Bernard Chasan wrote:

>Peter's characterization of Mozart hardly applies to the Fortieth
>Symphony and the K 515 and later viola quintets, or the Adagio and Fugue
>among others, although it certainly seems very applicable to the Clarinet
>Quintet and many of the piano concerti.

My comment was that Mozart more often wrote one way than another, and as
Professor Chasan notes, both he and Haydn were foxes and not hedgehogs.
In any case, I expressed myself badly.  I had meant to contrast Haydn's
characteristic methods of "development" (break down several themes into
motifs, treat them contrapuntally through several interconnected but
independent phases) with Mozart's (take one melody, and move it in a broad
curve through several keys, eventually sliding back to the tonic).  In
fact, the first movement of the Symphony No. 40 is an excellent example
of this method.  The last movement is kind of a hybrid, using Haydn-style
counterpoint to buttress a Mozart-style set of modulations.  But of course,
both composers could and did use other methods.

Satoshi Akima wrote:

>But I am MOST surprised by the defense of Mozart on the grounds that his
>music is vocal or operatic in character.

Actually, I wasn't defending him on these grounds; I was merely describing
him.  Obviously I must like this aspect of his music, but it doesn't make
him better or worse than anyone else.

Dr. Akima also wrote:

>It was Stravinsky who pointed this out when he gave a typically barbed
>description of Mozart's sacred works as 'rococo-operatic sweet-of-sin'.
>Indeed for all their doubtless virtues it is, when judged by the highest
>standards, precisely in their lack of symphonic structural cohesion that
>I find Mozart's instrumental works less than overwhelming.  One turns to
>Haydn with relief.  Here is a composer capable of presenting a terse,
>tightly argued, to-the-point, musical development-argument which is not
>padded out with beautiful but ultimately only semi-relevant grandiloquent
>flourishes.  I risk being thought of as being myself 'stern', ' lean' and
>even ruthless, but it is for the joyful effortlessness with which Haydn
>handles musical complexity that I value him above Mozart."

I find this an excellent and most telling analysis.  It is a beautiful
description of Haydn's characteristic virtues-but it suggests that Dr.
Akima is judging Mozart by Haydn's standards.  If you try to find Haydn in
Mozart, you will fail, as I failed when I first approached Mozart (see my
previous post).  Mozart's virtues are very different from Haydn's, and I
think he is best approached by putting Haydn out of one's mind altogether.
For the most part, Mozart does not try to "develop" in the same way Haydn
does, nor are his works "arguments." He cannot provide the same kind of
purely intellectual pleasure.  He is, rather, an extremely subtle creator
of almost indefinable moods; his themes and their tonal relationships tend
to act more on the heart than the mind.  What makes him remarkable is his
refusal to separate happiness from sadness-in his music, joy and serenity
rarely exist apart from melancholy and doubt.  As I see it, it is his great
achievement to make this mixture profound and not merely sentimental, but
in any case it is profundity of a very different order from Haydn's.  The
Haydn-Mozart question will always be a matter of taste, and as a great
lover of Haydn's music, I am never surprised when someone prefers Haydn.
But neither man should be judged by the other one's standards.

One last point:  Dr.  Akima refers to the "over-inflation" of Mozart's
reputation.  I have absolutely no doubt that 1) Haydn is insufficiently
appreciated, and 2) Mozart has had his share of hagiographers.  But he
might be amused to know that many Mozart-lovers get upset because they
think Beethoven's reputation is over-inflated.  And so on.  In my view,
there's room to appreciate and indeed love them all.  But we'll always have
our personal preferences, which is what most of the fun is about anyway.

Best,

Peter Goldstein
Juniata College
Huntingdon, PA