I agree that there are pieces which sound pretty quirky, which can put people off a bit. But I have yet to find someone who doesn't like this one (which I can assure you has nothing to do with the playing):
“I tell you before God, and as an honest man, your son is the greatest composer known to me by person and repute, he has taste and what is more the greatest skill in composition."
(said to Leopold Mozart, Mozart's father)
― Joseph Haydn
Also:
". . . scarcely any man can brook comparison with the great Mozart. . . If I could only impress on the soul of every friend of music, and on high personages in particular, how inimitable are Mozart's works, how profound, how musically intelligent, how extraordinarily sensitive! (for this is how I understand them, how I feel them) - why then the nations would vie with each other to possess such a jewel within their frontiers."
― Joseph Haydn
Also, a letter from Mozart to Haydn:
"A father, having resolved to send his sons into the great world, finds it advisable to entrust them to the protection and guidance of a highly celebrated man, the more so since this man, by a stroke of luck, is his best friend. - Here, then, celebrated man and my dearest friend, are my six sons. - Truly, they are the fruit of a long and laborious effort, but the hope, strengthened by several of my friends, that this effort would, at least in some small measure, be rewarded, encourages and comforts me that one day, these children may be a source of consolation to me. - You yourself, dearest friend, during your last sojourn in this capital, expressed to me your satisfaction with these works. - This, your approval, encourages me more than anything else, and thus I entrust them to your care, and hope that they are not wholly unworthy of your favor. - Do but receive them kindly, and be their father, guide, and friend! From this moment on I cede to you all my rights over them: I pray you to be indulgent to their mistakes, which a father's partial eye may have overlooked, and despite this, to cloak them in the mantle of your generosity which they value so highly. From the bottom of my heart I am, dearest friend,
Your most sincere friend, W. A. Mozart
I second the recommendation for Richter's book, which is a fascinating look into the mind of a pianist who musicians pretty much unanimously consider to be the greatest of the 20th century:
Haydn's output is huge and varied. It can take time to find the right recordings and pieces to convince you, as sometimes interpretations can be a bit pedestrian. French pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is in the process of recording all of Haydn's Piano Sonatas for British label Chandos Records, and the latest Volume (no. 7) is superb.
The 2nd paragraph is really the crux of the matter. Whereas Beethoven's music draws attention to its unusual features, Reicha in his memoirs states unequivocally that Haydn and Mozart are the pinnacles of instrumental music, and that it is because of their grace and good taste. So we have opposite positions on what is beautiful, hard to reconcile with our view of music history which is seen through our "Beethoven filter".
Many of the things we take for granted as Beethovenian inventions (obsessive motivic development, sonata form in symphonies and quartets, abrupt harmonic disruption, fugues in final movmeents) were pioneered by Haydn. I remember being well-versed in Beethoven and being astonished when I played through Haydn's piano works for the first time, how many things Louis had ripped off.
The wind quintets are extraordinarily well-written for their instruments, something easy to take for granted today as so many composers followed Reicha's lead.
He was not the very first to write for that ensemble, but the instant popularity of the 24 (actually 25) wind quintets led a lot more people to write for that instrumentation (flute, oboe, clarinet, French or English horn, bassoon).
The blanket statement that Beethoven's octet is a higher standard than anything Reicha wrote for quintet is a little dicey. There's a reason all wind players play Reicha. The works are sophisticated, comfortable and formally pretty quirky, with plenty of memorable moments. That said, if you don't find Haydn memorable then there's not much I can do to argue in his favor, except urge you to listen more of it.
The important point here is that the wind quintets make up a tiny proportion of Reicha's music, and that dozens of hours of music have never been recorded. Much of the music is only available in (messy) original manuscripts in France's National Library in Paris (BnF). Implication: it is hard to make generalizations about Reicha's music because we just don't know it well enough yet. Keep in mind that he composed just as much experimental music as conventional music, drawing conclusions and extrapolating from one opus to the whole output isn't a good idea.
Obviously my statement was extremely subjective - although I am far from the only person holding this opinion. However in my experience the reason all wind players play Reicha is that there's very little competition in the Romantic era. A handful of Danzi quintets (they're okay), a few gems from Klughardt, Foerster, and Taffanel (all of which I think are superior to the Reicha quintets, but they're also at least 50 years newer), and I haven't found much else worth playing so far. If you're a student or amateur, or playing for a relatively unsophisticated audience, of course you're going to end up playing Reicha at some point.
It is indeed intriguing to imagine music history if composers had followed Reicha's lead rather than Beethoven's. There would have been a lot more metrically interesting music earlier, that's for sure.
The experimentation Reicha loved so much became popular in post World War II Europe and America. Many would argue that this led composers into a modernist dead end. But I guess if Beethoven had never happened Schoenberg wouldn't have either. But then we forfeit Wagner too...
