Melanie Lowe - Amateur Topical Competencies

Amateur Topical Competencies
Oxford Handbooks Online

Melanie Lowe
The Oxford Handbook of Topic Theory
Edited by Danuta Mirka
Print Publication Date: Nov 2014

Subject: Music, Music Theory, Musicology and Music History
Online Publication Date: Nov 2014 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199841578.013.0024
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter considers the topical competency of late eighteenth-century amateur players
and listeners. Focus is on selected string quartets by Haydn, Mozart, and Pleyel. The
analytical strategy is comparative, and therefore the analyses are limited to movements
governed by clearly defined topics. The troping of learned and galant elements is the
focus of discussion of three minuet movements, all of which incorporate contrapuntal
techniques to varying structural and expressive ends. Parametric density is the focus of
discussion of four chasse movements. In both sets of examples, issues considered include
topical content and syntactical function, topical dissonance, and social and cultural
associations.
Keywords: Haydn, Mozart, Pleyel, topical competency, amateur, minuet, chasse
“If you have no pupils at the moment, then compose something more, even if you have to
let your work go for a smaller sum; for God’s sake you have to make yourself known. But
let it be something short, easy, popular. Talk with an engraver about what he would most
like to have—perhaps easy quartets for two violins, viola, and basso. Do you believe
perhaps that you lower yourself in such things?”1 So a worried and controlling father
wrote to a brilliant if somewhat irresponsible son in 1778. Seven years later, said son
published six string quartets, works that were hardly short, easy, or popular. In between
Leopold Mozart’s admonishing advice and the publication of Amadeus Mozart’s Opus 10
quartets—the so-called “Haydn” quartets that comprise what we, today, have come to
view as the pinnacle of Mozart’s quartet composition (if not all quartet composition in the
eighteenth-century)—Haydn published his “new and special”2 Opus 33, and Haydn’s
former student Ignaz Pleyel brought out two sets of six quartets, his Opuses 1 and 2.
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The sales of Mozart’s Opus 10 quartets were, of course, famously underwhelming, at least
during the composer’s lifetime. While there seems to be no financial accounting of the
quartets’ commercial failure for Artaria, there is an abundance of circumstantial evidence
that leads to this conclusion. For one thing, when Dittersdorf was trying to sell his own
quartets to the same publisher, the letter he wrote—two years after Opus 10 came out—
suggests that Mozart’s quartets did not sell well; indeed, he assures Artaria that his will
sell better because they are stylistically more accessible than Mozart’s.3 But the “sales-
pitchy” words of the competition aside, the publication history of Opus 10 speaks for
itself: in Mozart’s lifetime, his extraordinary “Haydn” quartets were reissued only three
more times by Artaria and published only once, by Sieber, in Paris (Finscher and Seiffert
1993: b/6–7). To be sure, with four issues and evidence that a second set of plates was
needed for the later imprints, they were perhaps not quite the commercial disaster they
have been made out to be.4 But still, there can be no doubt that, before the composer’s
death at least, Mozart’s Opus 10 was hardly a commercial success.
Haydn’s landmark Opus 33 quartets—his first works composed directly for publication—
fared much better in the late eighteenth-century musical marketplace. After their initial
1782 publication by Artaria, Haydn’s set enjoyed nine reissues during the (p. 602)
following decade with publishers in Amsterdam, Paris, and London. Individual quartets
from the set also circulated in an assortment of arrangements, from solo keyboard and
keyboard four-hands to winds and strings to piano trio. Four individual movements even
received words to become songs (Hoboken 1957: 395–401).
Pleyel, however, should have been absolutely ecstatic at the astonishing commercial
triumph of his first two sets of string quartets. In 1783 the first edition of Opus 1 was
published in Vienna by Rodolfo Gräffer. They sold well. During Pleyel’s lifetime, these six
quartets were reissued more than forty times in complete sets by no fewer than fifteen
publishers throughout Europe. Individual quartets from the set enjoyed a parallel life as
arrangements, over thirty different ones, in fact—from keyboard to winds and strings to
full orchestra; like some movements of Haydn’s Opus 33, there are several vocal versions,
some with words added interlinearly. Pleyel’s Opus 2 quartets, published a year later, in
1784, were equally successful, reissued about thirty times by eighteen publishers over
the same three decades. And as with his Opus 1, there were dozens of arrangements in
the same wide variety of instrumentations and vocal renditions (Benton 1977: 99–111).
These data leave no doubt: commercially speaking at least, if Pleyel’s first two opuses
surpassed Haydn’s Opus 33, which they very clearly did, they left Mozart’s Opus 10 in the
dust.
What was it about Pleyel’s quartets that made them so incomparably commercially
viable? And what was it about Mozart’s quartets that made them so much less so?
Alternatively, what is it about Mozart’s quartets that have led them to endure, to triumph
in the end, so to speak, while Pleyel’s quartets are now largely forgotten?5 A corollary
question: What is it about Haydn’s quartets that leaves them perennially in the middle—
not as successful as Pleyel’s at the time but so much more so than Mozart’s, and not
completely forgotten today like Pleyel’s, but hardly the heart of the quartet canon like
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Mozart’s? Of course, these questions have been asked countless times and answered
many different ways, to varying degrees of satisfaction. But I shall ask them again here
and perhaps answer them somewhat differently.
The vast majority of music published in the late eighteenth century was composed for
performance in the home by amateur players for a domestic audience, if there was any
audience at all. And it follows logically, then, that the most salable works were also the
most technically undemanding—music suitable for amateurs. Generally speaking, Pleyel’s
works have an “accessible” style and contain relatively few polyphonic textures—both
good, important, and frequently made observations about his music.6 But surely there
must be more to commercial viability than music that is merely easy to play and contains
no fugues.
Elsewhere I have argued for a high degree of topical competency among the lay listeners
that made up the late eighteenth-century public concert audience, and that this
competency allowed for an immediate perception and understanding of musical structure
and form. Moreover, as interpretive activity is largely dependent on at least some degree
of structural intelligibility, I suggested that topical competency was the springboard for
the construction of meaning among the musically uninitiated (see Lowe 2007). In this
chapter I shall build on this construction of amateur topical competency to consider
(p. 603) relationships between patterns of consumption, musical style, and consumer
identity. Although the enterprise is undoubtedly speculative by nature (and I would

