Dramatic Developments...

[jayne lee wilson]

Haydn can't wait to get to it, Mozart often seems bored by it, Beethoven reinvented it in No.3 but has no need of it in No.6...
Schoenberg does almost nothing else, but Webern has no time (or room) for it...

For what...? Development of course!
Which development sections do you love, which can't you stand - and what about recapitulations?

What happened to it in the 20th Century?

[salymap]

I think Schubert does go on a bit with both developments and recaps. IMHO he doesn't know when to call it a day. Having said that, I do love a lot of his works.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think Schubert does go on a bit with both developments and recaps. IMHO he doesn't know when to call it a day.

... not to mention Bruckner

There's a quote somewhere of Stravinsky saying words to the effect: "Mozart should have cut out all the developnment sections from his symphonies: they would have been fine then!"

Beethoven is another one: he could easily have cut out a lot of the development section in movement 1 of his Ninth Symphony, and it would have made just as much impact, if not more. Movement 1 of the Eighth is a model of concision. Still, I supose one has to take into account that recordings didn't exist in Beethoven's time, and audiences were unlikely to hear second performances. And of course, as a man of strong views, he would undoubtedly have felt that if a point he wanted to make through music was of decisive enough importance, it should be necessary to say it, not just once, or even twice, but many, many, many, many times.

Examples of long development sections that do however work for me would have to include the first two movements of Sibelius 2, where build-ups from initial fragments into extended summations totally convince. I also fel this about Mahler 6 movement 1 - elsewhere he did tend to over-repeat on expositions: eg Nos 3 and 7 - but we're talking developments here, so, off-topic

[Roehre]

There's a quote somewhere of Stravinsky saying words to the effect: "Mozart should have cut out all the developnment sections from his symphonies: they would have been fine then!"

Mahler (according to Webern) said the same: "For me Mozart ends at the double bar [of the exposition]"

[Roehre]

We have to be aware of the fact that the musicology which dissected music in order to be able to name its consisting parts only took off fom the mid 1840.
From then on a more academic approach of Sonata form was begun to be taught as well as observed.

Mozart in his Dorfmusikantensextett / A Musical Joke KV522 shows that he was aware of the problem of dimensions of the development, as in the first mvt he exaggerates it greatly, thus parodying the form.

Schumann in his (unfinished) Zwickau Symphony uses the development for a wild kind of fantasy, for which the very short exposition and recapitulation episodes are just a framework, making this mvt almost a parody or even travesty of the Sonata form.

Three works with for me great development sections are Schubert's Wandererfantasy, Liszt's Pianosonata and Schönberg's Kammersymphonie no.1, I think not by chance integrated one-mvt-structures arching the standard four mvts of a sonata or a symphony.

[Serial_Apologist]

Mahler (according to Webern) said the same: "For me Mozart ends at the double bar [of the exposition]"

An extraordinary thing for Mahler to have said, when one thinks about it! The finale of the Jupiter, oft-mentioned on here, is another extraordinary example of convincing symphonic development, since we're not just talking first movements here: Mozart's embracing the materials in a fugue may not have been the first time this had been done, (I'm too unfamiliar with Haydn to be sure he, or anyone else from that age for that matter, didn't get the idea earlier), but for a more modern follow-up, Vaughan Williams in the finale of 4 takes some beating in terms of sheer dramatic excitement.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

We have to be aware of the fact that the musicology which dissected music in order to be able to name its consisting parts only took off fom the mid 1840.
From then on a more academic approach of Sonata form was begun to be taught as well as observed.

For me, the "best" "Development sections" are those belonging to the best Symphonies - Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Bruckner: the usual boys in the band. Each had their own way of investigating and reappraising their thematic/harmonic/rhythmic ideas and their own priorities and sense of timing which is exactly right for their work to ... well, work! It's only the lesser lights of the 19th Century, led astray by academic "definitions" of Sonata Form who produce sections of a movement that "stand out": an indication that there's something wrong with the rest of the work. The later 19th Century Symphonists (Mahler, Schönberg, Sibelius, Nielsen) explore new ways of presenting and re-working materials; even Strauss, whose symphonic poems appeared to many critics as merely semi-rhapsodic strings of events, had his finger on the new pulse. The harmonic flow of his work surges forward with the melodic outpourings (the most obvious material) emerging from them.

Carter and Birtwistle have both made comments on the "if only they'd missed out the Development sections" theme: they have their own creative concerns and are among the few who have produced the 21st Century repertoire comparable to the most illustrious names from the past, but they're lousy judges of 18th Century writing!

