We might also consider that Baroque composers had no problem borrowing from themselves and other composers, which made it a lot easier to get the job done in a hurry.
And the same goes for "primo ottocento" first half of the 19th century Italian opera composers like Rossini or Donizetti who could lift whole numbers from an opera that maybe hadn't played so well and transfer those numbers to another opera and a new text.
I find it interesting because I think it speaks a bit to another development - the rise in publishing of music. Very little of the Baroque and pre-Beethoven classical was published, but became more the rule as the Classical period went on. To an extent of course. Why is that significant? Because if you could read music scores, you could “listen” in your head when it wasn’t being played. I think the rise of the middle class helped create demand for more published music which I have to think was purchased by ordinary listeners as much as by musicians so they could experience the music in the comfort of their homes. It’s my hypothesis anyway.
Value in scarcity seems to be the rule. Your concluding statement made me think of the BBC Music poll taken of 150ish conductors of what are the greatest symphonies, and all 4 Brahms works made the top 20, while poor Hadyn didn’t crack the list. Not to say that the Brahms symphonies aren’t worthy, but there are other polls I’ve seen where Haydn gets screwed because nobody can just pick one symphony of his to get behind. Very good talk. I knew about how the patronage had changed but it’s interesting to note the aesthetic developments over time too.
As someone else commented, I believe Beethoven is the turning point, or the fulcrum of this particular situation...more so than his contemporaries or his influences (Mozart was essentially a freelance composer, but also wrote a ton of works for order) Beethoven struggled and took his time to create his masterworks, valuing quality over quantity. He didn't have to write for the church, his patrons basically let him write whatever he wanted because they knew he was genius, and he almost never made a deadline on time anyway...he followed his own path almost exclusively from his middle period on, and that example, and the towering influence of his music, tipped the scales for the rest of the 19th Century.
Sort of. If you limit the discussion to the German lands. Historical hindsight gives Beethoven far more prominence than he actually enjoyed in the years following his death.
@@DavesClassicalGuideGood point...I guess I was just thinking more of his influence on composers, splitting the difference in the way he inspired both Brahms and Wagner, but in different ways
Publication is the turning point. Mozart published little, Haydn only some, Beethoven nearly everything. Mozart's symphonies ended in the drawer after use, some of Haydn's and all of Beethoven's spread through Europe. This also goes together with the numbering of works. Mozart never had a "3rd symphony" as a shorthand people could use but Beethoven did. This practice seems to appear in Paris in the 1780s when works originally published as opus batches ("3 symphonies op. x") were re-printed with own numbers (as someone's "symphony no. n").
I think another part of this is that pre-19th-c., musicians tended to start their musical training in both performance and composition at a very young age, which included rote instruction in figured bass. This meant that by the time musicians reached the age of majority, they had a great command of counterpoint and an array of stock musical patterns under their fingertips, which made stringing together musical works very quick. (As you say, it helped that pre-Romantic aesthetics didn't place much importance on novelty.) Later composers often didn't start their formal training in composition until they enrolled in a conservatory in their late teenage years, and it's hard to replicate in four years the kind of instruction that 18th-century composers got over ten (or more).
Very interesting analysis. It may contribute to explain why there is sometimes such a big difference in musical taste : some prefer strongly baroque / classical (it is my case), some prefer strongly romantic. The turning point being probably Beethoven / Schubert.
18:22 - apropos, Howard Shore did everything on all three of the Lord of the Rings films and the first two of The Hobbit films, but had to have assistance when on the last one. I believe him to be unusual in this respect as a film composer, as you say.
Pop music used to be churned out in much the same way - I suppose it still is, but I’m thinking of the 50s and 60s when labels employed songwriters, producers, and session musicians and would find singers, record singles by the dozen and constantly release them to stores and radio stations. It’s how session musicians could end up on hundreds or thousands of different recordings for all kinds of singers. Some people who became famous later in their own right, such as Lou Reed (songwriter) and Jimmy Page (session guitarist) got their start in the business being part of that machine.
An excellent and lucid Talk, thanks for the effort, handling that great opera tome publication you did effortlessly; perhaps add it to your weight lifting Classical boxsets regime...!
