These two quotations illustrate the childlike na?et? of Haydn's nature. He is never tragic; his pieces are like delightful pictures of rural life painted by an artist who was himself country born and bred and who feels the natural charm of the simplest, commonest things. Haydn's pictures are flooded with sunlight.
IV. A RONDO BY MOZART.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), aside from his supreme greatness as a composer, represents the culmination of what is called the "Classical" period. The tendency away from strict polyphony and towards a free homophonic style has already been noted. It was the peasant-born Haydn who first subordinated polyphony, producing long instrumental pieces based on song melodies. His symphonies and string quartets are bubbling over with melodiousness. Often frankly adopting folk tunes, or inventing themes in the same style, he produced great works that depend hardly at all on the interweaving of themes, but have as their basis rather the exposition of single melodies as the raison d'?re of the music. Not by any means lacking in erudition, Haydn turns to na?e melody as his natural means of expression.
Along with this element, and as a component part of what we call "classic," is that perfection of form and style that particularly distinguishes the music of Mozart.
"His works are often cited as the most perfect illustrations of the classic idea in music,—this term referring in a general way to the absence of individualism in conformity to a general type of style and form, na?et? as opposed to self-consciousness, symmetry of outline, highest finish of detail, purity of sound, loftiness and serenity of mood."—Dickinson, "The Study of the History of Music."
EXAMPLE FOR ANALYSIS, No. 9.
Mozart: Rondo from Piano Sonata in B-flat major.
This rondo is the last of the three movements of this characteristic sonata. Mozart's piano sonatas seldom have more than three movements, and of these the rondo is last, the plan being to present the more highly organized movements first, and to end, as in the suite, with a bright and cheerful piece. The rondos of this period were lively and rhythmically energetic. While not essentially dance-like, they nevertheless were ultimately derived from the dance, and lacked the meditative and sentimental qualities to be found in slow movements. It is from one of these two sources—the dance tune and the folk-song—that all these sonata movements sprang. Contributory streams entered here and there—the polyphonic influence is discernible; Italian opera lends its fluent vocal style and occasionally its love of display in elaborate cadenzas; and, of course, the idiom of the piano—the peculiar manner of writing that the instrument requires—is always present.
The first theme of this movement, for example, suggests motion; one can almost imagine the opening section (measures 1-16) as suited to the first evolution in a dance, and the second (beginning at measure 16) as the strain intended for a new set of dancers, while the chords in measure 17 quite vividly suggest the steps of a dance. The left hand part is largely in the familiar idiom of the piano of Mozart's time, though there is occasionally polyphonic treatment—as in measures 1-8. The various divisions of the piece are strongly marked by cadences, sometimes preceded by formal patterns of scales, or other meaningless passages, as at 144-147, such as Wagner likened to "the clatter of dishes at a royal banquet." Sequences, so familiar in the music of Bach, frequently appear here, and were, indeed, a part of the phraseology of the time. The passage between measures 189 and 193 is, in this respect, especially notable because of the harsh dissonance between E-flat and D at measure 191.
The cadenza is an interesting and unusual factor in this rondo. A cadenza always occurred in certain types of operatic arias, and in the concerto was introduced to display the skill of the performer, but it is unusual to find one in a rondo.