetera.
Let us begin with Mr. Linker's essay, which itself begins with a fine summary of liberalism and what is perhaps its most important feature: that it excludes certain discussions from the law. That is, there is no consensus on certain issues. For example, in the United States everyone is bound to an accord on, say, "the right to be free from unreasonable searches," but not on what is moral. Linker's example is perhaps even clearer: that we agree on a right to happiness, but not what that happiness is. There is no accord as to whether a commercial or contemplative life is best. Yet undoubtedly people have their own answers, of some sort, to those questions. Mr. Linker has neatly addressed the crucial point that liberalism considers liberty to be the greatest good. It sounds obvious of course but such has great implications: what you consider good is somehow or potentially subordinated to liberty. Of course you are free to pursue that good for yourself and are free to encourage others to follow your view too, but you cannot ensure the good. Of course liberalism by virtue of protecting one's life and property goes a long way toward promoting what most people consider the good, for example the right to your life. Nonetheless the problem is ineluctable as questions of morality and law continue to generate conflict because of lack of consensus on a metaphysical issue.
Now Mr. Wilson addresses a unique feature of democracy: the great variety of ideas. Plato called democracy a "bazaar of constitutions" (παντοπώλιον πολιτειῶν) [3] Now in the absence of consensus on certain things (a feature of liberalism, as we just noted) some of that variety is bound to be considered bad (let us permit this vague word in this instance.) Now Plato considered [4] there to be an anarchic element to democracy and also to the democratic man: that the proper (good) element in society and in him is not what holds sway. Where then does the good come from in a liberal democratic society?
Undoubtedly there will be some idea and ideas considered good or better than others, and those ideas will be consolidated into two places: institutions and idealized individuals. To preserve those two elements, and thus the good, what is needed? To preserve an institution some kind of conservative element must prevail, and since it is conserving what is thought to be the good we may call it aristocratic. We do not here inquire here about means, i.e. how the proper people are found and brought to perform the necessary conserving.
In this group we may class institutions of education, connected with holding public office, and of religion. All of these institutions affect what is thought to be good and try to bring about that good. What Aristotle said of education[5] implies in some respect to all of these institutions: they attempt to make a plurality into unity. Yet Aristotle also says that like a harmony passing into unison, a state may be too unified. This is an inquiry of its own: to what extent does a plurality and a atmosphere of challenging ideas promote the good? What ought to ground society: what it firmly believes to be good or a spirit of inquiry toward the truth? Such inquiry would inherently challenge the status quo at all times and be damaging to stability. Would it turn all truth into a potential provisional truth? Speaking of inquiry specifically philosophy, Nietzsche wrote, "if philosophy ever manifested itself as helpful, redeeming, or prophylactic, it was in a healthy culture. The sick, it made ever sicker." [6]
This is perplexing. We need both plurality and unity, we need stable institutions but the potential to correct potential mistakes. (Aristotle questioned the wisdom of fixing even bad laws, because what you gain in justice you may lose in stability because such changes weaken confidence in the constitution. [7])
Of institutions then we see that balance is the most prudent course, between extreme rigidity which may harbor injustice and extreme laxness which commands no authority. Of the people we see a need for a balance there too, between an aristocracy which may corrupt to on oligarchy and a populism which may devolve into extreme democracy.
Yet what of the "idealized individual" we spoke of? Of course in any society some people are thought well of. Aristotle wisely made the connection that "to praise a man is akin to urging a course of action" and which people a society chooses to praise, be they real or fiction, modern or ancient, is akin to extolling particular virtues and action. We may then say that leading a public and good life is necessary in a liberal democracy. It is not sufficient simply to extol virtues but people must see that they can be lived. Thus to retreat from public life is damaging for at least two reasons. First, what is bad is most often well-known if not outright sensationalized. I say well-known because it is not necessarily qualified. Thus not to make the good known is to give what is bad full or fuller sway. Second, it makes one question as to whether what is good is plausible to do. Even if someone thinks a particular trait is a virtue, if he doesn't know anyone who lives that way, is he likely to emulate that behavior? It is doubtful.
Of course we must realize that any society short of a tyranny, either a tyranny by one or by many, will permit some diversity. In any non-tyrannical society some things will be common and some private. Forcing the good on some will gradually lead to tyranny and not acknowledging the good will lead to a relativist anarchy. Promoting the good, then, relies in some measure on strictly cultural forces, what we might most generally call the varieties of expression. Those expressions will demonstrate the bounds, and values, of the society.
All of these features, though, tie tightly into the individual. It is with thoughts and questions about the nature of the citizen and individual with which we ought to end our considerations. The question of whether the good individual and the good citizen may be one and the same was too perceived by Aristotle. In Book III of the Politics [10] Aristotle said the virtue of the citizen was relative to the constitution of which he is a member. Thus unless all men of the state share in perfect goodness, i.e. if they agree in all respects what the good is, then the good citizen and good individual cannot perfectly coincide. Yet Aristotle also says the purpose of the state is twofold, not just to fit him for the good life but to do so satisfy his social instinct. So if man's social instinct is liberal in nature our paradox makes more sense. It is then understandable that, totalitarianism and tyranny being unnatural, the type of government we attempted to describe and whose features we tried to balance is not unfitting.
Lest we be thought too tidily to have solved this timeless problem, one ought to concede a difficulty: that of tying action to cause. Aristotle stated [112 that actions are due to seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, nature, appetite. How a society chooses to determine what action is caused by which of those causes will determine much.
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While professional pianists may sit down at a modern concert grand piano and dominate the instrument, or get to know it, I think most of us approach the massive structure with some degree of reverence. The big shiny thing, usually the largest and often the only instrument at a concert, at least commands a lot of attention. It has quite the history too, from primitive designs in the middle ages, through the refinements of the Cristofori, the variations of the Viennese and English actions, and its ascendancy to dominance in the 19th century. Today it's hard to imagine a piano concert without a shiny grand, and arguably the biggest name in grand pianos is Steinway & Sons.