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes - Haydn's Op.20 Quartets include 3 fugal finales, and Mozart's k387 Quartet has a fugal finale which seems to look ahead to the Jupiter, based on a theme of 4 whole notes...

But note how some attempts to include fugues or fugati where developments might be expected often don't work very well, trying a little too hard to import seriousness into the structure - Elgar 2 comes to mind, I think Rachmaninov tries it too - but it points up again the problem of the development, of doing something new, of the "finale problem" itself...

I've long been fascinated by those developments that appear to do little but achieve so much, locus classicus being Beethoven 6. Mozart's k.515 is another very peculiar example.
And yes, SA, Sibelius 2 turns it upside down and effectively has the development before the exposition! But an important point about how we think in terms conceived later, something Robert Simpson took me to task for in the RFH green room, long, long ago...

An extraordinary thing for Mahler to have said, when one thinks about it! The finale of the Jupiter, oft-mentioned on here, is another extraordinary example of convincing symphonic development, since we're not just talking first movements here: Mozart's embracing the materials in a fugue may not have been the first time this had been done, (I'm too unfamiliar with Haydn to be sure he, or anyone else from that age for that matter, didn't get the idea earlier), but for a more modern follow-up, Vaughan Williams in the finale of 4 takes some beating in terms of sheer dramatic excitement.

[Panjandrum]

Schubert's Unfinished: from that little double bass motif onwards, a sense of approaching the abyss which has to be one of the most terrifying moments in music. In fact, I am continually struck how often his pieces start with an innocuous, nondescript little melodies which are then transformed into something unutterably dark and impenetrable (e.g. the engulfing outburst in D.959).

[Norfolk Born]

I think Schubert does go on a bit with both developments and recaps. IMHO he doesn't know when to call it a day.

I feel the same way about Bax's symphonies. The shorter orchestral pieces are OK, as they display a greater degree of self-discipline.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I feel the same way about Bax's symphonies. The shorter orchestral pieces are OK, as they display a greater degree of self-discipline.

I've always felt this about the Bax symphonies* (the Prom with his 2nd last year was possibly the one that most disappointed me in the sense that I'd hoped that it would be the "revelation" about Bax that Belohlavek provided for Martinu and Brabbins did for the Gothic: alas, no!) The chamber music also shows a finer sense of proportion and timing, too. (Translation: I prefer it!)

* = but not about Schubert, sals, except in some very perfunctory, leaden-footed performances.

[Chris Newman]

* = but not about Schubert, sals, except in some very perfunctory, leaden-footed performances.

I agree. There are some conductors of whose recorded performances of The Great C Major works I have bought three different CDs and rarely do they let you down. In one recording Conductor A will play some repeats whilst five years later he plays them all. And each time you are convinced they are right. I love the experimentation that Boult, Barbirolli, and Mackerras were prepared to take in their constant strive for perfection. Generally, I have been so lucky with this dear masterwork; even local orchestras have come up trumps. I have only witnessed one damp squib. That was when the conductor would not let nature propel the music as he tried too hard to impose a wilful style and interpretation on music that knows implicitely what it is that it wishes to do.

[Panjandrum]

I think Schubert does go on a bit with both developments and recaps. IMHO he doesn't know when to call it a day.

I guess that's another way of looking at what Schumann described as his "heavenly length".

[Pabmusic]

I think Schubert does go on a bit with both developments and recaps. IMHO he doesn't know when to call it a day.

Well, yes, perhaps he does sometimes, but ... (to paraphrase Edward Greenfield on Rimsky-Korsakov's quintet, since I can't quote it exactly) it's like having a dear old, but garrulous, friend, whose verbosity is tolerated with a smile for the sheer pleasure of his company.

[jayne lee wilson]

Bit surprised at this comment... I've always felt that Schubert's developments are often quite focussed and eventful (PanJandrum absolutely right about the Unfinished's development in (i) - an astounding moment in classical music!) as compared to his extraordinarily expansive expositions. Think about the great piano sonatas, d.894 say, or d.960 (especially if Richter is playing!) - there's a considerable contrast between the long and songful statement and rather compacted, eventful developments here. Of course as with Mozart, Schubert is sometimes bored by having to fit a "development section" in at all, preferring to show off his invention in the coda (as in the 1st movement of Symphony No.6).

But when he is very compressed and concentrated in his whole argument, in the whole movement, e.g. d.784 (i), the finale of Symphony No.2, or the whole of the B minor Symphony, there's a heightened intensity which comes from their very compactness, so different from his more frequently encountered, wonderfully and memorably, melodically expansive self.

I think Schubert does go on a bit with both developments and recaps. IMHO he doesn't know when to call it a day. Having said that, I do love a lot of his works.