maintain that there is simply no way around this reality),7 I suggest that we can learn
quite a bit about the consumers of string quartets from the quartets themselves, the
music these amateur musicians chose to play. And we know just what music these
consumers preferred, for the publication history alone speaks directly to that point. In the
1780s, amateur players and their occasional listeners preferred Haydn to Mozart, and
Pleyel to either.
In addressing questions of amateur topical competency, my strategy is comparative and

therefore, to facilitate—and also to compress—an expansive analytical procedure, my
discussion here will be limited to movements governed by clearly defined topics. First, we
shall consider three minuet movements, one by Mozart, one by Haydn, and one by Pleyel,
all of which incorporate contrapuntal techniques to varying structural and expressive
ends. We shall then examine four chasse movements, one by Mozart, one by Haydn, and
two by Pleyel. In both sets of examples, we shall take up in turn issues of topical content
and syntactical function, parametric density and topical dissonance, and then finally the
social and cultural associations of the topics themselves to address relationships between
topical discourse, amateur topical competency, and consumer identity in the 1780s. As we
shall see, the commercial viability of such works in the eighteenth-century musical
marketplace was bound up with the topical competency of amateur musicians.
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Learned/Galant Tropes in Minuets

Of the three minuet
movements, the least
structurally and
expressively sophisticated
is also the least well
known today, the Grazioso
finale of Pleyel’s String
Quartet in G minor, Op. 2
No. 3. Despite its lack of a
minuet title or tempo
indication, there is no
question as to its topical
identity. Indeed, it exhibits
almost all of the archetypal
musical characteristics of
the minuet: 3/4 meter;
Example 23.1 Pleyel, String Quartet in G minor, Op.
2 No. 3/iii, mm. 1–20. nearly equal stress on
each beat of the measure
ensuring a steady rhythmic profile; a slight accent on the first beat of each two-measure
group, defining the pas de menuet; consistently regular four-square phrase structure; and
even the presence of the late eighteenth-century minuet “motto” rhythm—a quarter note
followed by four beamed eight notes—in the first violin part of the very first measure
(Example 23.1).8 The large-scale structure is the usual da capo form of eighteenth-
century dance movements; the first dance is a clear rounded binary form in minor mode
while the second offers a simple eighteen-measure binary-form maggiore. The
movement’s designation Grazioso may also be read as a minuet indicator, as the word is
among those most frequently used to describe the dance in its own time. The mid-
eighteenth-century dancing master Carl Joseph von Feldtenstein, for one, even remarked
that the minuet “appears to have been invented by the Graces themselves” (1767: 36–37;
cited in Allanbrook 1983: 33). (p. 604)
With the minuet topic so clearly defined, a passage of imitative counterpoint should
provide for some expressive enrichment, if not also a degree of topical dissonance or even
topical challenge. And yet in this movement Pleyel integrates the imitation (mm. 9–16) so
completely into the dance’s phrase and period structure that the tropological force of the
combination of learned and galant elements is effectively diffused. The four-voice canon
at the interval of two measures generates a perfectly symmetrical eight-measure period
(mm. 9–16) to balance the opening eight measures. Moreover, (p. 605) the canon subject
is a two-measure segment that repeats itself immediately a third higher, yielding a
decidedly homophonic texture. In essence, rather than two lines of interlocking
counterpoint, Pleyel gives us a melody in parallel thirds. The impact of the tropological
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fusion of the minuet and the learned style is thus mitigated to the point of nonexistence,
as neither period structure, phrase rhythm, nor texture is disrupted by it.9 Pleyel’s
melodically defined pas de menuet continues without a single hiccup into the concluding
four-measure phrase of the opening strain.
Interpretively speaking, then, Pleyel’s Grazioso presents neither player nor listener much
challenge. The minuet, whether encountered as a dance in the ballroom or as a topic in
vocal and instrumental music, was understood by nearly all music enthusiasts of the time
as a noble dance of utmost grace and elegance. In the terms and categories established
by eighteenth-century critics and theorists, we may encapsulate its expressive content as
the courtly (galant)—as opposed to the ecclesiastical (learned)—variety of the high
style.10 As quartet players in the late eighteenth century were predominately members of
the landed nobility and wealthy upper-bourgeois citizens,11 the patrician character of
Pleyel’s topically consonant Grazioso easily reflected the high social status of its
consumers. Uncomplicated by any other affect, his minuet finale essentially handed
Kenner and Liebhaber alike an unequivocal social and perhaps even political meaning: a
tacit endorsement of the stratification of contemporary European societies.12
Like Pleyel’s Grazioso, the scherzo of Haydn’s String Quartet in B minor, Op. 33 No. 1
(Example 23.2), is also governed by a minuet topic, as evidenced by its 3/4 meter, nearly
equal stress on each beat of the measure, pas de menuet measure groupings, and overall
da capo design with a rounded-binary “minuet proper” and a simple binary-form
maggiore trio. But while Pleyel’s minuet movement is of the courtly variety, the allegro
tempo, upbeats, and bariolage (first violin, mm. 6–7, 28–29) impart a rustic spirit to
Haydn’s scherzo minuet. Haydn’s scherzo also incorporates imitative counterpoint, but
whereas in Pleyel’s minuet the canon is confined to its own eight-measure period, here
the contrapuntal textures are infused throughout the movement. Already on the upbeat to
the fourth measure, the second violin picks up the second motive of the first-violin’s
opening melody (motive b) and forms a two-measure figure that is then imitated by the
viola and cello. Even as the pas de menuet is subverted somewhat by the second violin’s
two-measure phrase (mm. 4–5) and its imitation in the lower voices (mm. 6–7), the phrase
rhythm—at least as dictated by the first violin—remains “danceable” throughout. To be
sure, while sustaining the second violin’s subversive rhythmic move, the viola and cello’s
imitation in measures 6–7 may also be heard to supply a textural patch over what would
otherwise be a more jarring structural seam. At m. 7 the lower two voices, following in
imitation, provide an underlying continuity for the surprising and potentially disruptive
bariolage effect in the top voice. While the resulting phrase rhythm is asymmetrical, as
the archetypal eight-measure strain is expanded to twelve measures by the insertion of a
four-measure phrase (mm. 5–8), the imitation provides for an underlying textural logic
and seemingly seamless continuity.
Page 5 of 23

