Download W. Dean Sutcliffe: The Sociable Muse – Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven

From Ritmico Journal No 94 March 2013
From Ritmico Journal 94 March 2013
W. Dean Sutcliffe: The Sociable
Muse – Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven
and Friends
IRMTNZ Conference 2013, Auckland – Music in Time
By Dianne James
The Sociable Muse: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Friends
convincingly how this, and related stylistic
changes, are bound up with the novel
approach describing music as a language
reflected in many theoretical writings of the
period.
The idea of music as language gradually
gained traction throughout this period.
Language, of course, implies an awareness of
communication,
and
successful
communication relies on an intelligible
organisation of one’s thoughts – words are
ordered into sentences; sentences are ordered
into paragraphs. Sutcliffe proposed that the
th
music of the later 18 century reveals an
awareness of ‘sociability’ in its attempt to be
more easily understood.
There are two aspects to this term: firstly, it
suggests a certain emotional tone, in particular
sociable attributes such as reciprocity,
politeness, decorum, exchange, friendliness,
pleasantness, goodwill, graciousness, wit and
humour. “[Sociability] is”, he says, “a means of
mediating between individual and collective
consciousness. It implies social awareness in
a group situation, a feeling of give and take, a
desire not to impose oneself too strongly, and
awareness of others and of other points of
view. The emphasis is on human deportment
rather than self-expression.”
Dean Sutcliffe
Dean
Sutcliffe’s
thought-provoking
presentation provided fresh perspectives on
factors informing the interpretation of late 18thcentury music. The stimulating ideas he
shared should assist us as we shape our own
and students’ interpretations of this music for
performance. He explored the idea of
‘expression’ and what it means when applied
to music and musical performance generally,
and then teased out the expressive qualities of
the so-called classical style of the late 18th
century in an attempt to uncover the distinctive
flavour of this particular repertoire.
The stylistic differences between music of the
so-called Baroque and Classical periods are
well known: shorter phrases, simpler
harmonies, melody and accompaniment
textures, less frequent use of counterpoint,
stylistic variety and so on clearly distinguish
the music of the classical period from general
trends in the preceding style-period. The
overriding feature of classical-period music is
its simplicity,
and
Sutcliffe illustrated
The second aspect of sociability can be found
in the way music of this period is often
organised. Musical phrases become much
shorter and more defined, and there is often a
conversational aspect. Individual movements
might reveal a variety of styles and gestures,
and the flow of the music is usually easier to
grasp than the denser textures, and more
continuous motion prevalent in earlier music.
As already suggested, intelligibility was a key
goal of later 18th-century music. Composers
wanted their music to appeal to and be
understood by a much wider range of listeners.
Haydn himself expressed this conceit most
succinctly when he said, “My language is
understood all over the world.”
Sutcliffe selected the finale from Haydn’s
infamous ‘Joke’ Quartet Op.33 No.2 to
illustrate these new ‘listener- friendly’ qualities.
The movement is cast in rondo form, an
extremely popular form at this time because of
its very predictability: audiences knew what to
expect. The theme is clearly constructed in
four separate units, and its flavour is almost
that of a limerick or nursery rhyme. (See
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmoA5fy_kv
Q) Having set all this in place, Haydn is
From Ritmico Journal No 94 March 2013
The Sociable Muse: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Friends
subsequently
able
to
confound
the
expectations of his audience: the final few bars
keep us on our toes right to the very end. We
are compelled to keep listening. This is, as
Sutcliffe said, a revolutionary movement,
revealing a new kind of consciousness on the
composer’s part of the listener. Such
interactions between a composer and listener
are completely new, and are evidence of this
new ‘sociability’.
The best known example of those cited here
though can be found in the finale of Mozart’s
2
Piano Sonata in F, K.332 (bars 218-245) . The
simplifying cadence occurs from bar 230,
where the grand, brilliant procedures of the
previous bars seem to set up a strong and
forthright conclusion. But Mozart’s continuation
at 230 is coy, and brings with it a certain
degree of irony, as he toys with the
expectations of his listeners.
Sutcliffe continued by discussing two
commonly found patterns in the music of this
period: the first he calls the gracious riposte;
the second the simplifying cadence. The
prevalence of these patterns is indicative of
the way this sociable impulse penetrates to the
core of late 18th-century music. The gracious
riposte is connected with the emotional
aspects of the music; it is linked with the idea
of concession, of interaction, of giving
“reciprocal pleasure” as Germaine de Staël
wrote in Paris in 1784. Phrases in later 18thcentury music are often arranged in pairs, for
example, with one self-contained idea, often
assertive in nature, balanced by a softer, more
conciliatory response. Sutcliffe illustrated this
with the opening of Pleyel’s String Quartet in E
1
flat, Op.1 No.2. Bars 3 - 7 oppose bars 1-3 in
almost every way: loud versus soft dynamic;
rising versus falling profile; staccato/legato;
unison/ homophonic; tutti/solo; mono-rhythmic/
differentiated rhythms. This is evidence of
Sutcliffe’s gracious riposte, a technique of
musical structure found right throughout this
period, and into the early Beethoven period
(see the opening bars of Beethoven’s Piano
Sonata in C minor, Op.10 No.1).
Dean Sutcliffe’s discussion of the sociable
aspects of the music of the later 18th century
is directly relevant to us as teachers as we
seek to help our students shape their
interpretations of this music. Very often
students easily master the technical aspects of
the music of this period, but their
performances lack a sense of drama and
communication, or any sense that they actually
understand how the music is put together. By
encouraging students to view late 18th-century
music as a language, through which the
composer is directly communicating with his
listeners, we can perhaps help our students to
get inside this music, so that they too can
interact directly with the irony, wit and humour
that lies at its heart, and communicate this to
an engaged and interested audience.
Dr Dianne James is a member of the IRMTNZ
Council and IRMTNZ Auckland Branch. Her
particular interest is in the music of Haydn and
she has presented seminars to Auckland and
Wellington Branches on teaching his music.
She also contributes regularly to Radio NZ
Concert programmes. She was recently made
a Fellow of the Institute.
Sutcliffe has coined the term simplifying
cadence to describe a second recurrent
pattern prevalent in much later 18th-century
music. Cadences are much more frequent in
the music of this period, and this is bound up,
Sutcliffe believes, with this idea of
accessibility. Various examples were drawn on
– another string quartet excerpt by Pleyel,
along with two by the Swedish composer
Joseph Martin Kraus (1756-1792).
1
See The Sociable Muse handout
2
See The Sociable Muse handout