The role of the conductor is unique insofar as the position may in fact garner as much attention as it deserves. (Is that the snicker of chamber musicians I hear?) This may seem an outlandish claim given the rock star status conductors have had for some time. The position has certainly come a long way from the generations of anonymous conductors throughout the Christian churches in the Middle Ages, through the era of the Kapellmeister, who was often required to compose music for the services, into the era of the composer-conductor who conducted his own work, often from the keyboard at which he played, through the rise of the professional conductor which started with the treatises of Berlioz and Wagner who elevated it to an art form itself.
Wagner actually traced origins of the professional conductor to Mendelssohn, the conductor he credited with refining the rough edges of the poor provincial kapellmeister to some degree of elegance. To its improvement, Wagner says, the position gradually attracted the air of elevated culture, though his compliment is sort of back handed:
They differ widely from the helpless epigonae of our old conductors: they are not musicians brought up in the orchestra or at the theater, but respectable pupils of the new-fangled conservatoires. . . they managed to transform the timid modesty of our poor native Capellmeister into a sort of cosmopolitan bon ton. . . [Wagner, On Conducting]
Wagner would in fact criticize them overtly and more severely, alleging they lacked the passion for the task and a sense of what the position called them to do. Most of all they lacked a sense of the power of the art they were bringing to life. This is of course an unsurprising sentiment coming from Wagner and I think to some extent we all take music seriously. We believe it has unique properties to move and transfix, to depress or elate us. That it is a rich medium for expression, abstract but with great power, is not so esoteric an observation. On top of all of this seriousness is the greatness of the music and the towering figures who wrote it. Still atop that is the often grave nature of the material, be they dark operas, raging symphonies, or solemn masses.
Lastly atop that pile of severity is that music is simply hard to pull off. It requires a lifetime of dedication and study for all performers. For the conductor himself he has to gain access to an orchestra and not just any one but hopefully a competent one and one with the instrumentalists he needs in the quantities he needs. He has to balance the sound amongst the groups, likely having been trained on several instruments himself. He must delve into the original manuscript of the work and perhaps determine the authenticity of a passage (perhaps it is in another hand from the rest), whether or not it is correct as written (did he intend to write these consecutive octaves? should this instrument really be silent here?), what to do about a missing portion (such as a cadenza), how and when to add ornamentation, which make of an instrument to use and whether he must substitute one for another (perhaps he cannot get basset horns and must use a bass clarinet), and at last, the tempo. Discovering these things, but the tempo perhaps most of all, requires a great understanding of the piece, its composer, the instruments it was written for, the form of the piece (rondo, minuet, et cetera) and the performance practice of the day. About the challenge of determining the tempo Wagner wrote:
Sebastian Bach, as a rule, does not indicate tempo at all, which in a truly musical sense is perhaps best. He may have said to himself: whoever does not understand my themes and figures, and does not feel their character and expression, will not be much the wiser for an Italian indication of tempo.
A challenging position indeed. Esteemed too, and rightfully so. It is a bit of paradox, then, and a rather unfortunate one, that one looks as ridiculous as one invariably does when conducting. Perhaps it is because he is not actually doing anything himself, that he is not playing an instrument, (though they often like to imagine that they are "playing" the actual performers) that he looks so odd. Perhaps it is the histrionics needed to convey the emotion. Perhaps it is the gestures and the attempt to translate, however clumsily, the sublime and abstract music into a simple gesture. Maybe it's the dainty baton. Whatever the reason they always look quite ridiculous to me. Whether they're flailing away at a prestissimo, tiptoeing through a dance, or frantically tossing out the entrances of a choral fugue, they're quite the spectacles.
Brilliant spectacles, of course. Rest assured of my respect, though I at times find their gestures as distracting as I do the physical drama of performers. They must be scholars, musicians, artists, and leaders. Still in the spirit of good-natured fun I assembled this collection of some of the greats at perhaps their oddest, perhaps also their greatest, moments. Of course they look odder taken out of context, so let us keep that in mind. Too let us not be thought of as trivializing them but rather let this be some relief, some comitas, from the relentless seriousness of "serious music." Let us remember that while we may soar with the muses at the heights of Parnassos, we sometimes do not. Or at least we don't look it. Remember that the great composers were not just Great Composers, but men who composed great music.
So let us, now and then, recall that Bach was a vigorous man who danced and got into a street scuffle with his bassoonist, that Mozart wrote a canon "Kiss My Ass" and wrote a letter in the mock-hand of his pupil, signing it "Franz Süssmayr, Shithead." Let us remember Haydn's musical fart joke and the humor of Beethoven's variations.
There is a charming moment in Robert Graves' I, Claudius where Augustus Caesar, Emperor of the Roman Empire, who had survived the civil war, wrested control of the faltering republic and defeated Marc Antony at Actium, and grasped together the fraying threads of Roman culture and religion, in his old age tells his wife as they sit in their imperial box at the gladiatorial games, "remember the time I fell out of my chair?"
Once again we will be considering Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Last time we considered it in the context of epistemology. This time I would like to consider it in the light of ontology. I offer a pair of ideas, the first via quotations from Thomas Aquinas (from his Summa Contra Gentiles) and then, from Nietzsche. In Kubrick's spirit of not forcing an interpretation of the film I will refrain from synthesis and merely offer these ideas as food for thought.
–
L. For whatever is imperfect in a species seeks to acquire the perfection of that species. Thus, whoso has an opinion about a matter, and therefore an imperfect knowledge about it, for this very reason is spurred to the desire for certain knowledge about it.
This immediate vision of God is promised to us in Holy Scripture: We see now through a glass in a dark manner; but then face to face. It would be impious to understand this in a material way, and imagine a material face in the Godhead. Nor is it possible for us to see God with a bodily face. Thus then we shall see God face to face, because we shall see Him immediately, even as a man whom we see face to face.
It is through this vision that we become most like God, and participators of His blessedness, since God understands His substance through His essence, and this is His blessedness. Therefore it is said (I John iii.2): When he shall appear, we shall be like to Him; because we shall see Him as He is.
LII. However, it is not possible for any created substance to attain, by its own power, to this way of seeing God. For that which is proper to the higher nature cannot be acquired by a lower nature, except through the action of the higher nature to which it properly belongs. . . Therefore no intellectual substance can see God through the divine essence, unless God Himself bring this about.