Example 23.2 Haydn, String Quartet in B minor, Op.

33 No. 1/ii, mm 1–24.
In the second strain,

Haydn telescopes to one
measure the distance
between the points of
imitation, presenting
something of a textural
challenge to the
underlying pas (p. 606) de
menuet phrase rhythm
Figure 23.1 Two alternative ways of hearing the pas (mm. 13–22). By opening
de menuet in Haydn’s String Quartet in B minor, Op.
33 No. 1/ii, mm. 13–22. this intensely contrapuntal
passage with the entrance
of the lowest voice and following it with the highest, Haydn shifts the hypermetrical
downbeat to the second measure of each two-measure segment. If we continue to hear
the pas de menuet as governing the phrase structure, the result is a syncopated phrase
rhythm in the first six measures of the ten-measure period (Figure 23.1a): (p. 607)
On the other hand, we may also hear a shift of the pas de menuet one measure forward,
generating a symmetrical eight-measure period framed by two single measures (Figure
23.1b). In either hearing of the phrase rhythm in the opening of the second strain, the
archetypal two-measure phrase structure of the minuet is disrupted.
Expressively, then, the unmarked nontragic galant style of this minor-mode minuet is
challenged simultaneously on two stylistic axes. The tempo, bariolage, and syncopated
phrase rhythm compromise the minuet topic’s courtly decorum by imposing a marked,
low-style affect. Such expressive content would flirt with bathos were it not for the
pervasive imitative counterpoint, whose infusion of a marked, high-style texture
Page 6 of 23

simultaneously challenges the minuet from the opposite category of pathos.13 And yet, as
the learned style was by the late eighteenth century increasingly ridiculed for its
pedantry (see Chapin’s chapter in this volume), we may also hear the saturation of
imitation in this minuet as ironic, thereby “short-circuiting” the expressive pathway to
move directly into the realm of the bathetic. In either interpretation, the impact of the
topical trope on the minuet is much higher in Haydn’s movement than in Pleyel’s, yielding
a scherzo with a high degree of topical dissonance. As such, Haydn presents his players
and listeners with considerable interpretive challenges—what to make of such expressive
contradictions? While the courtly high style of the minuet topic is undermined by the
rustic elements, the low style of the countrified elements is simultaneously contradicted
by the expressive authority of the imitative counterpoint. In the end, players and listeners
must navigate a tricky interpretive course—engage actively with the movement’s topical
discourse—to arrive at a coherent musical meaning.
The second-movement
Minuetto of Mozart’s
String Quartet in A major,
K. 464, likewise displays
the usual topical markers
of the late eighteenth-
century minuet (Example
23.3). Like Pleyel’s
Grazioso, Mozart’s minuet
is of the courtly variety: an
unqualified minuet tempo,
no upbeats, a steady
rhythmic profile, and the
melodic gesture—three
straight quarter notes, all
on the same pitch (mm. 5,
Example 23.3 Mozart, String Quartet in A major, K.
464/ii, mm. 1–43. 7, and so on)—so
frequently encountered in
14
contemporary dance minuets composed for the ballroom. Also like Pleyel, Mozart
follows an opening homophonic eight-measure period with a passage (p. 608) of
counterpoint. But unlike Pleyel’s, Mozart’s extension actually sounds contrapuntal, and
from this point on, like Haydn’s scherzo, Mozart’s minuet is infused with counterpoint,
much of it imitative. In m. 9 the primary motives from the opening period’s antecedent
(motive a) and consequent (motive b) phrases are played against one another, (p. 609)
revealing their “more felicitous relationship,” as Allanbrook puts it, “as subject and
countersubject” (1996: 140). Moreover, this contrapuntal relationship retroactively casts
the slower moving, seemingly accompanimental lines in the second violin and viola as a
learned-style cantus firmus (motive c). These unassuming lines thus receive a new status
that will become salient in the repeat. Measures 13–17 then present motive a in stretto;
motive b receives the same treatment immediately following in mm. 17–21. Motives b and
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c (represented by single dotted half notes in mm. 30 and 32) are treated to textural
inversion in the opening period of the second strain (mm. 29–37), the point of inversion
heightened—and the phrase rhythm disrupted—by a full measure of rest (a grand pause,
in effect) in m. 33. When the material from the first strain returns to round out the binary
form of the minuet proper (Example 23.4), motives a and b are presented not in
succession, as in the movement’s opening period, but rather in the contrapuntal
relationship of the extending second period of the first strain. And here, once again,
Mozart ups the contrapuntal ante: in the third measure of the “antecedent” phrase of the
return (m. 57) motive a enters in inversion. This leads directly to the “consequent” phrase
in which motive b is presented not only in counterpoint with motive a but also in stretto
with itself (mm. 59–62).
Of these three minuet

