Beethoven, Bach and Bartok: Comparisons

Contrasts of Elements between: Bach: Concerto no. 5 Mozart: Piano Concerto 1st Movement No. 23 in A Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra 1st Movement

1 BachMozartBartok StructureFugal ritornello. One of the very earliest keyboard concertos. Has a length cadenza before the final tutti of the first movement. Concerto. Sonata form. Linked by clever passages like scales and arpeggios or orchestral tutti. Very subtle relationship between piano and orchestra. Concerto: First movement. Sonata form with slow introduction. Introduction, exposition, development, recapitulation and coda. RhythmPulsing. Very straight. Lyrical. Quite clear cut. Only minims are dotted.Complicated rhythms. Strong and driving Fundamental element of Concerto. StyleBaroque. Early keyboard concerto. No introduction.Classical with a hint of romanticism. Symphonic. Contrasting balance of keys and thematic material.20th Century. Elements of Serialism. Atonal. TempoAllegro. A crotchet =200.Lilting and quite fast although it sounds quite relaxed. Begins slowly. Accompaniment in low strings gradually speeded up to launch first subject of allegro. There is a return to the tempo of the second subject in the development. TexturePolyphonic. In the solo sections there is the soloist and orchestral backing. Harpsichord provides a continuo harmony when not playing solo. Tutti quite full with piano accompanying softly underneath. Then orchestration is often quite sparse with solo as a musical conversation takes place. Polyphony, at times monophony. Cellos and double basses begin in octaves and play a pentatonic arch which is expanded before a powerfully orchestrated theme begins. Low strings play ostinato. TimbreConcertino: Violin, flute, harpsichord. Ripieno: Strings, continuo.Piano soloist and modest classical orchestra. Use of clarinets instead of oboes although originally .Main instruments in triplets, eg. Flutes/piccolo, oboes/ English horn, bassoons, trumpets. Use of percussion, strings, winds, brass.

Contrasts of Elements between: Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto and Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto 4

1 Beethoven: Emperor ConcertoBach: Brandenburg Concerto 4MelodySimple, fairly short, several themes incorporated. Scalic passages.Short melodic lines. Melody not most important. HarmonyDiatonic chords: tonics, subdominants etc.Harpsichord plays chords and a supportive basso continuo. RhythmClear cut, fragments of syncopation.Pulsing, very regular and straight. DynamicsGreat contrasts of loud and soft, use of crescendo and diminuendo, echo effects.Terraced dynamics. StructureConcerto, sonata form. Call and answer within melody. Scalic passages linking solo and tutti sections. Ritornello: Concertino/Ripieno, fairly short movements. StyleClassical concerto, with romantic feel.Baroque. No introduction. Concerto grosso, ritornello form. TempoFairly fast and urgent through entire piece. A crotchet = 120.Allegro is constant throughout piece. A crotchet = 200. TextureHomophonic (classical style).Polyphonic (later baroque style). TimbreVirtuostic piano solo set against full orchestra. Also trumpet solo. Long periods of just solo instrument.Harpsichords, recorders, bass viol, baroque orchestra, more solo violin.

Biographical Outlines of: Bach Mozart Bartok

Bach (b.1685-d.1750) Johann Sebastian Bach was a German organist and composer of the baroque era, one of the greatest and most productive geniuses in the history of Western music.

In 1700 Bach began to earn his own living as a chorister at the Church of Saint Michael in Lüneburg. In 1703 he became a violinist in the chamber orchestra of Prince Johann Ernst of Weimar, but later that year he moved to Arnstadt, where he became church organist. In October 1705, Bach secured a one-month leave of absence in order to study with the renowned Danish-born German organist and composer Dietrich Buxtehude, who was then in Lübeck and whose organ music greatly influenced Bach's.

In 1707 he married his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, and went to Mülhausen as organist in the Church of Saint Blasius. He went back to Weimar to spend the next year as organist and violinist at the court of Duke Wilhelm Ernst and remained there for the next nine years, becoming concertmaster of the court orchestra in 1714.

Bach moved to Leipzig in 1723 and spent the rest of his life there. Bach found his job as musical director and choirmaster of Saint Thomas's church and church school in Leipzig unsatisfactory in several ways. He had constant disagreements with the town council, and neither the council nor the populace appreciated his musical genius. Bach's sight began to fail in the last year of his life, and he died on July 28, 1750, after undergoing an unsuccessful eye operation.

Posthumously, Bach was remembered as an virtuoso organist rather than a composer of great skill and importance, as he was one of the most highly skilled organists who ever lived. A revival of interest in Bach’s works came with the admiration of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven and Mendelssohn’s arrangement for a performance of the Passion of St. Matthew in 1829.

Bach was largely self-taught in musical composition. Bach's music is significant because of the high level of intellect in his compositions. Bach was greatly skilled at writing programme music, such as an undulating melody to represent the sea, or a canon to describe the Christians following the teaching of Jesus.

Bach was one of the most prolific composers. His music is a fine mixture of technical dexterity and beautiful melodies. His music is full of counterpoint and he was an expert at the fugue. This is why his music is so popular today and why the Classical composers had great interest in him.