If any two things have to be united together so that one be formal and the other material, their union must be completed by an action on the part of the one that is formal, and not by the action of the one that is material; for the form is the principle of action, whereas matter is the passive principle.
Hence it is said (Rom. vi. 23): The grace of God is life everlasting. For we have proved that man's happiness consists in seeing God, which is called life everlasting.
LIV. There should be proportion between the one understanding and the thing understood. But there is no proportion between the created intellect, even perfected by this light, and the divine substance; for there still remains an infinite distance between them. Therefore the created intellect cannot be raised by any light to see the divine substance.
. . . because it is not seen as perfectly by the created intellect as it is visible, even as one who holds a demonstrated conclusion as an opinion is said to know it but not to comprehend it, because he does not know it perfectly, that is, scientifically, although there be not part of it that he does not know.
LIX. All the intellect sees in the divine substance, it sees at once. Hence Augustine says: Our thoughts will not then be unstable, going to and fro from one thing to another, but we shall see all we know by one glance.
LXI. Therefore this vision takes place in a kind of participation in eternity. Moreover this vision is a kind of life, because the act of the intellect is a kind of life. Therefore by that vision the created intellect becomes a partaker of eternal life. . . The intellectual soul is created on the border line between eternity and time. . . therefore by this vision it enters into a participation of eternity. . .
For this reason our Lord says (Jo. xvii. 3): This is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God.
–
Regarding Nietzsche
(Picking up on our discussion of Nietzsche from our previous look at 2001.)
What of the man of the final scenes? What does he do? It is he who creates from the primordial soup or is it the monolith? Does he do everything or nothing? Is he creative or impotent? Is his final gesture one of supplication or resolve? Affirmation or negation? Clearly his final reaction to the monolith differs from the others. Is he the übermensch or the last man?
With both St. Thomas and Nietzsche in mind:
Consider the title of the final act:Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite. Consider the use of György Ligeti's Requiem in the famous "Star Gate" scene. Who dies and who is born? Lastly, is the monolith ever comprehended by anyone in the film? Does it actually affect the characters or is the film about man's dialogue with this unknown? How does the final encounter with it differ? Is the scene of the star child birth or re-birth?
Unfaithfully Yours is a much odder movie than I expected and just why it works I am not precisely sure. Yet it does work and it is very funny.
All of the performances are pitched nearly to the point of caricature, from Rex Harrison's cocky and stubborn conductor to Darnell's turn as his impossibly devoted wife to Edgar Kennedy as the music-loving flatfoot, the characters are at the edge of parody. This feature along with the dry and sharp wit which pervades nearly every line of the opening act, sets the audience slightly off-balance. Even the dialogue subverts our expectations and not just with sharp phrases. In the first few minutes Harrison switches between a semi-oratorical style and bizarre throw away phrases ("a cat who had its kittens in a harmonium.") We hear both musical jargon and rhyming jokes ("handle Handel" and "your Delius is delirious.") All of this dialogue is delivered with great rapidity further confusing the tone of this act as the film never settles into one tone. One the one hand we have some rather saucy dialogue (cut off with a few clever edits) and on the other we have giant cymbals and a fiasco with fire-hoses set to the William Tell Overture. No wonder Unfaithfully Yours is sometimes billed as slapstick and other times dark comedy. What will we make of all of this?
The grossly overweening Sir Alfred De Carter (Harrison) is quite the conceited conductor even before he suspects his new bride of infidelity. Afterward he is so simply and insufferably cruel and Darnell's reaction to him so honest and pained we have to wonder, again, what exactly we're supposed to make of this. This feels too serious to brush off with a few laughs.
When De Carter finally takes the stage to conduct, he imagines what he might do to rectify the situation of his wife's affair and he contemplates his choices we enter into sequences in his imagination. In the first scene the director plays the tone as if it were a murder mystery. Carter's wife is now wholly, and devilishly, complicit in her affair with Tony's secretary. For his revenge Carter executes a brilliant and elaborate set up of the two adulterers, offing his wife and framing his secretary for the deed. All set to the overture to Rossini's Semiramide he prepares the frame: dispatching his wife, sharpening the blade, and getting Tony's fingerprints on it. Carter orchestrates the crime to perfection so that one carefully timed phone-call from the lobby sets the events in motion to doom his secretary. The scene concludes with Carter enjoying a hilariously over-the-top cackle at Tony's trial.
In the second sequence, set to the prelude to Tannhäuser and maintaining a melodramatic tone, Carter is resigned to the wandering of his wife's heart. He does not blame her but rather excuses her and even writes her a check so she can go off with Tony and be happy with him, free from want. In the final sequence Carter is manic, challenging Tony to a game of Russian roulette.
Each scene matches the tone and tempo of the music and the concert hall serves as an effective point of departure. Now these stirrings of his imagination have so inspired Carter that he gives the greatest conducting performance of his career. . . from which he promptly bolts to try and setup the crime at his apartment. The ensuing string of mishaps is the lowest humor in the movie, a flurry of slapstick with running gags, a foot through a chair, and a pin in the buttocks, but Harrison plays it completely straight to hilarious result. Instead of orchestrating the masterful plot of his dreams he sits amidst the rubble of his room, mussed, foiled and struggling with the Simplicitas Home Recorder.
The ultimate reconciliation with his wife, again set to Tannhäuser, makes a sort of coda to the film, and to continue the analogy the whole film's structure is rather musical. We get a sort of exposition of all the traditional styles of comedy with a hodgepodge of characters and tones. This gives way to three variations on a second act which played straight are not funny in themselves but humorous as contrasting resolutions to the plot. He then settles on a full-fledged slapstick finale before tying the plot and romance up with a coda. The couple's love, which we really have to take for granted since it is not developed, may serve only to tie the whole mess of things together. The coda too with its Wagnerian background and exaggerated romantic speechifying is far over the top.
Again we must ask: what do we make of this? Is it a mess, uneven, revolutionary? This structure is more novel even than it appears due to how it unifies the highly disparate stylistic features of the movie and complements its character, and in this respect Unfaithfully Yours stands above other loosely structured comedies. The opening is a whimsical potpourri of styles, tones, and clichés. Only Carter's cruelty stands out too much. A normal film would have staked out its bounds and stayed within them to tell its story. You should need multiple films to contrast these styles but Sturges here with his "musical" structure fits them all in one movie.