movements, Mozart’s is
undeniably the most
expansive structurally and
harmonically. It is also the
most intensely
contrapuntal. And while
Haydn’s infusion of
counterpoint into a rustic
scherzo presents the
player and listener with
Example 23.4 Mozart, String Quartet in A major, K.
considerable interpretive
464/ii, mm. 55–64. challenges, Mozart’s
contrapuntal
combinatorics engages amateur topical competency alongside the interpretive challenge
presented by his troping of free and strict styles. Because the counterpoint here reveals
the combinatorial possibilities of (p. 610) the movement’s rather limited musical material
(nearly all of the material is derived from motive a, b, or c), the learned/galant trope in
this movement may itself be heard as signifying “difficulty,” a rhetorical device “whose
effect depends on the effort of understanding [it]” (Sisman 1997: 53). When the musical
surface throws up such an interpretive challenge, as it undeniably does in this deceptively
inaccessible movement, the amateur player and listener may ultimately relinquish control
over musical meaning. Such a surrender, along with the inability of leisured and wealthy
quartet enthusiasts to enjoy an uninhibited reflection of their high social status, would
certainly have contributed to the tempered reception of Mozart’s Opus 10 quartets in the
late eighteenth-century musical marketplace. Ironically, for Kenner and Liebhaber alike,
the meaning of Mozart’s Minuetto may have ultimately been the inability to construct a
coherent meaning.
Page 8 of 23

Parametric Density of Musical Hunts
Example 23.5 Mozart, String Quartet in B flat major,

K. 458/i, mm. 1–8.
Example 23.6 Haydn, String Quartet in D major, Op.

33 No. 6/i, mm. 1–8.
Of the four chasse

movements to be
discussed below, the most
familiar is likely the
opening Allegro vivace
assai of Mozart’s String
Quartet in B flat major, K.
458, a quartet that
acquired the nickname
“Hunt” early in its history
because of the obvious
hunting associations that
define the first group
Example 23.7 Pleyel, String Quartet in A major, Op.
(Example 23.5): 6/8 meter,
1 No. 3/i, mm. 1–10.
triadic melodies outlining
primarily tonic and
15
dominant chords, horn-call bicinia, and regular periodicity. Topically speaking, the first
Page 9 of 23

movement of Haydn’s String Quartet in D major, Op. 33 No. 6, opens exactly the same
way (Example 23.6): 6/8 meter, triadic melodies outlining primarily tonic and dominant
chords, some horn-call bicinia, and regular periodicity. The key, D major, is undoubtedly
significant here, for the Marquis of Dampierre chose the (p. 611) horn in D for his
collection of calls, the most famous and widely disseminated collection of hunting calls in
the eighteenth century. Simply put, both Mozart and Haydn open their chasse movements
with a presentational passage defined by a “pure” and conventionalized sign. (p. 612)
Pleyel, too, opens the first-movement chasse of his String Quartet in A major, Op. 1 No. 3
with clear markers of the hunt topic: 6/8 meter, triadic melodies outlining primarily tonic
and dominant chords, and regular periodicity (Example 23.7). Conspicuously absent,
however, are the hunting bicinia. It is also worth noticing that a touch of Scotch snap sets
up the cadence. Nevertheless, like both Haydn and Mozart, Pleyel opens with a
presentational passage that summons the hunt. Following an admittedly long-winded first
group,16 Pleyel’s second group introduces a new melody that likewise unfolds in a regular
four-square phrase structure (Example 23.8). Scotch snaps once again impart certain
rusticity to the expressive field. The overall effect is stasis in the parametric density of
the chasse and, with its presentational style, a clear alignment of expressive surface and
syntactical function.
Haydn continues with a bridge that solidifies the hunt topic with “horn calls” in both
textural and thematic “echo” imitation (Example 23.9, mm. 19–22). He then follows with a
second group whose running sixteenth notes (mm. 27–33) connect back motivically to the
first group while their imitative dialogues connect forward through the presentation of a
new triadic melody (mm. 36–43). Even with the imitation, all of this material unfolds over
two clearly articulated eight-measure periods. The overall effect is an increase in the
parametric density of the hunt topic and a clear alignment of expressive surface and
syntactical function.
Mozart, on the other hand, at the same structural point in the movement, introduces a
new topic and a new rhythmic element—brilliant-style passage work (Example 23.10, mm.
31–34) and hemiola (mm. 38–41), both of which, as surface expressions of instability,
function as conventionalized signs of continuation. While the new thematic material that
immediately follows (m. 55) retains many expressive markers of the hunt topic (here,
triadic-outline melodic motives, primarily tonic and dominant harmonies, and “echo”
imitation), the second group lacks a clear or predictable sense of period structure, a
change-up that is all the more striking because it follows a first group in which the phrase
units “avoided elision to a degree unusual in Mozart’s music” (Irving 1998: 70).
Combined with a slippery four-sixteenth-note motive that develops continually through
the second group (it starts with a double eighth-note upbeat, then loses it, then gains a
triple eighth-note upbeat, the effect of which is to shift continually the rhythmic scansion
and to demand more effort in both the projection and perception of meter), Mozart’s
second group denies us the “double psychic economy” that Haydn’s so nicely provides—
that subtle sense in which listeners and players alike can relax, because there is no
question as to expressive identity or syntactical function.17 In other words, very little here
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is presentational, just at the point we would most expect it. To put a fine point on the
comparison, then, Haydn’s increase in the parametric density of the hunt topic enhances
structural intelligibility. Mozart’s enriching and troping of the hunt topic diminish
structural intelligibility.