Also, some composers are just naturally prolific, i.e., they can really churn it out without any fussing or obsessing over the finished product. Camille Saint-Saens and Darius Milhaud are two that come to mind.
That's a good analogy to film composers. I can hear reused motifs over, say, James Horner's body of work just like you can over Handel's. I never thought about it like that!
I guess the equivalent for churning out music in the baroque period to modern guitar music would be writing 100 blues songs. Ofcourse not a difficult as writing for orchestras. We focus so much on style, genre, sound design, and originality today more than anything. Maybe because the song durations are typically 3 minutes and you have to capture people’s attention quicker
Stravinsky made that remark about Vivaldi, but I think it’s unfair. Sure, Vivaldi wrote so much that his music can sound formulaic, but his best works have great vitality and originality, and are also very melodic.
Patterns of employment and audience growth are the real answers - they are closely linked. When Bach was writing for Leipzig or Haydn for Esterhazy, they had to provide constantly renewed content to few people. When Beethoven or Schumann were trying to sell published music to a Europa-wide audience, landing persistent "hits" that would spread became the new game. We see the same thing happening today. When the Beatles came up, they were putting out two albums a year to a British audience and doing small tours through England. By 1967-68, British bands were down to one album a year with world-wide tours and the time between album releases kept growing in subsequent decades.
Not only does quantity reduce in the romantic period but, it seems to me diversity too. Though previously there was the occasional Scarlatti who concentrated on one genre most major composer all seem to want to weigh in on all four food groups: orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo keyboard. By Berlioz and Chopin you have increasingly composers who concentrated on just one or two of these.
In fact, Domenico Scarlatti is famous for his 555 sonatas, but he wrote also many operas, cantatas, church music, orchestral music etc... exactly like the other composers of the same period !
I love it when you share scores and other content specific analyses. Would you consider adding more harmonic and melodic analyses to your broadcasts, giving evidence to what exactly is happening within the music? I don’t think you would lose frequent viewers if you balance it within your usual structural and performance based observations. Thank you!!
I am not qualified to undertake harmonic analysis and, to be honest, I don't think it's helpful most of the time. It's like trying to give an idea of the beauty of a famous building by talking about its plumbing.
Ahh ha ha ha that was funny. Like as if you were interested in the who seen it Talley's sharing fact and knowledge can be rewarding and pleasurable in its self. Lol more views. I'm sure he was more trying to persway you to speak of subject for self pleasure in hopes to learn more, or your view but I think in ur reply it was fairly blunt on the subject .. maybe needed help with a project... Lol I just found you today and think your life's dedication and your enjoyment for music is a for him for helping people attain the same passion and knowledge that's available or understandable and your doing it freely. As well as students have to pay large money's to be included to be in such discussions or to comprehend the value which has been ghosted in moderisuns following. It is appreciated to hear or see performance as well as today's example of topic reading as well back for sound and the co tinued pressures of coming up with more and better for food . Loved this video and want to watch more I subscribed today I enjoy sitting in front of the window, in winter; relaxing. Feeling the warm sun , in doors, listening, as the music massages my ears and body. I also love it as background when cleaning and cooking, as well watching performances symphony or theater,. Thank you for being sound full. From Justine johnson iin Saskatoon Saskatchewan canada I love music and love that the word toon is my city I've lived in my whole life. S-toon. Or toon town lol couple nick names. I love all music though.!!! \(ϋ)/♩ ♪┌|∵|┘♪. ヾ( ͝° ͜ʖ͡°)ノ♪. ＼(ﾟｰﾟ＼) ....\(๑╹◡╹๑)ﾉ♬. ,.....♪♪＼ヘ( θ‿θヘ) 🙂
I always wondered why the taste for mathematical structures (canons, fugues) is much less important in the romantic period than in Renaissance / baroque / classical. While Bach wrote a lot of "preludes and fugues", Chopin wrote only "preludes" !! An idea on that point, Dave ?