Maestro James Levine on his start, conducting, teaching, getting into opera, and a lifetime of music. Since his start in 1971 Levine has conducted over 2,400 performances at the Metropolitan Opera, including works by Berg, Berlioz, Debussy, Mascagni, Mozart, Puccini, Satie, Schoenberg, Strauss, Stravinsky, Verdi, and Wagner,
Intelligence in War: The Value–and Limitations–About What the Military Can Learn About the Enemy.
by John Keegan. 2002.
"Intelligence is the handmaiden, not the mistress, of the warrior."
The ten or so reviews on the cover of and in John Keegan's Intelligence in War all puzzle me a bit. The book is "witty," "wise," "well-written," and "sharp." It will be "an object of study" and it contains "expert [theorizing]." Too it is "fascinating" and filled with "drama." None said the book is persuasive, which I overwhelmingly find it. In fact after reading Intelligence in War Keegan's thesis seems self-evident. Yet it is often the case that the most simplistic observation or phenomenon requires the most detailed and careful study to explain. Keegan surely does this: Keegan's 349-page book is dense with troop strengths, sizes and locations, details about who knew what and when, and discussions of alternative explanations for every given phenomenon. Yet necessary as that research may be to Keegan's argument it is the axioms about war in general which stick in the memory and to which we return. This isn't just a book about how different commanders spied on their enemies, but a theory about what intelligence is and what it can, and cannot, offer the military.
Keegan appropriately begins at the beginning which is a sort of lingo boot camp where we are introduced to real-time intelligence (rare intelligence on who knows what in sufficient time to make effective use of the news), strategic intelligence (knowledge of the character of the enemy, its size and capability, its dispositions and the nature of the terrain) and signal intelligence (captured enemy communications.) To these classifications Keegan adds a few caveats: 1) all intelligence is subject to its accuracy, timeliness, and the interpretation put on it, 2) the best intelligence won't help if the defense is too weak to profit by it, 3) intelligence is generally necessary but not sufficient for victory, 4) willpower counts for more than foreknowledge. Throughout Intelligence in War we will see these cautions play out from Napoleon to the Falklands, sometimes in great successes and sometimes in great defeats, in turns expected and surprising, in strokes of luck fortunate and disastrous.
I. Chasing Napoleon & Jackson in the Shenandoah
The first of Keegan's studies examines Lord Horatio Nelson's chase after Napoleon's Egypt-bound fleet in 1798. Commanded by Vice-Admiral Brueys and headed for Egypt with a convoy of nearly 300 ships escorted by his 22 warships the French fleet departed from Toulon on 19 May and Nelson planned to intercept. Unfortunately, the sea did not cooperate and a storm scattered Nelson's scout ships and damaged his own. Another obvious yet important maxim may now be observed: the sea is very large and it is very hard to find someone on it. With that in mind Nelson's task would seem impossible: reconvene with his fleet, track down the French fleet, and defeat it. The first task would have been easier had his captains followed his directions to sail at a particular pattern and latitude should they get separated. (In fact they did obey but broke formation a day sooner than Nelson's arrival, only one day beyond the stipulated instructions.) It was thus the situation that a scattered English fleet was seeking both Napoleon and each other.
Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson
It is impossible here to describe the ensuing chase through the Mediterranean, but of the intelligence quest we must note that Nelson had to balance his original orders and the intelligence he first set sail with, partially incorrect intelligence from London (assembled from both contacts and the indiscreet French papers), counsel from his captains (which he deigned to take), gathered reports (often partially correct), and the general question of Napoleon's plan: if he was going to Sicily, Constantinople, or Egypt. Additionally Nelson faced the logistical problems of weather, communication (amongst his ships and with London), and mistakes by both himself and his captains. To note only such is still to put aside the cunning of the enemy himself, who used disinformation in the official press and commandeered merchant ships to deprive Nelson of fresh reports. Despite several near misses Keegan counts this not just a resounding victory for Nelson at the Nile, but an intelligence victory. Having lost the French fleet it was bound to take time to find it again and Nelson overcame all of these obstacles, slowly gathering reports, weighing probabilities, scoping out potential targets, and narrowing down the possibilities. Keegan's summary of the situation as Nelson would have seen it, i.e. with all the possibilities based on his information (correct and incorrect), is tremendously insightful and making us wonder: how did he pull it off? Who could? There seem to be simply too many variables and gaps in information.
It was not ultimately any given piece of intelligence which turned the tide but throughout the chase it was Nelson's dogged pursuit, his relentlessness, extreme focus, strategic grasp, and operational innovation which allowed him to recover from mistakes and erroneous reports and rule out alternatives. Important too is that Nelson was free from London to make his own judgments. Finally at the Nile, Keegan writes, it was ultimately the killer instinct of the British which accounts for their spectacular victory.
Whereas Nelson was on the French fleet's tail in the Mediterranean, the task of Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley was to "mystify and mislead" his enemy. Here too the terrain and available means of communication play integral parts of the story. The South was materially weak but geographically strong and the Shenandoah Valley could be used either defensively or offensively. Jackson elects to use it defensively and attempts what seems the impossible: to keep the 160,000 union troops spread out across Virginia pinned down and separated and to make Lincoln think an attack on Washington was possible at any time. Throughout the campaign Jackson would have to balance keeping Union General Nathaniel Banks within the valley, 2) avoiding the Union forces to the West, and 3) keeping open his line of withdrawal to Richmond. Jackson's task absolutely required him to wage a mobile campaign, but to do so he would need to out-maneuver Banks in the valley and monitor all movements inside and around it. Offering invaluable aid in this endeavor was the mapmaker Jedediah Hotchkiss who provided Jackson with accurate maps of the valley. The Shenandoah, with its different names for the same place and different places with the same name, its rivers, mountain passes, and railways, would prove vexing for the Northern generals who lacked firsthand knowledge and even maps.