1 No. 3/i mm. 51–62.
Example 23.9 Haydn, String Quartet in D major, Op.

33 No. 6/i, mm. 19–43.
Page 11 of 23

Example 23.10 Mozart, String Quartet in B flat

major, K. 458/i, mm. 31–77.

1 No. 3/i: (a) mm. 92–106; (b) mm. 128–34.
Page 12 of 23

Example 23.12 Haydn, String Quartet in D major,

Op. 33 No. 6/i, mm. 59–70.
Pleyel’s development
proceeds predictably
enough, with the triadic
melodies and Scotch snaps
from the exposition
presented in a regular and
clear period structure
(Example 23.11a).
Following a climactic
Op. 33 No. 6/i, mm. 71–78.
moment, the retransition
(Example 23.11b) chases
its way with a touch of
more “echo” imitation back to A major for a predictable (p. 613) recapitulation. In other
words, the light parametric density of Pleyel’s hunt topic remains static and there is no
topical troping, contest, or expressive dissonance of any kind. The climactic moment in
Haydn’s movement, on the other hand, is the short development, which for twelve
measures effectively lowers the parametric density of the hunt topic (Example 23.12).
Haydn opens with the horn call motive from the exposition’s bridge but (p. 614) (p. 615)
(p. 616) (p. 617) (p. 618) without the upper voice of its bicinium. Imitative treatment of
the bridge material follows (mm. 63–68), now presented in a style more learned than any
other passage in the movement, even if the passage itself is still laid out in a clearly
demarcated eight-measure period. As if to compensate for the very short development,
Haydn’s recapitulation is quite (p. 619) developmental (and it starts in the dominant), but
the parametric density of the hunt topic returns to just what it was in the exposition:
clear articulation of 6/8 meter, triadic melodies outlining tonic and dominant harmonies,
horn call bicinia, and regular periodicity (Example 23.13). A sixteen-measure coda brings
back the horn calls from the bridge, stated one final time in the proper voicing. The
Page 13 of 23

movement closes quietly with eight measures that recall the triadic melodic motives from
the first group, while the long bass pedal suggests the pastorale, a topic highly
compatible with the hunt (Example 23.14).18

Op. 33 No. 6/i, mm. 153–64.
The second half of

Mozart’s chasse movement
could hardly develop more
differently than either
Pleyel’s or Haydn’s. To
start, he opens with an
entirely new melody, an
Alphorn tune floating over
bass pedals that
Example 23.15 Mozart, String Quartet in B flat immediately changes the
major, K. 458/i, mm. 91–98.
setting and the cast of
characters (Example
19
23.15). The music moves from the woodland to the Alps, from the huntsman to the
shepherd. Expressively speaking, we have left the hunt behind (p. 620) and entered the
realm of the pastoral. When the sixteenth-note motive from the second group returns,
following the Alphorn tune, its rhythmic scansion within the 6/8 measure shifts again
(Example 23.16). In fact, nearly all parameters of this motive are in motion: the texture
shifts continually, gone is the triadic melodic outline, and in its place are chromatic lines
and harmonies that hint of tempesta. The climax of the development comes when the
sixteenth-note motive regains its double eighth-note triadic upbeat, thereby shifting the
rhythmic scansion back to its original position. The only moment of “echo” imitation
returns as well, but at this point Mozart doubles-down—what was once a polite series of
lateral melodic passes (Example 23.10, mm. 42–46) is now a scramble of canonic
imitation (Example 23.16, mm. 126–28).
Mozart’s recapitulation follows the exposition’s structure and topical discourse quite
closely, which makes good formal sense, for it is the coda that provides the true
culmination of the movement. The opening chasse melody is now presented, literally, as a
“chase”—in learned-style imitation not unlike that in the much earlier vocal genres of
Page 14 of 23