Mozart (b.1756 d.1791) From the very beginning of his life in Salzburg, Austria, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a master of music. His father, Leopold Mozart, sacrificed his own career as a respected composer and theorist so he could concentrate on fostering his prodigy son’s talents. He taught Mozart the violin, piano and musical theory, all of which Mozart excelled at. At age four, Mozart was writing piano concertos and he completed his first opera, Batien and Bastienne when he was eleven.

Mozart spent most of his childhood touring Europe with his sister and he got his first job at age thirteen for the Archbishop of Salzburg. He worked here for twelve years until the archbishop dismissed him because he was irked by Mozart’s constant angling for a better job. Mozart moved to Vienna, the musical capital of the world at the time. He had been successful there as a child prodigy but as an adult had difficulty finding work because royal commissions were becoming more and more scarce.

It was in Vienna that Mozart met Haydn, who took Mozart under his wing and nurtured Mozart'’ talents like a second father. To make a living, Mozart wrote operas which were reaching the height of their popularity. Musical ideas sprang from Mozart’s mind. His only task in composing was actually writing the music down on paper. Around this time he fell in love with a woman called Aloysia Weber. He asked her to marry him but she declined, and so he married her sister Constanze instead. For their wedding, Mozart wrote his great C-minor Mass.

Mozart has more success as a composer when he visited Prague. He was commissioned to write several operas and he enjoyed a successful career.

Mozart was convinced while he was writing his Requiem commissioned by an unnamed stranger that it was his own requiem, and he was right. He raced to finish it but in the end only completed a few movements and a sketchy outline of the rest of the piece. He died probably from poor health when he was just thirty five years old. The Requiem was completed by one of Mozart’s pupils, Sussmayr.

Bartok (b.1881 d.1945) Béla Bartók was born in Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary (now Sînnicolau, Romania), on the 25th of March, 1881. When he was 18 he was accepted into the Budapest Royal Academy of Music and he began his career as a concert pianist. This was also around the time when he began composing. Bartok was very influenced by Strauss’ music. In 1905 He met Zoltan Kodaly and began collecting and recording Hungarian folk music. Two years later he became a professor of the piano at the Budapest Royal Academy. A few years later he was married, but it was not until 1917 that The Wooden Prince became the first of his compositions to be accepted. He continued to compose and tour as a pianist for the next twenty-seven years and was divorced and remarried. In 1940 Bartok emigrated to the USA where his health quickly began to deteriorate. In 1943 Bartok wrote his famous and intentionally popular Concerto for Orchestra. Then in 1945 he died in New York on the 26th September.

Bartok’s compositions were not fully appreciated during his own lifetime but he is now considered one of the most prolific composers in 20th Century classical music. His music is important in part because of its distinct Hungarian feel which he drew from his extensive knowledge of Hungarian folk music, having travelled around Hungary recording it. His music represents the emergence of Hungary as one of Europe’s great musical nations.

Bartók acknowledged his musical debt to the Hungarian composer Franz Liszt and the French composer Claude Debussy, and his tone poem Kossuth (1904) shows the influence of the German composer Richard Strauss. About 1905 Bartók realised that what generally passed as Hungarian folk music was actually gypsy music arranged according to conventional Central European standards. With his friend the Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, Bartók systematically collected and analysed Hungarian and other folk music, a collaboration that resulted in 12 volumes of folk songs.

Bartók rarely incorporated folk songs into his compositions; rather, he assimilated into a powerful personal style the scales and melodic contours and the driving, often asymmetrical rhythms of Balkan and Hungarian folk music. His music always has a tonal centre, but this is usually established in personal, only partially traditional ways.

The six-volume Mikrokosmos (1935), consisting of 150 progressively graded piano pieces, constitutes a summary of his development, as do his six string quartets, considered among the most important string quartets after those of Ludwig van Beethoven. Bartók did research at Columbia University (1940-41) and taught music in New York City, living in financial stress. He died of leukaemia in New York City, September 26, 1945.

Differences: Bach, Mozart, Bartók1BachMozartBartók At the forefront of the baroque composers. Studied with Buxtehude and Lübeck.Very classical. He appreciated Bach and used Haydn’s sting quartets as models.Studied late Romantics. Strauss, Wagner, the impressionist Debussy and 20th Century Stravinsky. Largely self-taught.Taught mainly by father.Taught mainly by mother. Bach began to earn his own living as a chorister at around age five. Did not go to a musical academy. Began touring when he was around five.Accepted into the Budapest Royal Academy of Music at 18 and began as a concert pianist. Bach was constantly at odds with the local council.Mozart was apolitical.Intensely nationalistic. Got one months leave to study composition at age 10.Began composing regularly from age 5.Began actively composing at age 26. Bach was a craftsman but did not spend a long time writing his compositions.Melodies came to him naturally. Considered notating his compositions a chore.Bartók was meticulous in the construction of his compositions and spent time writing them. Bach had a huge output. He wrote over 215 cantatas.Mozart had a large output: 49 symphonies and 18 operas.Bartok had a relatively small output. 1 opera. No sonatas. Master of polyphony or counterpoint. Fairly controlled rhythms.Controlled rhythms and resolved harmonies.Notable for vigourous rhythms, ostinatos, dissonance and atonality.

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