Steve Schwartz replies to my statement:

>>To explain: Up to the 20th century, all respectable art, including music,
>>was expected to be pretty much the same as what had been produced before.
>
>This last assertion isn't true, unless you fudge the definition of "pretty
>much the same." For example, Mozart and Beethoven knew that Handel's music
>differed significantly from their own.  Furthermore, contemporaries knew
>that late Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, and Schumann differed significantly
>from Haydn and Mozart.

Steve is talking about gaps of about a century here.  What I meant was that
the music of students was not expected to differ significantly from that of
their masters.

Steve Schwartz also replied to my argument:

>>The great innovators of music, such as Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, and
>>Wagner, pushed the language forward by only very small steps compared to
>>their predecessors.  Staying essentially always within the precepts of
>>what was considered common-practice harmony and counterpoint, their music
>>has much more in common with each other's than the differences of style
>>which separate them.
>
>In other words, they were all tonal.  This is like saying that Wagner and
>Mendelssohn write the same kind of music, or that Hindemith and Haydn do.
>I don't believe it.  The differences in style aren't negligible.

We are so used to hearing and appreciating this music that it is difficult
to see.  We have to try and measure it as scientifically as possible.  Try
to look at these styles from the point of view of a man from Mars, or from
a non-Western culture who has heard none of our music.

Haydn-Mendelssohn-Wagner-Hindemith:  99 percent of the time:  same chords,
same prinicples of melodic construction, same rhythms, same principles
of voice-leading, very similar principles of counterpoint, very similar
principles of dealing with instruments and voices.  I say again, far more
similarities than differences.  And this is not the same as just saying
they were tonal.  One can identify the fundamental breaches of the regime,
typified by these composers, that lead to modernism, as:  1) The
abandonment of classical voice-leading, first of all by the late 19th C
French composers 2) The abandonment of triadic harmony, first tried by
Liszt 3) The deliberate extensive use of instruments in classically
"un-natural" ways, both in the way they are played individually, and
co-ordinated into ensemble textures, pioneered by Stravinsky most
prominently.

This is not to deal with tonality or otherwise at all.

I don't think the martian would be particularly struck by the tonal
context:  that's a secondary layer.  These above factors would be the
overwhelming differences he would notice between modernist and classical
music, and to him, by comparison, Wagner and Buxtehude would be almost
indistinguishable (except in volume).

David Arditti