chace and caccia (Example 23.17).20 More important, though, is the decidedly learned
technique: the chasse is in stretto. There are certainly other important details to notice
here, particularly regarding motivic development (for instance, the return of the
sixteenth-note figure in various guises; the shifting of 6/8 scansion in its last appearance
just six measures before the end) but for our present purpose, the learned-style stretto is
most significant. To put fine point on my comparison once again, Haydn follows a
developmental recapitulation by reaffirming the hunt topic. At first glance Mozart may
appear to do so as well but—even if the imitation can be associated with the hunt—it is
too learned for a simple topical reaffirmation. Mozart’s enrichment of the hunt topic
actually generates considerable expressive dissonance: sacrificed for the sake of the
stretto are the horn call bicinia, the outlining of predominantly tonic and dominant
harmonies, and clear periodicity. To be sure, just like at the end of the “Jupiter” finale, the
free style triumphs, but to accomplish that return, Mozart sacrifices the chasse itself.
The easiest way to see what’s so strikingly different about Pleyel’s topical discourse is to
put the coda of his chasse (Example 23.18) in direct dialogue with Mozart’s coda. Just like
Mozart, Pleyel brings back material from the development and imitative textures. But
Pleyel’s recalled material still resides firmly within the topical field of the chasse,
whereas Mozart retrieves the material that is the least chasse-like in the whole
movement. Moreover, Pleyel’s imitation is plainly a chase—it’s not learned at all. Mozart’s
imitation, as we observed earlier, is decidedly strict in style, self-consciously so, in fact.
With these three movements in mind, let us look at one more chasse movement by Pleyel,
the finale of his String Quartet in D Major, Op. 2 No. 6 (Example 23.19). To be sure,
because this movement is a chasse finale, a direct comparison to Haydn’s and Mozart’s
chasse first movements is not unproblematic, particularly regarding issues of
relationships between topical discourse and structural intelligibility. But the differences
in topicality here are so striking and clear that a quick analysis reveals once again how a
light parametric density is a hallmark of Pleyel’s quartet style.
Page 15 of 23


major, K. 458/i, mm. 106–37.

major, K. 458/i, mm. 239–54.
Page 16 of 23

First, like Haydn but

unlike Mozart, we never
get off our horse in this
movement. The defining
rhythmic element of the
chasse—the obstinate
eighth notes—gallop
(p. 621) (p. 622) (p. 623)
throughout.21
But the
parametric density of
Pleyel’s hunt topic is much
less either than Haydn’s or
Mozart’s chasse, especially
Example 23.18 Pleyel, String Quartet in A major, Op. at the opening. The topic is
1 No. 3/i, mm. 199–209. defined mostly
rhythmically, and also by
the French hunting key of D major (Monelle 2006: 42). There are parallel sixths but no
hunting bicinia in the opening presentation of the primary theme. Its period structure is
balanced, 9 + 9, but it is not symmetrical: a phrase structure of 1 + 8 measures is
followed by a 4 + 5 measure structure. The melodies are not triadic, and neither do they
outline predominately tonic and dominant harmonies. Indeed, already in the third
measure Pleyel gives us a hint of the supertonic before retroactively recasting it as a
dominant function with the C♯ upbeat to the next measure. The point here is that such
low parametric density in topical definition effectively diminishes the possibilities for
topical enrichment or dissonance. The chasse, residing almost entirely in the galloping
eighth notes, can be either present or absent; there is little opportunity for topical
shading. To be sure, the tiny bit of “chasing” imitation that enters in the short
developmental passage at m. 52 (Example 23.20), and returns just before the end, may
bolster the chasse a bit, but it is barely topical enrichment and most certainly not learned
enough in style to present any topical troping, expressive dissonance, or interpretive
challenge. Where Haydn and Mozart trope and challenge topically and structurally, Pleyel
presents topics straight-up, unmixed, and crystal clear.
Page 17 of 23

Example 23.19 Pleyel, String Quartet in D major, Op.

2 No. 6/iii, mm. 1–18.
The structure of Pleyel’s

movement is also
exceptionally
uncomplicated. Most
importantly, though, for
the purpose of this
chapter, is that the
structure is readable
entirely (p. 624) through
surface expression; no
awareness of tonal motion
or formal process is
necessary for the player or
Example 23.20 Pleyel, String Quartet in D major, Op. the listener to know where
2 No. 6/iii, mm. 51–65.
he is in the movement’s
structural unfolding. One
example will suffice to demonstrate the structural implications of Pleyel’s surface
expression. After the opening eight-measure tune, presented in a melody over
Trommellbass-like chasse-rhythmed accompaniment (see Example 23.19), an abrupt
change in texture provides the connective tissue and announces the arrival of the new
key. Immediately following this striking unison is another abrupt change in texture and a
hint of hunting bicinia (m. 22); a player or listener with no knowledge of tonal workings
can hear some sense of formal motion, if not formal progress, in the restatement of the
primary theme. Indeed, all key structural points in this movement are marked with
(p. 625) a conspicuous change in texture to provide the formal signpost. By contrast, in
Mozart’s chasse, the texture, motivic material, and rhythmic scansion are always shifting
Page 18 of 23