Shenandoah Valley
Keegan's account of the brilliant Jacksonian campaign of misdirection and diversion is as detailed and gripping as Nelson's tale and equally revealing about both the general's mind and the quality of his troops. Jackson had to contend with the positions of many Union generals as well as provide the needed support for Lee and Johnston. While he had the assets of Hotchkiss and his maps, interrogation reports, and local intelligence (something Brueys had deprived Nelson of) Jackson suffered from incorrect intelligence too: on 25 May 1862 Jackson came upon Banks' men from behind, not ahead of them as his intelligence predicted. As such he could not cut them off from Harper's Ferry and Banks was able to withdraw, Jackson's cavalry under Ashby being off one of Ashby's rides. (Let this occurrence not obscure the fact that Ashby and his cavalry screened Jackson's movements from Fremont and Banks with terrific efficiency.) Too Jackson's first encounter with the Union army in the Shenandoah a month earlier was an outright mess as Jackson was to learn, contra his intelligence, he was outnumbered 10,000 to his 4,000.
"Stonewall" Jackson
Jackson, though, made outstanding use of his intelligence. First was his understanding of his enemy, Banks, whom he correctly perceived to be a political general, not a soldier. Too he knew that McClellan was a procrastinator and would ask for more troops, allowing his enemies to strengthen their positions. Jackson made use of his constantly refreshed intelligence from Hotchkiss and reports from the friendly population to move quickly through the valley. So fast, in fact, his infantry was dubbed, "Jackson's foot cavalry" as they were able to march as long as horsemen could ride, and barefoot, for dozens of miles. With his speed and knowledge of the terrain he was able to calculate the uncertainties of his opponents, often many moves ahead, and draw them in or avoid battle in order to take it on his terms. Jackson was able, then, to paralyze the larger forces with his much smaller one until he eventually drove the Union from the field at Port Republic and liberated Richmond.
II. The Wireless Era
The biggest surprise at the advent of radio communication is what does not change in naval warfare. Keegan makes his point in three short stories from the First World War.
Yes the Nelsonian era's Home Popham semaphore system gives way to the Morse ciphers over radio without delay, but radio silence was imperative to keep your location a secret, thus when drawing out ships for reconnaissance the distances were, in the 20th century, still at line-of-sight. Thus in 1914 with Kaiser Wilhelm's imperial project underway and after the buildup of their navy over the last fourteen years under Admiral von Tirpitz, the German navy, though it could not defeat Great Britain in its home water, could harass the vast British fleet of 8,500 merchant ships in the Pacific. At the time, the British did not protect their merchant fleets with convoys.
The flaws in the British strategy here are many but chief among them, besides the mistake of not providing convoys for their merchantmen, were 1) their attempt to work a worldwide strategy without using their best ships, 2) Churchill (then the Admiralty's political chief)'s war on the North coast of Belgium, and 3) Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock's impossible task of both protecting British trade in the Atlantic and waging cruiser war in the Pacific. The intelligence aspect of Cradock's embarrassing defeat 1 November 1914 at Coronel (off the coast of central Chile), Britain's first naval defeat since 1812, can be summed up in brief: his opponent, Vice Admiral Graf von Spee only used one of his ships' wireless, hiding his numbers.
The search for the German cruiser Emden is one of the most famous in naval history. Lieutenant Commander Karl von Müller had been made commander of Emden in 1913 and with a combination of luck, cunning, and skill, captured fourteen British merchant ships in the Indian Ocean. Duly celebrated by those under his command he was also widely remembered as a "Gentleman-of-War" for his successful efforts to minimize civilian casualties and policy of sending captives away. Müller's success and safety laid both in his firm observance of radio silence and in the vastness of the sea itself. Churchill's cruiser sweeps, of eight ships again still separated by the limit of visual range, could scarcely hope with their paltry range of 12 miles to find Emden in the 3,000 mile wide Pacific. Yet Emden's success was not infinite and though von Müller observed radio silence it was his insistence on destroying a communication outpost and adding to his ship's laurels that caused its downfall. Upon approaching Direction Island the islanders got off a message, "SOS Emden here." What von Müller did not know was that the SOS was to the HMS Minotaur, a ship Emden knew was not far but had assumed was steaming to Africa to deal with a Boer uprising. Having misinterpreted the location and direction of the Minotaur von Müller unwisely ignored the SOS the islanders got off. The Minotaur radioed the Sydney which showed up at Direction Island just as von Müller was expecting his Buresk. As Buresk andSydney looked alike at a distance, von Müller allowed Sydney to get regrettably close, where she shot Emden to pieces.
Wreck of the Emden, November 1914.
The final warning from the dawning of the wireless age comes from the German command's mistakes: they did not thoroughly enough conceal the movements of their ships and they did not position ammo ships as they did colliers. Thus while they with a mere eight ships were able to stretch British naval resources to their limit, Keegan suggests the cruiser campaign had "not even seriously damaged" British maritime trade, citing the losses by Emden and Karlsrühe, "the most effective raiders," at 143,000 tons in the face of the total of 19 million tons of British shipping. Too, "the East Asian Cruiser Squadron proper had sun no merchantmen at all," Keegan concludes. (See Halpern, A Naval History of World War, which Keegan references, for more data on the tonnage of loss, replacement by construction, and replacement by capture for the campaign.)
III. Foreknowledge
Despite the complexities as to how the German taking of Crete fits into WWII the Cretan example to intelligence is a straightforward one and important one: intelligence is only as good as the interpretation put on it. As a corollary one might add, "the interpretation is often best supplied by the intelligence officers who gather it on a daily basis." By 1941 Enigma was being cracked in real time and the defenders of Crete possessed the timing, objectives, strength, and composition of the German paratroopers which were to land on Crete. Too the British Commonwealth forces numbered 42,460 to the expected 22,040 expected German. What more could you ask for? Yet Bernard Freyberg was at a tremendous disadvantage at interpreting the intelligence. He had no expertise in dealing with Enigma and interpreting the decrypted signal intelligence, yet having heard of Enigma but three weeks before the German attack he was forced to make operational decisions from the sigintel and without the benefit of any second opinion or advice. Why would Freyberg expect anything other than a sea-based assault: in all of history no island had ever been captured except by sea-invasion and likewise the Germans were challenging British sea authority elsewhere. In explaining Freyber's situation Keegan quotes Ralph Bennet, the "authoritative historian of the Ultra system and himself a wartime Bletchley analyst" who concludes that while Freyberg may seem to have been foolishly preoccupied with a sea-attack, his apprehension about one, "can only be faulted by an abuse of hindsight." [Keegan, 171] One does not simply study raw Enigma decrypts and make decisions based on them, they need to be woven into a pattern intelligible to a commander.