Chopin used Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier as his model when he began composing his preludes. But, as he wrote to a friend, the preludes would not be followed by fugues, as “ my brain is too stupid for fugues.” Musical tastes changed radically in the mid-eighteenth century. Baroque music was written for the aristocracy, who were extremely well-educated, and enjoyed counterpoint. After about 1760, however, a new middle-class public began to grow. This new middle class, while fairly well-educated, did not have a taste for fugues and counterpoint, so it began to go out of style. At least, that’s what I read in a book not too long ago. Composers probably weren’t as well-versed in counterpoint by the time Chopin came along, or he might have written fugues to follow his preludes.
@@valerietaylor9615 Many thanks for your detailed and interesting answer. As I do not like very much romantic music, I would say that there is some "laziness" in its inability to write canons or fugues !
I didn’t know that Haydn was aided by a staff. This reminds me of many famous painters and sculptors, who had staffs of lesser skilled artists and apprentices. The Master would do the overall design, and execute the challenging parts such as faces and hands. The assistants would do the less difficult bits, and prepare materials, finishes, etc. The clients couldn’t tell who painted some background curtains. This increased the studio’s productivity, and thus profits. It was unashamedly a business.
I'm going to get a lot of hate for saying this, but I often wish that I could take the 626 works of the Koechel Verzeichnis, throw them in a pot, and boil them down to just 63 works that were all 10x as good. There's no denying Mozart's genius, but there's also no denying that most people aside from diehard Wolfy aficionados prefer to listen to the top 10% of his output.
Next good question: when and how did composers (or publishers?) start explicitly numbering works of a certain type in a continued series? When did "Symphony in C major, opus 10 no. 3" turn into "Symphony No. 6 in C major opus 55"?
So I have an Ask Dave question: since in the Baroque and Classical periods most music that was performed was new, when did people started performing regularly music from previous composers? I guess the great Haendel oratorios or the Mozart/Da Ponte operas were always popular, but did Haydn expect his Symphony numer (let's say) 40 to survive? When did we start having a repertoire? I guess the change must have happened around 1800, true?
It started with Mendelssohn reviving Bach's St. Matthew Passion in the 1829, or at least that's how the story goes. Most composers regarded instrumental music as ephemeral. Vocal, and especially sacred music, offered the best chances of survival.
@@DavesClassicalGuide This sounds like fodder for a good future lecture. Especially as right now there is a big trend over lost media in general, the idea of things being perpetuated or not perpetuated in art would tie in nicely with that. "Why these symphonies did not become lost media," or something along those lines, would be the kind of video title that would grab attention from the non-classical crowd.
Toscanini was severely criticized in the first decade or so of the 20th century when he had the effrontery to revive old, obsolete operas like L'Elisir d'Amore and even Il Trovatore and spend money on new, restudied productions. The demand was high for new and "up to date" works.
We need a rich arts patron with an in-house orchestra to commission new classical works (music that has hummable tunes and melodies, not some archaic academic nonsense). Somehow I don't think Jeff and Elon are interested in classical music. Speaking of which, Dave can you do a video on why most rich people (primarily the nouveaux-riche new money) don't give to the arts but they give to charities and medical research instead?
We are a long long way from a time when the Ford Foundation would subsidize a NYCO to do entire seasons of American operas. Now such foundations would consider that kind of giving to be elitist and, dare I say it, unwoke.
Interesting talk, as ever, Dave. I wonder if there's any relationship between the shift in musical employment patterns and the revolutions (1789 and 1848) that shook the aristocracy and ruling classes across Europe? Or maybe the upper classes simply didn't see music as the status symbol it had been.
Not as directly as one might think. Music did gradually turn from a state (aristocracy) supported to a private industry but that happened long before the revolutions took place. Italian music led the way with publication being important already in the 16th century with books of madrigals then sonatas in the 17th century, followed by England (Händel being the main figure, growing rich from selling scores). Music publication became big in Paris in the 1740s to 80s (Telemann publishing his "Paris Quartets"). By the 19th century, music had turned into a bourgeois commodity, therefore no longer a status symbol for the higher class.
