Men for all seasons - music appreciation

National Review, Dec 31, 1996 by Balint Vazsonyi

THE decades flanking the year 1800 turned out to be decisive in shaping the history of this country, and the rest of the world as well. Credit must go to a remarkable group of men who happened to live at the same time within a relatively small geographic area. Their names are etched in the minds and hearts of a grateful posterity: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton.

The only reason to withhold the epithet "one-time miracle" from such a gathering of genius is the simultaneous existence of another small group of men, living and working within an even smaller geographic area an ocean away. Rather than through the mind, they reach our hearts through the ear. Their names: Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert. Among them, they created most of the greatest music in existence.

America's Founders did not materialize in a vacuum. From King Arthur's Round Table through Magna Carta, much had gone before to prepare the ground, and there was John Locke. Similarly, music could look back upon some distinguished centuries, and there was Johann Sebastian Bach. Yet in terms both of quantity and of quality what occurred simultaneously on the two sides of the Atlantic is without parallel.

Until recently, it appeared that the principles of America's Founders were secure. Until recently, flagship orchestras of the world built their annual programs around the vast treasury bequeathed to us by the giants. In every season, there would be adequate representation of the greater and lesser Romantics of the nineteenth century, a selection from the early eighteenth and from the early twentieth, and space reserved for the music of our own time. Yet, just as the principles by which America lived were until recently those of Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, the core of orchestral programming every year would be provided by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. They were the men for all seasons.

In Bach's hands music became a universal language. To Haydn we owe the eternal forms: symphony, sonata, string quartet. Mozart brings us closest to Divine perfection. Beethoven taught music to speak a human language, capable of expressing the entire spectrum of the human experience, and, finally, to rise beyond the hold of gravity. Schubert touches the heart with the fewest notes of all.

Such thoughts were rushing through my mind as I surveyed the programs of the New York Philharmonic for the 1996 - 1997 season. Putting together programs, of course, is a truly ungrateful task. That which is left out always outweighs that which is included. The season must be popular in order to sell tickets, yet it should be balanced, and should afford a disproportionate opportunity for the country's living composers. Add to this differences in taste and the need to reconcile the preferences of the music director with those of the guest artists, and the task becomes formidable indeed.

Criticizing is easier than producing, but I will comment nevertheless. On a hunch, I decided to review the 1966 - 67 season, because that is about when our world began to change. By this, I mean the phenomenon of gradually phasing out and ultimately ignoring the past -- the wish to dispense with the foundations altogether.

The New York Philharmonic kindly provided a copy of the earlier schedule. Interestingly, both seasons include performances of Verdi's Requiem and Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. Both seasons offer an enormous variety of composers and compositions. Both seasons make generous room for Americans and opportunities to hear first performances.

But there the similarities end. Now, in generic terms, the Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra, named for a composition consisting, generally, of four movements: an allegro (occasionally with a slow introduction), a slow movement, a dance movement, and a lively finale. The word sinfonia began life referring to an orchestral curtain raiser to Neapolitan opera, but in the hands of Joseph Haydn it became the ultimate achievement in orchestral composition.

Haydn himself composed more than a hundred symphonies; Mozart, 41. Beethoven wrote only nine, but those nine created an inferiority complex in his successors; Brahms hesitated for 22 years before unveiling his first symphony. Between Beethoven and Brahms, the symphonies of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann maintained the line of succession. Others have composed symphonies -- Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Mahler, Dvorak, even Bizet -- yet the main, Viennese line stretches from Haydn to Brahms.

In 1966 - 67, the Philharmonic offered three symphonies by Haydn, one by Mozart, four by Beethoven, three by Schubert, one by Schumann, two by Brahms. This year, it is offering only one by Haydn, none by Mozart, two by Beethoven, three by Schubert (the probable reason being the bicentennial of his birth), one by Schumann, one by Brahms.

This is a 50 per cent reduction on the symphonic side, but wait. The total Beethoven repertoire in 1966 - 67 included five overtures (King Stephen, Egmont, Prometheus, Fidelio, and Leonore No. 3). The symphonies were the Eroica (in two programs), the Seventh, the Eighth (also in two programs), and the Ninth. There were also Piano Concertos No. 3 and No. 5 (Emperor), the Violin Concerto, and the Missa Solemnis. This year, we have Symphonies No. 1 and No. 5. That's it.