Bennet and Keegan both emphasize the fact that "force as well as foreknowledge is needed to win battles." Convinced of a sea-based assault to come Freyberg then does not commit the needed quantity of troops to repel the German airborne attack and the island is lost, though that is not the end of the story. [Keegan, 179] Despite their victory the attacking Germans were in fact hurt by their intelligence. They were told the Cretan garrison was 12,000, that there would be light resistance, and that they would be welcomed by the native population: assertions all of which proved incorrect. Nonetheless the "almost mindless courage" of the 7th Airborne and 5th Mountain Divisions "in almost berserker mode" took Crete. Too they took it from the New Zealand troops, troops Rommel himself said were "the best he ever met," including his own. [Keegan, 324]
German Paratroopers landing on Crete
On the fall of Crete Keegan concludes, "a defending force, uncertain of how to respond to impending danger. . . is at a disadvantage against an enemy who has his aim clearly in mind." [Keegan, 179]
The Battle of Midway provides another case study which forces us to question just what intelligence means to winning battles. I will discuss some of the intelligence aspects of Midway in tandem with those of the Atlantic U-boat war, but a few points should be made unique to Midway. First is that the U.S. had little if any inkling of the effect the Doolittle raids had on Japanese honor and thus the degree to which the raids would refocus their endeavors on the U.S. and, ultimately, Midway. Second is that the battle represented a contrast of command styles: while the Japanese Navy was created on the Western model, its operational methods were not Western. The Western way of war centers on singularity of aim and concentration of force whereas the Asian favors complexity and diffusion. Third is the degree to which chance plays a role, often a sizable one. Consider the following turns of events:
Admiral Chūichi Nagumo's reconnaissance plane leaves late due to mechanical difficulty. The sky is spotted with clouds. Nagumo changes direction and a group of Hornets is intercepted by 60 Zeroes. The Hornets are lost but the fight brings down the Zeroes from the height they should be at to protect their carriers. More American aircraft follow and take out the four unprotected Japanese carriers. Then the U.S. submarine Nautilus sails astray and attracts the attention of the Japanese fleet, from which one destroyer breaks off to give chase. U.S. planes spot the Japanese ship's wake and follow it back to its fleet and report the Japanese fleet's position to American commanders. In a matter of hours Nagumo's situation is radically altered. Too in Nagumo's tactics we see familiar fatal flaws we saw in Jackson's enemies and Cradock's orders: 1) he simply was not trained to think in terms of the speeds and distances necessary to adapt, 2) he had two obligations he could not equally meet: defend the landing force and draw the U.S. Carriers in to battle. Frustrated by his intelligence, Nagumo dithered, unsure which effort to prioritize and attempting to do both. Backed up by Rochefort's intelligence and without the luxury of indecision the American commanders went all in with their attacks.
Commanders at Midway:
Admirals Raymond Spruance (l) and Frank J. Fletcher (c.) and Fleet Admiral Chester A. Nimitz
IV. Cryptography During WWII
"Intelligence did not win the war, but it shortened it."
Keegan's sections on the breaking of the Enigma and the Japanese Purple the most traditionally spy-like of the book. In the Pacific, Purple decrypts yielded little due to radio silence. In the Atlantic Enigma was eventually being decrypted in real time. Yet such was due mostly to sloppiness on the part of certain branches (the newer branches like the Luftwaffe which did not have the benefit of any tradition, let alone one of strict and tested procedures and special schooling.) In contrast the Kreigsmarine was an older service and observed in its use of cryptography sensible and tested protocols including 1) training to avoid particular types of mistakes, 2) operating on the premise that the enemy was listening, 3) using as few transmissions as possible, and 4) constantly reviewing the security of the system. Unfortunately such methods were undone undone by the fact that the U-boat operators did not even both using Enigma's fourth rotator and many reports were re-broadcasted unencrypted or weakly encrypted by shore stations.
Again though, Keegan suggests it was not that the Bletchley Park code-breakers steered the convoys away from Dönitz's wolf-pack traps but a host of factors which led to the failure of the German U-boat war in the Atlantic and the triumph of the British merchant fleet. Among those factors were that Dönitz never secured funding to create the numbers of boats he needed to conduct his campaign, too he did not vary his techniques and tactics. Also, while the German torpedoes had improved, the U-boats still relied on Nelsonian line of sight to acquire their targets. Too the open environment of the British government with its "need-to-know" was more fruitful than the secrecy in the German hierarchy. Ultimately, though, Keegan credits the merchantmen's perseverance with the victory.
V2 on Meillerwagen mobile platform.
There are a few final and clear intelligence lessons we ought to take from the German V-weapons program. The British, despite eventually possessing a wealth of intelligence on the program, could simply not imagine the weapons were as advanced as they would have had to have been to match the reports, thus they doubted the reports. British scientists looking at the intelligence simply lacked the rocket expertise to determine the feasibility and nature of the German program. Also, the "creative tension" of Churchill's government backfired here as Duncan Sandys, chair of the Science Advisory Committee, and Lord Cherwell, aka. Dr. Frederick Lindemann, Churchill's longtime science adviser, were both hopelessly competing for Churchill's ear. When the debate over whether the V-weapons existed came up they naturally took opposing sides to the detriment of productive and inquisitive debate. Without experts the British science intelligence floundered amongst vague agent reports, inexplicable photographs, and interrogation reports. The picture only became clear to them literally the day before the first V-1s started falling on London. (Even though they made two mostly unsuccessful bombing runs on suspected rocket targets.)
V. Conclusion
As is now probably rather clear, intelligence is but one of many factors in warfare. Keegan's discussion of the American and British code-breaking camps is as exciting as the battles but it won't do to recount it in detail. His observations as to the differences in their environments and styles are most perceptive. Keegan also sheds light on the great Polish achievement of breaking the Enigma purely by mathematics.
Only someone with his range of knowledge could make the observation, among others, that Saddam Hussein's SCUD missiles would be hard, if not impossible to find, because their carriers were based on the design of the German mobile launching platform for the V2, the Meillerwagen. The Meillerwagen was a brilliantly simple, inexpensive, and inconspicuous mobile platform which could be rolled out into a street to launch a rocket within an hour.