What Dave said. It wasn’t hundreds of masses, sonatas and concertos, scores of operas, symphonies and cantatas, or chamber works by the dozens. It was brief lieder that he churned out. One has to wonder how his career would have gone if the larger scale works we all adore had become popular and if he would have experienced demand for more string quartets, symphonies, stage works etc. Would the songs have fallen by the wayside?
Mr. Hurwitz, please do a talk about Why were french composers generally less prolific than German composers (Example: Schubert vs Berlioz Richard Strauss, Reger, Schoenberg vs Debussy, Ravel, Roussel ...Stockhausen vs Boulez)?
That's easy. Because French composers (historically) mostly wrote for the theater, and access to the theater was strictly controlled and limited. But it's a false comparison anyway. There were always very prolific French composers: Saint-Saens, Massenet, Widor, etc. It all depends on who you choose to compare. Berlioz was totally impractical, for example, and can't be compared with anyone.
We might also consider that Baroque composers had no problem borrowing from themselves and other composers, which made it a lot easier to get the job done in a hurry.
And the same goes for "primo ottocento" first half of the 19th century Italian opera composers like Rossini or Donizetti who could lift whole numbers from an opera that maybe hadn't played so well and transfer those numbers to another opera and a new text.
I find it interesting because I think it speaks a bit to another development - the rise in publishing of music. Very little of the Baroque and pre-Beethoven classical was published, but became more the rule as the Classical period went on. To an extent of course. Why is that significant? Because if you could read music scores, you could “listen” in your head when it wasn’t being played. I think the rise of the middle class helped create demand for more published music which I have to think was purchased by ordinary listeners as much as by musicians so they could experience the music in the comfort of their homes. It’s my hypothesis anyway.
Bach’s prolific composition of church music is one of the earliest forms of Mass production.
Value in scarcity seems to be the rule. Your concluding statement made me think of the BBC Music poll taken of 150ish conductors of what are the greatest symphonies, and all 4 Brahms works made the top 20, while poor Hadyn didn’t crack the list. Not to say that the Brahms symphonies aren’t worthy, but there are other polls I’ve seen where Haydn gets screwed because nobody can just pick one symphony of his to get behind.
Very good talk. I knew about how the patronage had changed but it’s interesting to note the aesthetic developments over time too.
As someone else commented, I believe Beethoven is the turning point, or the fulcrum of this particular situation...more so than his contemporaries or his influences (Mozart was essentially a freelance composer, but also wrote a ton of works for order) Beethoven struggled and took his time to create his masterworks, valuing quality over quantity. He didn't have to write for the church, his patrons basically let him write whatever he wanted because they knew he was genius, and he almost never made a deadline on time anyway...he followed his own path almost exclusively from his middle period on, and that example, and the towering influence of his music, tipped the scales for the rest of the 19th Century.
Sort of. If you limit the discussion to the German lands. Historical hindsight gives Beethoven far more prominence than he actually enjoyed in the years following his death.
@@DavesClassicalGuideGood point...I guess I was just thinking more of his influence on composers, splitting the difference in the way he inspired both Brahms and Wagner, but in different ways
Publication is the turning point. Mozart published little, Haydn only some, Beethoven nearly everything. Mozart's symphonies ended in the drawer after use, some of Haydn's and all of Beethoven's spread through Europe.
This also goes together with the numbering of works. Mozart never had a "3rd symphony" as a shorthand people could use but Beethoven did. This practice seems to appear in Paris in the 1780s when works originally published as opus batches ("3 symphonies op. x") were re-printed with own numbers (as someone's "symphony no. n").
I think another part of this is that pre-19th-c., musicians tended to start their musical training in both performance and composition at a very young age, which included rote instruction in figured bass. This meant that by the time musicians reached the age of majority, they had a great command of counterpoint and an array of stock musical patterns under their fingertips, which made stringing together musical works very quick. (As you say, it helped that pre-Romantic aesthetics didn't place much importance on novelty.) Later composers often didn't start their formal training in composition until they enrolled in a conservatory in their late teenage years, and it's hard to replicate in four years the kind of instruction that 18th-century composers got over ten (or more).