I've been pondering a related question which I've found difficult to answer: if Beethoven's music had been lost or misplaced, would we immediately recognize it as "genius" if someone made a first recording in 2018? I'm not so sure.
> if Beethoven's music had been lost or misplaced, would we immediately recognize it as "genius" if someone made a first recording in 2018
I'm not qualified to comment on the genius of any composer, but knowing my background, I would say he would have become immensely popular. Growing up, people around me knew nothing about western classical music, not even enough to name a few famous composers. I found cassette tapes in Bangalore's music shops and tried them out randomly. Beethoven quickly became one of my favorites and the factors could not have been either that I was over-exposed to his music through general culture while growing up or that his name was famous around here, biasing me in his favour.
I like to think of good composers as one of two kinds: (1) those who impress novices to the tradition of this kind of music (western classical, in this case) and (2) those who impress long-term aficionados. Based on my own tastes, examples of the first kind would be Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Mozart, etc. and examples of the second kind would be Bach, Mahler, Schoenberg, etc. Of course, these categories are fuzzy, and I'm sure there are composers who would qualify for both categories. However, I think a valid approach to answering your question would be to survey what sort of an impression a composer makes on novices to the genre.
Thank you for making recordings of Reicha's works! I'm not a novice to the genre anymore, but it's nice to have new compositions from the classical period to listen to.
This is an interesting comment, on multiple levels.
If there is one factor on which Beethoven's reputation rests, it is his claim to being the "universal" composer, whose music speaks to all men and women. Your story seems to confirm this assertion.
From reading music history we know that different music from the past makes an impact depending on current taste and fashions. As an example, the whole paradigm of "historically informed performance practice" was, as musicologist Richard Taruskin devastatingly argued [1], not a return to "authenticity" at all but a completely modern(ist) phenomenon, based on contemporary tastes and opinions.
As I live in France, I can tell you that Beethoven is nowhere near as popular or appreciated here as, say, Mozart or Chopin. Not even close. I'm speaking about both seasoned concert attendees and novices. His music's frequent accents, forcefulness, and occasional brutality is looked poorly upon. So maybe extrapolating your experience to others is dangerous. After all, it's a small sample size :)
I agree that there seem to be composers (or, more accurately, certain works) that appeal to novices, and others which appeal to more experienced listeners or practitioners. Reicha's works seem to often fit into the second category, as his works are generally "learned" and sophisticated. Therefore the subtlety is not always picked up upon by listeners who don't have the experience and/or knowledge to realize what expectations he is thwarting. To put it more bluntly, they don't really hear what's going on, and therefore underestimate the music's complexity. It's like a musical Dunning-Kruger Effect.
The larger point, perhaps, is that your idea of a typical "novice" who would serve as a litmus test for universal music is in fact an intellectual construct which has no corresponding reality in the real world. Because we are all born into a world, and a culture, and therefore our preferences are immediately influenced.
Caveat: I don't want to make the specious claim that if we all grew up listening to Schönberg we would hum his music on the way to school, that's BS. But with experience I've come to believe that assuming Beethoven's place is in our culture is immutable is probably unrealistic. In 100 years it might be someone else...
By "The Romantic Generation", I was thinking more of Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, and Mendelssohn, all of whom were nearly exact contemporaries (b.1809-1811), and who consciously broke with with the past (including Beethoven), by largely eschewing Sonata Form. Interesting that a century after Reicha, Busoni picked up on some of the same approaches to composition that Reicha had taken once Romanticism had reached an impasse, becoming the de rigueur approach for the succeeding century.
Loved the documentaries. How about Episode 5 'Paris'?
To what extent the composers you mentioned broke completely with Beethoven (and/or the past) is arguable. All of them wrote works in sonata form, all of them wrote fugues, all of them studied counterpoint carefully. Liszt idolized Beethoven, and many of the key works of all four are unthinkable without Beethoven's example. Not to diminish the originality of their respective contributions. But the Beethoven myth was already in place when they were growing up and the legacy can be traced in all of their works.
Received wisdom dictates that every century or so, composers break with the past and do something completely new. The reality is a lot messier.
Beethoven himself is a good example. He is held up as the paragon of artistic fearlessness, not catering to audience's whims, pursuing a vision of the future, etc. In fact he was very well versed in the music of the past, including JS Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn, and others whose names have been forgotten. He also did everything he could to ingratiate himself with the aristocracy who commissioned his works: i.e. his market. He followed the Y-Combinator motto: "Make things people want" in the sense that he made things his customers wanted. He forged an idiosyncratic personal style but many of its constituent elements are stolen from older styles (counterpoint, abrupt changes of texture, the unification of movements over a larger form).