Keegan himself is a master of weighing alternatives and in presenting his copious array of facts he shows us what seems most likely worked in someone's favor and what appears more consequential than it was. He concludes with a few more cautions about intelligence. First we tend to overestimate its usefulness because we confuse it with espionage and intermingle it with subversion. Too we confuse intelligence with resistance.
Second, we ignore structural and institutional factors. For example, few intelligence officers spend a lifetime in intelligence as many transfer to operations so they can become master rather than servant. How then can we expect experts?
Third, we tend to overlook human factors like an individual's training, his experiences, personal tendencies. We tend to see scientists as rational automatons who couldn't possibly be pig-headed and stubborn like Lord Cherwell, who had the mathematics on his side as far as English scientists knew. We tend to see incompetence or corruption where there might be more subtle human failings. The "Cambridge Spies" were shuffled around despite their terribly poor personal behavior due to the permissiveness of their superiors, the "indulgence of the well-behaved for the naughty," which they hoped would free them from charges of pomposity and stuffiness. [Keegan, 337] Churchill expected his Special Operations to sow the seeds of dissent in Nazi Europe. He expected his German opponents to be gentleman like the Boers he fought years ago. He realized niether the degree to which the overturning of German culture, currency, and monarchy had left the people prey to the self-righteousness of the Nazi party nor the degree to which the Nazis would bring down vicious cruelty on those who threatened it.
Lastly, we have fallen prey to the myth that somehow special or intelligence operations are as effective, more deadly, and cheaper than fighting and winning wars. There are no simple, cheap, and guaranteed paths to victory. In fact, even with intelligence, even with intelligence and numbers in your advantage, you're not guaranteed. . . well, anything. It wasn't the intelligence that won, but the ferocity of the British fleet, it was the Confederate troops who marched barefoot, the frenzied German paratroopers, and the relentless British merchantmen that won the day. The tenacity of a commander, wise speculation and covert deployment, timing and luck all play their part. Intelligence is often necessary but never sufficient, and certainly never a substitute for the will to win.
A Few More Observations
Intelligence in War is indeed meticulously researched and this virtue lends further credence to Keegan's thesis. No one could accuse him of cherry-picking his facts. He really does seem to delve into every conceivable aspect of a situation. From capabilities of individual ships to expenses to miles of cable laid to letters and documents, this books is painstakingly researched. It is also copiously referenced with footnotes to works famous and obscure for those looking to do additional reading outside the bibliography. In fact, Intelligence in War might make a good jumping-off point to a number of classic works Keegan references, from Tanner's Stonewall in the Valley to Hinsley's British Intelligence in the Second World War and Bennet's Ultra and Mediterranean Strategy.
Keegan's maxims and general observations about warfare formed from the lessons in these case studies are, finally, the essence of the book. This is, I think, what most accounts for the sweep of Intelligence in War. Even more than the daring escapades and vast landscapes it is the fact that Keegan is talking not just about battles but about battle that gives Intelligence in War its scope. Too, though, his caution about judging with hindsight and his willingness to ask of a leader what he reasonably could have been expected to do in situation with what he had at his disposal gives Keegan's writing a rare sapient quality. This also serves to humanize all the leaders in the book, making commanders like Nelson and Jackson who succeeded against great odds and their own mistakes seem all the larger, and commanders like Cradock and Nagumo seem crippled by their limitations and swallowed by their circumstances. Yet Keegan's thesis is ultimately not a glorification of Great Leaders of History, but an admission that it is the guts of the men on the ground that win the battles.
One regret is perhaps inevitable: with detail of this magnitude only some case studies will make the final version of the book. Keegan includes about a dozen major case studies and persuades with them but surely he has notes on many more. I for one would like to see some of them in a second volume.
Updated: 4/29/11: Results of WWI German cruiser campaign.
–
Keegan, John. Intelligence in War: The Value–and Limitations–About What the Military Can Learn From the Enemy. Random House. London. 2002.
Mozart's so-called late style has not been consistently well-received or understood. It has been glossed over as "neo-classical" and "bare." Many detect an autumnal quality to the character of the pieces, but the style still perplexes: what is Mozart doing here? What is the relation between style and content? Cliff Eisen states what is in fact a subtle observation:
The essence of the "late" style, then, is a return to an earlier aesthetic, one of unity of affect. It is not a return to an earlier style, a style characterized by uniformity of surface: for Mozart, the surface remains as varied as ever, sometimes more varied, more disjunctive. But underneath there is a uniformity of idea or topic that motivates and is expressed by the music. [Eisen, 116]
Let us bear that distinction in mind in looking at these last works of Mozart.
Mozart's final quartets were composed as a set of three, intended to be a set of six, for King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, himself an amateur cellist and composer. It is unknown whether they were commissioned by the king or, if not, why Mozart chose to dedicate them to King Frederick. He clearly expected some remuneration for dedicating the works to the royal family, though. [21]
Several years later in 1796 the twenty-six year old Beethoven staying in Prague would dedicate his two sonatas for piano and cello, op. 5 to the king. Like Mozart's quartet Beethoven's sonatas give an expanded role to the cello.
In addition to the prominence afforded the cello this quartet demonstrates great unity among the movements. Too, as we saw in the final sonatas, Mozart utilizes a mix of thematic and contrapuntal development, often with close imitation as in the development (beginning m.78) of this quartet.
Introduced by the cello, the main theme of the final movement, below, hearkens back to the first two. We will see it to be the progenitor of the movement's wealth of material, again demonstrating Mozart's genius for coaxing material from a single theme.
Quartet in D, KV.575. Main theme, m.1-3
In each of the episodes of this snappy rondo our main theme, or part of it, shows some new face through imitation or inversion or against a counter-melody (also sprung from the main theme.)
Below the main theme enters in the 1st violin joined by the second violin with the theme a half-measure later and an octave below. Then (m.46) with inverted versions the viola joins the 1st violin and the cello the second:
Quartet in D, KV.575. m.44-49
(click to enlarge)
Below we see both types of development at once: the main theme imitated in inversion in the lower voices and a counter-melody same in the violins.