Very interesting analysis. It may contribute to explain why there is sometimes such a big difference in musical taste : some prefer strongly baroque / classical (it is my case), some prefer strongly romantic. The turning point being probably Beethoven / Schubert.
And I prefer the middleground, taking best of both worlds :)
I preferred Romantic until I was about eighteen, then fell in love with Baroque. I still listen to Classical and Romantic occasionally, though.
18:22 - apropos, Howard Shore did everything on all three of the Lord of the Rings films and the first two of The Hobbit films, but had to have assistance when on the last one. I believe him to be unusual in this respect as a film composer, as you say.
In addition to music for films and commercials, there is also music for video games.
Pop music used to be churned out in much the same way - I suppose it still is, but I’m thinking of the 50s and 60s when labels employed songwriters, producers, and session musicians and would find singers, record singles by the dozen and constantly release them to stores and radio stations. It’s how session musicians could end up on hundreds or thousands of different recordings for all kinds of singers. Some people who became famous later in their own right, such as Lou Reed (songwriter) and Jimmy Page (session guitarist) got their start in the business being part of that machine.
And George Gershwin started as a Tin Pan Alley pianist.
An excellent and lucid Talk, thanks for the effort, handling that great opera tome publication you did effortlessly; perhaps add it to your weight lifting Classical boxsets regime...!
Also, some composers are just naturally prolific, i.e., they can really churn it out without any fussing or obsessing over the finished product. Camille Saint-Saens and Darius Milhaud are two that come to mind.
Martinu as well.
Saint-Saens once wrote, “ I produce music as an apple tree produces apples.”
Or Hindemith and Villa-Lobos. The vast majority of their many works rarely get played
That's a good analogy to film composers. I can hear reused motifs over, say, James Horner's body of work just like you can over Handel's. I never thought about it like that!
Quite an education piece of historical information. Looking forward to more such videos ;-D
I guess the equivalent for churning out music in the baroque period to modern guitar music would be writing 100 blues songs. Ofcourse not a difficult as writing for orchestras. We focus so much on style, genre, sound design, and originality today more than anything. Maybe because the song durations are typically 3 minutes and you have to capture people’s attention quicker
There is famous quote about Vivaldi; that he wrote 1 concerto hundreds times
And Bruckner wrote the same symphony 10 times, etc, etc.
@@DavesClassicalGuide Thanks, Dave !
Vivaldi is like AC/DC, that wrote the same song hundreds of times.
@@jorge5150 Only superficially, and it is also the composer who is easier to recognise immediately with a few notes : and that is genius.
Stravinsky made that remark about Vivaldi, but I think it’s unfair. Sure, Vivaldi wrote so much that his music can sound formulaic, but his best works have great vitality and originality, and are also very melodic.
Oh Dave - if only we could see your library of scores 😊
Very insightful.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Hi Dave - will you be doing the ALDA and KOLA awards this year? I love those videos.
Of course.
Thank you for an amazing video!
Thank you for such an informative overview. As always, you make learning thoroughly enjoyable.
Patterns of employment and audience growth are the real answers - they are closely linked.
When Bach was writing for Leipzig or Haydn for Esterhazy, they had to provide constantly renewed content to few people. When Beethoven or Schumann were trying to sell published music to a Europa-wide audience, landing persistent "hits" that would spread became the new game.
We see the same thing happening today. When the Beatles came up, they were putting out two albums a year to a British audience and doing small tours through England. By 1967-68, British bands were down to one album a year with world-wide tours and the time between album releases kept growing in subsequent decades.
Not only does quantity reduce in the romantic period but, it seems to me diversity too. Though previously there was the occasional Scarlatti who concentrated on one genre most major composer all seem to want to weigh in on all four food groups: orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo keyboard. By Berlioz and Chopin you have increasingly composers who concentrated on just one or two of these.
In fact, Domenico Scarlatti is famous for his 555 sonatas, but he wrote also many operas, cantatas, church music, orchestral music etc... exactly like the other composers of the same period !
Scarlatti is chiefly known today for his harpsichord sonatas, whereas Chopin wrote almost exclusively for the piano.