and in such constant play that even with repeated playings and listenings, the expressive
surface provides few formal signposts, and those that might be there are seen only with
an intensely focused look through a thick motivic fog.
But the real payoff of the comparison of these four chasse movements, especially when
considering amateur topical competency in relation to quartet consumer identity, comes
with social and cultural readings of their different articulations of the hunt topic. As has
been established by Alexander Ringer and, especially, Raymond Monelle in his rich
cultural unpacking of the topic, the hunt is always noble and heroic; its indexicalities also
encompass manliness, risk, exhilaration, and youth. While the hunt itself, and certainly as
practiced in eighteenth-century German lands, was hardly a heroic adventure, the
signified of the hunt topic in music, art, and literature was not the tempered and
choreographed “sport” of contemporary practice but rather its gallant mythology
(Monelle 2006: 70, 95, 65). Socially, as Monelle explains, there was a strong reason for
eighteenth-century aristocrats, especially German aristocrats, to hunt:
Hunting rights were confined to the landed nobility…In a time when wealth was
being redistributed in favor of trade and the towns, it seemed vital to the
aristocracy to preserve their exclusive right to hunt. This was what distinguished
them, what confirmed their continuity with the landed aristocracy of the past.
Ferocious penalties (p. 626) were put in place against hunting by unauthorized
persons. It seemed unthinkable that a “noble stag” could be hunted by a peasant
or a townsman. Hunting was necessary for the self-identification of the nobility.
(Monelle 2006: 64)
When we remember that quartet players were largely members of the aristocracy and
that their power and privilege was increasingly under threat in the late eighteenth
century, an uncontested musical projection of nobility, manliness, youth, and overcoming
would seem considerably more attractive than one in which any of these indexicalities is
challenged. In addition to the obvious musical and technical demands of the piece,
Mozart’s excursions to the Alps and learned flirtations may also have taken quartet
players and their listeners expressively too far afield—to an affectation of the pastoral
and the marked high style of the ecclesiastical. Such expressive dissonance presents
considerable interpretive challenges alongside the technical.
To put it directly, in Mozart’s Opus 10, too much control over the construction of meaning
is delegated to the players and listeners, and at times, as in the Minuetto of K. 464,
amateur topical competency might not be up to the job. Among the chasse movements
discussed here, the three most commercially viable ones (and for quartets in the late
eighteenth century, we must remember that commercially viable means “will sell well
among the wealthy”)—Haydn’s and Pleyel’s—offered hunts without topical dissonance,
expressive contest, or structural complication. Of those three, only two—Pleyel’s—
provided a musical experience that was not just technically but also interpretively
Page 19 of 23

undemanding. With exceptionally light parametric density and complete avoidance of

topical troping and expressive dissonance, Pleyel’s quartets relieved the players and their
listeners from interpretive responsibility.
References
Allanbrook, Wye Jamison. 1983. Rhythmic Gesture in Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro and Don
Giovanni. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
——. 1996. “To Serve the Private Pleasure”: Expression and Form in the String Quartets.
In Wolfgang Amadé Mozart: Essays on His Life and His Music, ed. Stanley Sadie, 132–60.
Oxford: Clarendon.
Badura-Skoda, Eva. 1988. Dittersdorf über Haydns und Mozarts Quartette. In Collectanea
Mozartiana, ed. Cordula Roleff, 41–50. Tutzing: Schneider.
(p. 628) Benton, Rita. 1977. Ignace Pleyel: A Thematic Catalogue of His Compositions.
New York: Pendragon.
Bonds, Mark Evan. 2007. Replacing Haydn: Mozart’s “Pleyel” Quartets. Music and Letters
88/2: 201–25.
——. 2008. Listening to Listeners. In Communication in Eighteenth-Century Music, ed.

Danuta Mirka and Kofi Agawu, 34–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Feldtenstein, Carl Joseph von. 1767. Die Kunst nach der Choreographie zu tanzen und
Tänze zu schreiben. Braunschweig: Schöder.
Finscher, Ludwig, and Wolf-Dieter Seiffert. 1993. Neue Mozart-Ausgabe VIII/20/Abt. 1/2:
Streichquartette. Vol. 2. Kritischer Bericht. Kassel: Bärenreiter.
Hatten, Robert. 1994. Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and

Interpretation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
——. 2004. Interpreting Musical Gestures, Topics, and Tropes: Mozart, Beethoven,
Schubert. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
van Hoboken, Anthony. 1957. Joseph Haydn: Thematisch-bibliographisches

Werkverzeichnis. Vol. 1. Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne.
Irving, John. 1998. Mozart: The “Haydn” Quartets. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Landon, H. C. Robbins. 1978. Haydn: Chronicle and Works. Vol. 2: Haydn at Eszterháza
1766–1790. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Page 20 of 23

Levy, Janet. 1982. Texture as a Sign in Classic and Early Romantic Music. Journal of the
American Musicological Society 35/3: 482–97.
Lowe, Melanie. 2002. Falling from Grace: Irony and Expressive Enrichment in Haydn’s
Symphonic Minuets. Journal of Musicology 19/1: 171–221.
——. 2007. Pleasure and Meaning in the Classical Symphony. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Monelle, Raymond. 2000. The Sense of Music: Semiotic Essays. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
——. 2006. The Musical Topic: Hunt, Military and Pastoral. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.
Sisman, Elaine. 1997. Genre, Gesture, and Meaning in Mozart’s “Prague” Symphony. In
Mozart Studies 2, ed. Cliff Eisen, 27–84. Oxford: Clarendon.
Notes:
(1) . Leopold Mozart, letter of 13 August 1778 to his son Wolfgang. The translation here is
by Mark Evan Bonds (2007: 221–22).
(2) . Joseph Haydn, letter of 3 December 1781 to J. C. Lavater, in Landon’s (1978: 454)
translation.
(3) . Carl Dittersdorf, letter of 18 August 1788 to Artaria: “und bin sicher, daß Sie sich
bey meinen wegen den lucrum cessans der Mozartischen (welche zwar bey mir so wei
bey noch größern Theoretiquern alle Hochachtung verdienen, aber wegen der
allzugroßen darinen beständig herrschenden Kunst nicht Jedermanns Kauf seyn) erhollen
werden” (Eva Badura-Skoda 1988: 47).
(4) . Bonds interprets this publication record somewhat differently, arguing that “Op. 10
sold reasonably well in its time, particularly in light of its high retail cost” (2007: 222).
(5) . Dozens of recordings of Mozart’s Opus 10 string quartets are commercially available
today. At the time of writing, not one recording of a single of Pleyel’s Opus 1 quartets is
commercially available, and to my knowledge, there is only one recording of the Opus 2
quartets.
(6) . Bonds, for example, describes Pleyel’s Op. 1 quartets as “unassuming” (2007: 202)
and “relentlessly homophonic” (210) “with very little in the way of harmonic complexity
or counterpoint” (2008: 44).
(7) . On scholarly discomfort with the speculative nature of musical analysis and
interpretation, see Lowe (2007: 14–19).
Page 21 of 23

