Question One
According to Vario, for the content of the music produced, the words that are used in the new music do not explain in clear terms the nature, peculiarity and the essence of the accented singing. Vario says the words seem to be a circumlocution that is calculated to show that they wish to confuse them and not that they are disposed to regulate all things with rules founded on truth. Vario also that says the singers do not use the right tones and do not know how to carry the voice. Luca says the accents in composition have remarkable effects and occur when a part ascends to a high note. He says that if, for instance, four notes ascend by step, the accent is made on the last note and not the others. The voice usually begins at third lower than the fourth note and is carried gracefully to its level. This affects the music in that according to Luca the greatest discretion and the judgment of the singer for its execution lead to the production of good music.
Question Two
According to Richard, literalism is inspired by passion and commitment it can make wonders in making old music sound new. On the hand, zealous preciosity exists on many different levels. First is in the text; the text can be easily read by the modern people. Also other levels of zealous preciosity, is in the expression and in the execution. These levels make the zealous preciosity completely a representative of our time and, as a result, foreign to Mozart’s but very effective.
The current practices, values and understanding of the Western Art music differs from the 18th Century in many ways. First is in the type of the instruments that were used to make music. In the Article ‘A Mozart Wholly Ours’ we can see that the instruments used to make music include the ancient Pianos such as the Mozart Piano. Other instruments included instruments such as the Violins. In modern Western music, on the other hand, Pianos that are used and different from the Mozart. The modern pianos with programmed sounds for other instruments in them and need power supply to operate.
Another difference is in the genre of music that was produced. In the 18th Century, the main genre was the Classical music. The Western Art Music, on the other hand, has a lot of genres and having developed over the years. The genres that currently exist include such genres as Hip Hop, House Music and many more.
Also, there is a difference in the mode of presentation. The Western Art music is mainly presented in Tapes, Compact Discs, TV and Internet sites. In the 18th Century, presentation music was recorded in Record Players and event were live singing with the band and not just singing along a recording like these days. The modern values have also changed such as the song lyrics. Unlike the days of the classics, the musicians have now gone into commercial music where they sing about women, sex, cars, money, parties, violence and as a result not very educational on life issues like the music of the 18th Century.
Question Three
Beethoven’s career was mostly private and very few people knew about it and in his concerts he carefully chose his audience. According to De Nora in Beethoven and the Construction of a Genius, music does not just develop but rather the development is triggered by from the inside of real individuals in accordance with the surrounding institutional and cultural practices. The development of music is also as a result of the practical contexts of the individuals and the ideas they get from the local contingencies.
Beethoven’s career was a success due to several reasons. Beethoven performed in public concerts not only for his personal benefit but also for the benefit of the others. As a result, he was extremely productive as much he was hidden within the aristocratic soirees within the world. Beethoven also had a very short time as a popular composer enabling him to work with other people and learn from them. At this time, he could also share the work that he composed with other people and get their comments and use them to improve his work.
Beethoven also at some point pulled back from the life of the public. This was to increase is alienation from the public. This way he could gain the lighter styles of composing music. This method of alienating from the public was also used by other similar music composers such as Nepomuk Hummel and Louis Spohr. Also, Beethoven’s career heightened during his last years when his work was hit by a lot of people who showed interest in his work.
Beethoven’s work for the twenty years was programmed across concert locations, and the performance was with regular degree. The distribution of the performances were irregular either over time or across concert locations. This helped him to attend as most concerts as he could and to do it over a very short time.
Also at this time Beethoven was one of the major stars together with Haydn and Mozart. This illuminated the social distribution of the taste for music in the State of Vienna at that time. Beethoven would then get a lot of people in his concerts as he was one of the few stars and had a lot of fans especially the serious and old aristocrats in Vienna but in few cases the middle class people.
The role of Patrons included confirming that all the resources that the music composers needed were available to them and beyond the reach of most of his or her fellow musicians. The Patrons were also to sell the talent of their clients by marketing their music and arranging concerts for them as well. This was to ensure that the composers stayed on top of the game.
Mozart’s drastic change in popularity was experienced around the year 1784 and 1989 due to the upcoming different styles of making music. The culture of music was changing, and the changes are music composition was changing the economic basis, and there was a need to maintain prestige in the changing climate of patronage. Also, the music life created a predisposition towards the music stars and a notion of creating a musical genius. Baron Gottfried van Swieten steered Mozart’s career between trying to promote the concept of serious music by arguing that the music that was being produced by the new artists lacked seriousness and there was need to hold on to the old musical style because it was ‘serious’ compared to the other styles. Mozart backed up the “serious” kind of music and was opposing these new methods of composition saying that it would spoil the seriousness of music and its composition.
Question Four
Pro Right-wing Musical Group
The Pro Right-wing musical group among other issues splintered over communism and believed that advocating class war in which all property ended up being publicly owned, and each person paid according his/her ability was wrong. The composers of the Right included Rene Remond, Henri Massis and Raymond Radiguet. The Right just like the Left used their music to express their feelings and stand about the war such as their strong belief against the idea of communism. Also in their concerts they used their music to change the way of thinking of their audience about the cases of thee war and the rights that they were supposed to fight for.
Pro Left-wing Musical Group
The Pro Left-wing espoused a very different view from the Right in accordance with Franco-German Reconciliation and the German culture in general and according to then the the Right's bellicosity and xenophobia were responsible for the eruption. The composers of the Pro Left-wing included Romain Rolland, Pierre Lasserre and Jean Cocteau. The composers used music as an avenue to communicate the post-war climate and to the cultural pieties that are experienced in the Left during the post-war. In the content of their music, they talked about the war and what they believed in such saying that the Right were responsible for the causes of the war and not them.
Work Cited
Jane F. Fulcher. The Composer as Intellectual: Ideological Inscriptions in French Interwar Neoclassism
Tia DeNora. Bethoveen and the Construction of Genius: Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792-1803
Richard Taruskin. 1990. A Mozart Wholly Ours. An Encounter with the Bilson/Gardiner Mozart Piano concerto cycle leaves several myths about “authenticity” strewn in its wake
Giovanni Maria Artusi. 1600. Artusi, or, Of the Imperfections of Modern Music (Page 18 – Page 36)
