Art and taste

Adena Portowitz's discussion of "Art and Taste in Mozart's Sonata-Rondo Finales" (Journal of Musicology, 2001) made me think, once again, of my teaching. He quotes Haydn's oft-cited remark to Mozart's father: "your son ... has taste and also the greatest knowledge of composition". On a different occasion, Dittersdorf remarked similarly of Mozart as a performer: "Clementi's playing is art simply and solely: Mozart's combines art and taste". How true it is that we need both the technical fluency and that elusive thing called taste: great artists like Haydn recognized that, great artists like Mozart have that!

Coincidentally, I've just been playing and analyzing Haydn's Adagio from his Piano Sonata in Ab, Hob XVI:46. Such a beautiful movement in which Haydn ingeniously combines elements of a ground bass with sonata form together with such other antico techniques as canon (which one hardly notices). The expressive power of suspensions (transcending 4th species counterpoint) and the commonplace trills are both exquisitely woven into the music fabric which is constantly changing, giving the movement its unique overall shape within a sonata form framework. His harmonies--tonicizations, mixtures, chromatic sequences, juxtaposed with moments of harmonic simplicity--draw me in such that I don't want to leave his beautifully-designed harmonic labyrinth. What Haydn said of Mozart could well apply to himself!

Which brings me back to my starting point: teaching my students counterpoint and partwriting is only the beginning (the art side, or more appropriately, the craft), hopefully they cultivate their sense of musical tastes in the process too!