Must I possess any special or peculiar knowledge to assert that it is good,
beautiful, or
meaningful?
Must I possess special knowledge? Well, if I don't already possess it, how
would I be able to determine if it's special or not. In other words, to answer
yes or no to this question is to assert that one has or does not have the
knowledge in question---or, alternatively, that one has the special knowledge
but does not believe it is necessary to discuss music's qualities. As even
cobras respond to music at some mystical level, if there is any special
knowledge it is already in our possession; it becomes a matter of tapping it.
To me, Mozart's menuet is beautiful in the same way that I find a lot of music
beautiful (though by no means all) in that the tones seem to make something out
of nothing, a design or pattern, a bit of ordered chaos. Robert Schumann's Opus
12 Fantasiestucke seems to have this quality. In this sense, it wouldn't matter
if I were listening to the Menuet or another piece of music. I would find a
purely sensual way of making sense of the world. Music is a kind of
interpretation of events, but the interpretation takes place at a subliminal
or, at least, sub-linguistic, level (indeed, many would agree that writers
achieve greatness the closer their work attains to the poetic, expressing
something beyond words, though using the clay of words). Music, then, is an
assertion of being. Mozart's Menuet doesn't necessarily assert a particular
philosophy of life or view, although I do think it contains a particular
aesthetic 'posture' that can be felt, heard, sensed, even if not fully
understood in so many words. Perhaps like a kaleidoscope were an 'author' to
take the randomness of colors and shapes and somehow orchestrate them in a way
peculiar to that author.
Questions about the context of the piece
When Mozart lived?
How can we answer this with certainty? Certainly John Cage's 'experiments' in sound this century will be regarded differently by far future generations than they are regarded today, if they are even regarded again at all. Cage wrote his compositions in an age moving away from humanism (even if largely parochial and imperialistically defined) and toward the new 'thinginess' of technology. If music, or art in general, is ever a response to the historical context it 'lives' in, then to the degree it is purely response it is less than universal and so less likely to survive into future generations without being facelifted, revamped, reinterpreted or re-packaged. Cage's music may not survive, because so much of the experimental work is reactionary, and so, to a degree time-bound. Certainly, Mozart's menuet faces the same criteria; it is a response to something, perhaps. But given the prolific output of his work, it does not appear that Mozart was interested making a political statement with his menuet, although, peculiarly enough, he seems to have continued experimenting with the genre when it had reached a musical dead-end; essentially, he put the last stamp on the form. The question naturally arises: What did he see in this form or structure that kept him interested in expanding on it and modifying it when it was already being regarded in his own time as passe'? Was his reluctance to 'move on' not itself a political statement, or did Mozart find something embedded in the menuet---its playfulness, levity, dancing movement---that was somehow especially attractive to his peculiar aesthetic center? Whatever the case, the Menuet No. 6 is still pleasing and still regarded as beautiful some two hundred years later by a wide array of people, and there is no reason to suspect that this regard will diminish in the future. There is something in the music itself that has endured.
That Beethoven and later composers rejected the menuet in favor of the
scherzo (as the
lighter, dance-like movement in the sonata, quartet, and symphony)?
This question is partly answered above. But to reiterate, it seems clear that Mozart himself had some reason for continuing to favor this form, though its flexibility and plasticity had reached its musical (at least, playable) limits. The menuet is in keeping with the spirit of much of Mozart's compositions, reflecting (despite what I've said above) his eagerness to repay the generosity of the royal court audiences that supported him. The menuet certainly recalls this historical epoch of court dances that pre-dates Napoleon and the revolution that would change Europe forever later. Certainly the scherzo, too, has 'courtly' qualities, but they are expressed with more idiosyncratic energy and individual form. Perhaps, too, because of his peculiar attraction to the form, Mozart was unable to 'see' in the scherzo structure what he found so natural in' the menuet, i.e., perhaps he had reached his limits as a composer and didn't have the requisite aural vision to push the scherzo into bloom.
Some musical refreshments to slake your thirst for more knowledge.
Bach Cantata: 'Vergnugte Ruh, beliebte Seelenlust'.
Brahms: Hungarian Dances
Schumann: Fantasiestucke, Op. 12
Rachmaninov: 6 Moments Musicaux, Op.16
Chopin: Polonaises
John Cage: Poà ¨me Symphonique For 100 Metronomes
You may have your own favorites.
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