(8) . Wye Allanbrook suggests that “the motto seems to be a deliberate attempt to signal
‘minuet.’ Its percussive repeated notes in thick chordal texture intensify the dance’s
traditional even movement and restraint, in addition to protecting the dance against the
distortion of a rapid and light execution” (1983: 34). Pleyel presents the “motto” rhythm
without note repetition and thick chordal texture.
(9) . On the concept of topical tropes, see Hatten (2004) and his chapter in this volume.
(10) . For a more complete description of the musical elements and expressive aspects of
the classic minuet dance type, along with a discussion of the relevant eighteenth-century
sources, see Lowe (2002: 172–78).
(11) . In the eighteenth-century musical marketplace, string quartet parts were

considerably more expensive than other domestic genres. The demand for this music was
generated primarily by wealthy amateur players.
(12) . For a richer investigation of the sociopolitical aspects of the late eighteenth-century
minuet, including interpretations of the minuet movements in Haydn’s Symphonies Nos.
23, 3, and 99 and in Mozart’s Symphony in G minor, K. 550, see Lowe (2007: 99–132).
(13) . On the opposition of pathos and bathos, see Hatten (1994: 74–82).
(14) . For discussion of eighteenth-century dance minuets, see Lowe (2002: 182–87).
(15) . For a detailed description of the musical characteristics of the hunt topic, see
Monelle (2006: 35–110).
(16) . Bonds’s (2007: 210) comment on this aspect of Pleyel’s style is worth noting (not
only for its amusing turn of phrase): “Pleyel’s sonata-form movements sound even longer
than they are for the simple reason that they suffer from a superabundance of repetition.
For Pleyel, anything worth saying once is worth saying twice.”
(17) . Janet Levy suggests that certain presentational passages provide the listener a
“double psychic economy,” as when, for example, we hear familiar accompanimental
patterns in presentational passages: “because there is no question of what the passage is,
we can relax and simply experience its unfolding” (1982: 489–92).
(18) . For a detailed description of the musical characteristics of the pastoral topic, see
Monelle (2006: 185–271). On topical compatibility, see Hatten’s chapter in this volume.
(19) . On the pastoral horn and Alphorn tunes, see Monelle (2006: 100–2).
(20) . Monelle notes the vocal horn call in Gherardello da Firenze’s caccia “Tosto che
l’alba.” For more on hunts in early vocal music, see Monelle (2006: 72–74).
(21) . On the association of the horse with both hunting and nobility, see Monelle (2000:
41–80).
Page 22 of 23

Melanie Lowe
Melanie Lowe is Associate Professor of Musicology at Vanderbilt University’s Blair

School of Music. Author of Pleasure and Meaning in the Classical Symphony and co-
editor of the forthcoming Rethinking Difference in Musical Scholarship, she has
widely published on Haydn and other eighteenth-century subjects, topic theory,
music in American media, and music history pedagogy.
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Amateur Topical Competencies

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Print Publication Date: Nov 2014

Abstract and Keywords

Keywords: Haydn, Mozart, Pleyel, topical competency, amateur, minuet, chasse

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identity. Although the enterprise is undoubtedly speculative by nature (and I would

In addressing questions of amateur topical competency, my strategy is comparative and

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Learned/Galant Tropes in Minuets

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Example 23.2 Haydn, String Quartet in B minor, Op.

In the second strain,

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Of these three minuet

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Parametric Density of Musical Hunts

Example 23.5 Mozart, String Quartet in B flat major,

Example 23.6 Haydn, String Quartet in D major, Op.

Of the four chasse

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Example 23.8 Pleyel, String Quartet in A major, Op.

Example 23.9 Haydn, String Quartet in D major, Op.

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Example 23.10 Mozart, String Quartet in B flat

Example 23.11 Pleyel, String Quartet in A major, Op.

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Example 23.12 Haydn, String Quartet in D major,

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Example 23.14 Haydn, String Quartet in D major,

The second half of

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Example 23.16 Mozart, String Quartet in B flat

Example 23.17 Mozart, String Quartet in B flat

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First, like Haydn but

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Example 23.19 Pleyel, String Quartet in D major, Op.

The structure of Pleyel’s

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(Monelle 2006: 64)

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undemanding. With exceptionally light parametric density and complete avoidance of

——. 2008. Listening to Listeners. In Communication in Eighteenth-Century Music, ed.

Hatten, Robert. 1994. Musical Meaning in Beethoven: Markedness, Correlation, and

van Hoboken, Anthony. 1957. Joseph Haydn: Thematisch-bibliographisches

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(11) . In the eighteenth-century musical marketplace, string quartet parts were

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Melanie Lowe is Associate Professor of Musicology at Vanderbilt University’s Blair

Subscriber: Tulane University; date: 06 January 2019

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