Peter Goldstein writes:

>I very much like Donald Satz' comment that Haydn is "direct, lean,
>efficient, stern." That states it much better than I could have.  You
>feel it especially in his contrapuntal development sections--Mozart's
>developments are more often like broad melodic and tonal curves.

Donald's description does not, IMHO, cover the sheer playfulness and
inventiveness of the string quartets - the "look what I can do" attitude.
But it works well for the piano sonatas.
And 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.

These masters knew many tricks had many voices. They were foxes, not
hedgehogs - as in the Russian proverb: The fox knows many things, the
hedgehog knows one thing well
Or something like that!!)

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University