I love it when you share scores and other content specific analyses. Would you consider adding more harmonic and melodic analyses to your broadcasts, giving evidence to what exactly is happening within the music? I don’t think you would lose frequent viewers if you balance it within your usual structural and performance based observations. Thank you!!
I am not qualified to undertake harmonic analysis and, to be honest, I don't think it's helpful most of the time. It's like trying to give an idea of the beauty of a famous building by talking about its plumbing.
@@DavesClassicalGuide shocked to hear you say that. If you can identify sludge, you can identify beauty. Oh well. Love your enthusiasm.
Ahh ha ha ha that was funny.
Like as if you were interested in the who seen it Talley's
sharing fact and knowledge can be rewarding and pleasurable in its self. Lol more views. I'm sure he was more trying to persway you to speak of subject for self pleasure in hopes to learn more, or your view but I think in ur reply it was fairly blunt on the subject .. maybe needed help with a project... Lol
I just found you today and think your life's dedication and your enjoyment for music is a for him for helping people attain the same passion and knowledge that's available or understandable and your doing it freely. As well as students have to pay large money's to be included to be in such discussions or to comprehend the value which has been ghosted in moderisuns following. It is appreciated to hear or see performance as well as today's example of topic reading as well back for sound and the co tinued pressures of coming up with more and better for food .
Loved this video and want to watch more I subscribed today
I enjoy sitting in front of the window, in winter; relaxing. Feeling the warm sun , in doors, listening, as the music massages my ears and body. I also love it as background when cleaning and cooking, as well watching performances symphony or theater,.
Thank you for being sound full. From Justine johnson iin Saskatoon Saskatchewan canada
I love music and love that the word toon is my city I've lived in my whole life. S-toon. Or toon town lol couple nick names. I love all music though.!!! \(ϋ)/♩
♪┌|∵|┘♪.
ヾ( ͝° ͜ʖ͡°)ノ♪. ＼(ﾟｰﾟ＼)
....\(๑╹◡╹๑)ﾉ♬. ,.....♪♪＼ヘ( θ‿θヘ)
🙂
@@jagbombs4life thoughtful reply. Thank you. Enjoy the Sun and sounds
I always wondered why the taste for mathematical structures (canons, fugues) is much less important in the romantic period than in Renaissance / baroque / classical. While Bach wrote a lot of "preludes and fugues", Chopin wrote only "preludes" !! An idea on that point, Dave ?
Chopin used Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier as his model when he began composing his preludes. But, as he wrote to a friend, the preludes would not be followed by fugues, as “ my brain is too stupid for fugues.” Musical tastes changed radically in the mid-eighteenth century. Baroque music was written for the aristocracy, who were extremely well-educated, and enjoyed counterpoint. After about 1760, however, a new middle-class public began to grow. This new middle class, while fairly well-educated, did not have a taste for fugues and counterpoint, so it began to go out of style. At least, that’s what I read in a book not too long ago. Composers probably weren’t as well-versed in counterpoint by the time Chopin came along, or he might have written fugues to follow his preludes.
@@valerietaylor9615 Many thanks for your detailed and interesting answer. As I do not like very much romantic music, I would say that there is some "laziness" in its inability to write canons or fugues !
I didn’t know that Haydn was aided by a staff. This reminds me of many famous painters and sculptors, who had staffs of lesser skilled artists and apprentices. The Master would do the overall design, and execute the challenging parts such as faces and hands. The assistants would do the less difficult bits, and prepare materials, finishes, etc. The clients couldn’t tell who painted some background curtains. This increased the studio’s productivity, and thus profits. It was unashamedly a business.
Indeed it was. Haydn's copyists are well known to scholars. Most of his music only survives in copies made by others.
I'm going to get a lot of hate for saying this, but I often wish that I could take the 626 works of the Koechel Verzeichnis, throw them in a pot, and boil them down to just 63 works that were all 10x as good.
There's no denying Mozart's genius, but there's also no denying that most people aside from diehard Wolfy aficionados prefer to listen to the top 10% of his output.