Quartet in D, KV.575. m.112-119
(click to enlarge)
28. String Quartet in B-flat, KV.589 - Allegro assai
Here too it is the rondo finale that receives contrapuntal treatment. It is also by far the shortest finale of this set, a feature which, when combined with the suddenness and brevity of the contrapuntal procedures and the short flitting figures, the 6/8 meter, and allegro assai tempo gives the movement a puckish, fleeting quality.
The viola starts off straightway with contrary motion to the violins, which the cello continues after the repeat at bar nine. Abert summarizes the essence of the procedures in this set:
Here too contrapuntal procedures permeate the entire style, offsetting individual ideas one against the other, inverting them and repeatedly interpolating them between thematic and homophonic sections. [Abert, 1221]
29. String Quartet in F, KV.590 - Allegro
This quartet too concludes with a contrapuntal finale, though this time in a more or less sonata form. It is also substantially more contrapuntal than any other movement in the set. Instead of flashes of imitation and inversion we have sustained fugato. Too this finale is essentially monothematic, with the main theme (below) always at the center or nearby. The rushing semiquavers sweep us along and the fugatos seems as whipped up tempests, though energetic as they rush they never startle or overwhelm. They are great but not terrible. The main theme, roused as it gets, is at heart breezy and genteel.
Perhaps, though, this allegro is of a more intimate variety? Is there something personal about the "genteel" theme; is it more of a character? It is the only theme of the movement. Is there something autumnal about it, like the mood of the preceding menuet? Perhaps it makes a polite entrance, goes about its business, endures its share of storms, and makes a graceful exit.
Quartet in F, KV.590. m.1-8: main theme.
(click to enlarge)
Mozart would eventually sell the set to publisher Artaria in June 1790 for what he called "a trifle." [22] It was published posthumously the following year without any dedication to King Frederick.
–
Artaria published these final quintets, KV.593 in D from December 1790 and KV.614 in E-flat from April the following year, in 1793. A. H. King suggested that due to their marked stylistic differences and similar title pages (both bore "composto per un amatore ungarese") Mozart perhaps conceived them as a pair [King, 56 ] (like the wind octets/serenades in E-flat and C minor, the last two symphonies, and the Concertos KV.488 and KV.491.) Too in both quintets the menuet is placed third among the movements, unlike the earlier quintets.
30. String Quintet in D, KV.593
This quintet, the "masterpiece of the least productive year in Mozart's life" [King, 57] begins with a slow introduction, adagio in Mozart's hand but usually printed larghetto. It is the only quintet to begin so and this slow movement will return at the end of the work, just before a short coda consisting of the main theme from the opening of the allegro. Of this unique symmetry Hans Keller asked,
Is there another piece in the entire chamber musical repertory whose beginning is its end; where the identical structure first sounds like the ideal opening and finally, like the only possible conclusion?[23]
String Quintet in D, KV.593. m.22-27.
(click to enlarge)
Perhaps not in chamber music, though Beethoven returns to the grave opening at the end of the first movement to the Sonata for Piano in C minor, Op.13.
We see canonic procedures throughout the movement: in the exposition (of the dotted figure from m.28), in the development (of the descending figure of the main theme), and in the recapitulation (of the trilled figure of the main theme and the dotted figure from m.28) all of which stand out from the larghetto with its resigned figure and bass response and the vigorous call of the forte-piano figure of the main theme.
While we see similar canonic writing in the menuetto, it is the finale which truly surprises. Who would expect the contrapuntal flights to come from the movement beginning with the almost comic opening of the first ten bars? First we have the fugato beginning at m.54 with the trilled figure. Then at the opening of the development the following theme, a close relative of the opening measures, enters:
Quintet in D, KV.593. Allegro Finale: m104-108
Skiing along briskly against triplet figures it sweeps us up, but what is to become of it? It works its way down from the 1st violin to the viola, but when it gets to the bass it is rather a loose/free retrograde version of it which appears and which will be the subject of the following fugato. After the main theme returns at the recapitulation it shortly enters into counterpoint with the trilled subject.
The movement builds up to this polyphonic climax, comparable to the finale of the Jupiter which resolves through a haunting six-bar chromatic cadence, before the music spins to its dizzy close. This extraordinary finale, with its sudden changes from almost lyrical beauty to the astringent tensions of the minor mode that lurk below the glittering surface, contains the essence of what Einstein aptly called the 'wild, disconsolate mirth' of the whole work. [King, 58]
Mozart's friend, the theologian and musician Maximilian Stadler who had heard the young Mozart perform in 1767 and would finish orchestrating the Requiem, recalls that Mozart played the viola parts to KV.593 with Haydn, himself returned to Vienna from Eisenstadt after the death of Prince Nicolaus in the autumn of 1790. [24]
31. String Quintet in E-flat, KV.614 - Allegro di molto
Praise for this quintet has not been universal. Hans Keller referred to the E-flat quintet as "a bad arrangement of a wind piece in mock-Haydn style"[Keefe, 114] and Abert to the piece as, "essentially a far more light-hearted and lovable piece." [Abert,1224] Yet King called it, "music of warm, untroubled delight, and astonishing vitality, almost spring-like in its luminous self-confidence." [King, 58]
The last movement of Mozart's last quintet indeed has something of Haydn's humor in it and too of the the E-flat symphony, the humor of whose finale was among its least admired characteristics in the nineteenth century. It too is of variety of sonata-rondo form and it begins with a theme of two even halves:
Quintet in A-flat. Allegro, incipit.
After a tease with canonic procedures Mozart throws the two halves, slightly modified, into a full and spirited fugato at m.111 until the restatement of the main theme in the minor. Now the five-note-figure opening in the viola is thrown against a response in the bass, which seems about to take it over until the opening figure is asserted forte by the violas and violins. The main theme is now re-stated four times, each against a different accompaniment, here against a triplet figure, there against a forte staccato scalar figure rising in stretto in the lower voices, then against a gentle piano figure in the second violin and first viola. At last it returns piano and in inversion in the first violin, before climbing up with a final re-statement forte in the lower voices and a long rising scalar figure in the first violin.
Many listeners reasonably sense an autumnal quality to late Mozart, but with its jaunty theme, bright fugato and relentlessly fresh variations, not in this finale.
–
Mozart wrote the following "Adagios and Allegros" in F minor for, "ein Orgelwerk in einer Uhr," or what we might call a "player organ" as in "player piano." This pair too is one of contrasting styles.
