J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

5. In this the French are more to be imitated than the Italians.
6. Melody must have certain [vocal] limits which everyone can obtain.
7. Brevity is to be preferred to prolixity. 69
On the whole this is a good summary of the galant aesthetic. One reason for
these principles was that a piece of music had to make its impression on the first
performance, because it was unlikely to get another chance. This explains the massive
redundancy of Haydn and Mozart’s structures, the clarity of their texture, and the
conventional nature of much of their material. Both Haydn and Mozart had a
remarkable instinct for the extent to which they could momentarily obscure this clarity
without seriously endangering the connection with their audience. Although the
Classical style of the 1790s was a vastly enriched idiom compared to that of mid-
century, Haydn and Mozart could mostly be said to have upheld Mattheson’s
principles; at least in spirit.
Beethoven, by contrast, was a musician who from the first sought out obscurity
and difficulty for its own sake—nor was he one to take much notice of journalistic
criticism. It is quite clear that he never saw himself as anything other than a great
composer—a view soon shared by many of his contemporaries. 70 The peak of his fame
and celebrity came during what we now call his ‘second period’. Romantic attitudes to
the arts had begun to percolate through all levels of society and the extrovert,
grandiose, emotionally frank music Beethoven was writing at this time quickly
achieved the popularity it has never really lost since. A group of powerful critics
including Rochlitz, Hoffmann, and Marx wrote influential articles in his praise. How
69 Mattheson, Vollkommene Capellmeister, p.426 [Pt.II, ch.12:37].
70 As early as 1798 Beethoven expressed the desire that a publisher might grant him an income for life,
in return for the right to publish all he wrote, an arrangement he believed Goethe and Handel
benefitted from late in their careers. When a guest of Prince Lobkowitz showed amusement at his
presumption, Lobkowitz attempted to smooth the waters, and Beethoven responded hotly: ‘with men
who will not believe and trust in me because I am as yet unknown to universal fame, I cannot hold
intercourse!’ (Thayer-Forbes, Beethoven, p.241). Something very like this arrangement became a
reality with the agreement he signed in 1809 with Archduke Rudolph and the Princes Lobkowitz and
Kinsky.
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