Next good question: when and how did composers (or publishers?) start explicitly numbering works of a certain type in a continued series? When did "Symphony in C major, opus 10 no. 3" turn into "Symphony No. 6 in C major opus 55"?
So I have an Ask Dave question: since in the Baroque and Classical periods most music that was performed was new, when did people started performing regularly music from previous composers? I guess the great Haendel oratorios or the Mozart/Da Ponte operas were always popular, but did Haydn expect his Symphony numer (let's say) 40 to survive? When did we start having a repertoire? I guess the change must have happened around 1800, true?
It started with Mendelssohn reviving Bach's St. Matthew Passion in the 1829, or at least that's how the story goes. Most composers regarded instrumental music as ephemeral. Vocal, and especially sacred music, offered the best chances of survival.
@@DavesClassicalGuide This sounds like fodder for a good future lecture. Especially as right now there is a big trend over lost media in general, the idea of things being perpetuated or not perpetuated in art would tie in nicely with that. "Why these symphonies did not become lost media," or something along those lines, would be the kind of video title that would grab attention from the non-classical crowd.
Toscanini was severely criticized in the first decade or so of the 20th century when he had the effrontery to revive old, obsolete operas like L'Elisir d'Amore and even Il Trovatore and spend money on new, restudied productions. The demand was high for new and "up to date" works.
We need a rich arts patron with an in-house orchestra to commission new classical works (music that has hummable tunes and melodies, not some archaic academic nonsense). Somehow I don't think Jeff and Elon are interested in classical music.
Speaking of which, Dave can you do a video on why most rich people (primarily the nouveaux-riche new money) don't give to the arts but they give to charities and medical research instead?
It’s because they want to live forever. They’re so narcissistic and arrogant, they can’t face the fact of their own mortality. ⚰️🪦
We are a long long way from a time when the Ford Foundation would subsidize a NYCO to do entire seasons of American operas. Now such foundations would consider that kind of giving to be elitist and, dare I say it, unwoke.
Yeah but also the lifestyle changed very much and today we have digital media as a big source of various arts..
Interesting talk, as ever, Dave. I wonder if there's any relationship between the shift in musical employment patterns and the revolutions (1789 and 1848) that shook the aristocracy and ruling classes across Europe? Or maybe the upper classes simply didn't see music as the status symbol it had been.
Not as directly as one might think. Music did gradually turn from a state (aristocracy) supported to a private industry but that happened long before the revolutions took place. Italian music led the way with publication being important already in the 16th century with books of madrigals then sonatas in the 17th century, followed by England (Händel being the main figure, growing rich from selling scores). Music publication became big in Paris in the 1740s to 80s (Telemann publishing his "Paris Quartets").
By the 19th century, music had turned into a bourgeois commodity, therefore no longer a status symbol for the higher class.
Schubert is an interesting counterpoint. (Sorry.) Dead at 31 with over 1500 works to his credit.
Yes, but take out the songs and it's a different story as regards larger works.
What Dave said. It wasn’t hundreds of masses, sonatas and concertos, scores of operas, symphonies and cantatas, or chamber works by the dozens. It was brief lieder that he churned out. One has to wonder how his career would have gone if the larger scale works we all adore had become popular and if he would have experienced demand for more string quartets, symphonies, stage works etc. Would the songs have fallen by the wayside?
That’s pretty impressive.
@@Ziad3195Including ten completed operas, some of them quite substantial if not really great Schubert.
@@Ziad3195 In many aspects, Schubert can still be considered as belonging to the classical period.
It will be interesting to see if the use of AI software by composers leads to an increase in their productivity.
Mr. Hurwitz, please do a talk about Why were french composers generally less prolific than German composers (Example: Schubert vs Berlioz Richard Strauss, Reger, Schoenberg vs Debussy, Ravel, Roussel ...Stockhausen vs Boulez)?
That's easy. Because French composers (historically) mostly wrote for the theater, and access to the theater was strictly controlled and limited. But it's a false comparison anyway. There were always very prolific French composers: Saint-Saens, Massenet, Widor, etc. It all depends on who you choose to compare. Berlioz was totally impractical, for example, and can't be compared with anyone.