I like your analogy about Romanticism reaching an impasse and Busoni picking things up from there. The path I drew above leading from Beethoven directly to the 4 Romantic composers is meant to illustrate that the historical line, now that we are reestablishing Reicha's place in history, might be drawn from him straight to the 20th century (Bartok, Stravinsky, Martinu) in his treatment of meter and the way he is comfortable with abstraction.
As for "Episode 5 Paris", believe me, it's very much on my mind. The current idea is to do a whole second series of videos, only in Paris, or perhaps one in Prague (where he was born) and the other three in Paris. After all, Reich spent 30 years of his life in Paris (1799-1802, 1808-1836) and there is tons of material, including his teaching work (his students included Liszt, Franck, Berlioz, Gounod, and many other big names). I'm hoping we can film in the vaults of the French National Library (BnF) where the manuscripts are, to show people what it's like to dig up old forgotten scores.
For the moment, it's just a daydream, until we secure funding (unlikely).
Your tempo is a little slow. It's in cut time (2/2) not 4/4. OK, I'm being churlish. I recorded this piece for Chandos Records last year, so I have an opinion. Excerpt here: https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010950
It is indeed cool that Hackily is near Reicha; he would have loved it (and Hacker News, for that matter). Music notation software has been ripe for disruption for a while. The problem is that for what most people want to do the interfaces are too complex and slow to learn.
The problem seems to be getting worse because of the desire to make possible the notation of as many far-fetched extreme cases, rather than making the core use as simple as possible.
Imagine if you were to use Finale or Sibelius (two of the best known) as a novice. Imagine you were JS Bach trying to write his first Prelude from Book one of the WTC with the software. The patterns should be faster to notate.
A tough problem, admittedly, but an important one to solve for future generations of young musicians learning the craft. Writing music by hand is still easier for simple pieces, for solo instruments.
Where I live Uber drivers often use it as a loss leader. They chat people up, and if they strike up a rapport they suggest customers contact them directly, cutting out the middle man. They can even undercut Uber, and still make more money than they do with Uber.
This especially makes sense for people who have a regular commute to the airport etc. I've experienced the same thing with Airbnb: first stay via the platform, and further stays booked directly. With Airbnb you miss out on the platform's protections. But with Uber, as the drivers are getting paid less and less, it seems easier to slide into direct contact.
It can be useful to have a private car driver you know and trust, without the anxiety of the wait, or of drivers calling you to ask where you're going, only to cancel the ride. (This happens to me regularly at the airport).
That used to be the common case (side deals with drivers) with Taxis on the Peninsula, but only because taxi dispatch was so horrible. - The value of Uber (at least for me) when you are in a Major metropolitan area is that it requires precisely zero advance preparation. Hit a button, walk out - and your Uber arrives precisely according to it's geo-tracking information.
While I'm sure there are people who strike side deals with drivers, I'd be surprised if that rose to anywhere near 5% of total volume.
Now - if you are having drivers calling you, or cancelling you (in 500+ Uber Rides, I've only had four cancellations after 60 seconds, and no driver has ever called to ask where I'm going) - it sounds like you live in a really crappy Uber dispatch area, so perhaps reverting back to side deals makes sense...
Recently learned that there are Chinese drivers who have been in this business for decades in the peninsula, catering to Chinese families. Especially useful if you have an older relative who's not comfortable with English. It really does make sense for both sides.
This is interesting to me because it suggests that the future of work is in the hands of those who can hustle, rather than in sharing-economy fiefdoms like Airbnb and Uber.
I've been adamant for a long time that the best path to a growing economy is lowering the barriers to entrepreneurship through education, less onerous regulations for small businesses, tax incentives to start a small business, and, probably more important than any piece of legislation, a change in the culture.
Entrepreneurship should be the first choice for everyone, not just folks that read HN.
> the future of work is in the hands of those who can hustle
Instead of the Gig Economy, the Hustle Economy?
Hustling is not a desirable state of employment. I don't want scrambling for money here and there to replace steady, productive jobs. Right now hustlers are glamorized, but it used to be an insult.
EDIT: It's useful to employers who don't want the responsibilities of actual employees.
> Entrepreneurship should be the first choice for everyone
Why? How will this produce better results than full-time jobs? How about people with obligations such as children and mortgages?
> less onerous regulations for small businesses
I keep hearing this, but after cutting regulations for 30 years eventually we must arrive at the right amount. After a certain point, losing weight is bad for your health; you might even need to gain some. What particular regulations in particular is everyone complaining about?
I briefly lived in Mexico last summer and this was my experience. Drivers would give out their personal number. This was also a more tourist-y area and they would try to pitch me on local spots that I should visit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSHm3ZphFlk