It is probable that these pieces were played in the "mausoleum" of Austrian Fieldmarshal Baron Ernst Gideon von Laudon, who having retired after a successful career including service in the Seven Years War and War of Bavarian Succession, was called into service a last time in 1789 to lead Joseph's war thus-unsuccessful war against Turkey. After successfully capturing Belgrade within three weeks Laudon, in his early seventies, died. A certain Count Joseph Nepomuk Franz de Paula Deym von Strzitez, who Robert Gutman referred to as, "a kind of Viennese combination of E. T. A. Hoffmann's Copelius and Madame Tussaud" [Gutman, 741] created a "mausoleum" with a plaster-and-wax effigy of the man with hourly funeral music. (If that's not enough to make you want to read more about Deym, he fled Vienna after an illegal duel and returned using the alias Müller.)
Now should you think we have already delved too far into this esoteric world of 18th century mechanical organ music, consider these other resources:
–Deutsch, O. E. Count Deym and his Mechanical Organs. Music and Letters 29 (1948), 140-5
–Dreyfus, Laurence. The Hermeneutics of Lament: A Neglected Paradigm in a Mozartian 'Trauermusik' Music Analysis, Vol. 10, No. 3. (Oct., 1991), pp. 329-343.
–King, A. H. Mozart's Compositions for Mechanical Instruments: The Background and Significance. Musical times 88 (1947), 11-14; repr. in King, Mozart in Retrospect (London, 1956), 198-215.
–Richards, Annette. Automatic Genius: Mozart and the Mechanical Sublime. Music and Letters 80, (1999), 366-8.
–W. J. G. Ord-Hume, Arthur. Joseph Haydn and the Mechanical Organ. University College Cardiff Press. 1982.
–W. J. G. Ord-Hume, Arthur. Ornamentation in Mechanical Music. Early Music, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Apr., 1983), pp. 185-193.
–Zaslaw, Neal. Music for Mechanical Instruments. Cambridge Mozart Encyclopedia (Eisen, Cliff & Keefe, Simon P. (ed.))
–Zaslaw, Neal. Wolfgang Amadè Mozart's Allegro and Andante ('Fantasy') in F minor for Mechanical Organ, K.608. The Rosaleen Moldenhauer Memorial. Music History from Primary Sources: A Guide to the Moldnehauer Archives, ed. J. Newsom and A. Mann (Washington DC, 2000), 327-40
Of the above essays I would recommend beginning with Schaper's, then Richards' essay for historical context, and Dreyfus' for [most excellent] insight into the musical language. Also note there is a third piece written for the occasion of Deym's "mausoleum," the Andante in F major, KV.616, which we will not be discussing here.
32. Adagio and Allegro in F minor for Mechanical Organ, KV.594
Returning to the F minor pieces, let us start with KV.594 which is structured as Adagio-Allegro-Adagio. We begin with what was by Mozart's time the old rhetorical device of the elegiac, or lamento, bass. They often utilize an anapestic (short-short-long) rhythm, ostinato, and a descending chromatic line, all features associated with high style and grave emotion. (Probably the most famous instance of a lamento bass is the Crucifixus of Bach's B-minor Mass.) Here in the first six bars see the chromatic descent down the fourth from F to C in the bass from the first figure of the ostinato which reaches up from F to C. (Note too the rising line leading up to sighing figures from m.20-27. Picking up the fall to C from the trebles the final bass figure three times rises an octave toC until stumbling to F.) Yet it was not the simple use of this device but rather Mozart's ingenious transformation elaboration of it which makes this piece so extraordinary. Mozart uses a series of falling sixths throughout the adagio and
. . . by mutating the descending hexachord by species [chromatic and diatonic], Mozart at once broadened the field for the potential topics of the discourse, and by disabling the metric regularity of the traditional lamento, did away with the formalized ritual of dance rhythms so as to begin speaking in that personalized 'musical prose' so beloved of his Romantic successors. [KV.594] can be heard neither as a generic funeral piece nor as a particularly 'exquisite' (auserlesen) occasional work. . . Instead, by virtue of its extraordinarily affecting representation of grief, the piece must be seen to have both eclipsed and escaped its occasional function, entering into that pantheon of cherished musical works whose substance and aura invite a sustained analytic gaze. [Dreyfus, 342]
The allegro in F major opens with a grand fanfare immediately falling into stretto. In the D minor section the seven-note figure plunges into contrapuntal procedure. The adagio returns but not in identical form. First, Dreyfus makes the most perceptive point that m. 125-132 form a compressed version of the earlier descents in m.8-20, making the fall to the tonic at m.128 an abrupt one of resignation. [Dreyfus, 341] Too it is adorned with gruppetti (figures of the trill family) first against the ostinato then in imitation over a dominant pedal point. A quaver figure arrives, moving from F to C in contrary motion in the voices before the rising-and-falling bass figure returns, this time rising to F and falling to C.
33. Adagio and Allegro for Mechanical Organ, KV.608
KV. 608. incipit
Unlike KV.594 the fugue here is clearly more Bachian in nature. Too it is the first major, full, strict fugue, not a fugato and not one within a larger sonata-form structure, Mozart had completed (for he wrote numerous small canons and contrapuntal studies) in some time. The structure of this F minor piece is Allegro-Andante-Allegro and its opening, with the trilled and dotted figures, could scarcely be more stern. The figure, sans the final semiquaver, enters briefly in stretto. After the ascending swirl up through two octaves from C the fugue proper begins
Allegro and Adagio in F minor. m.13-19
proceeding with exhaustive stretto and inversion
. . .the dense contrapuntal texture eventually thins out for an extraordinary modulation over a chromatically rising bass from E flat major to F sharp minor. This unsettling, even shocking, harmonic detour recalls the destabilizing chromaticism of the opening, and directly precedes a return of the 'overture' material, now insisting on the diminished harmony (the diminished chord in bars 60 and 61 is repeated here, hammered home), and twisting rapidly, if tortuously, back to the home key of F minor. [Richards, 367]
As with KV.594 the opening material returns altered. Here the fugue returns with a counter subject of rapidly alternating semiquavers which lends an even more frenetic character to the already frenzied fugue.
–
34. Piano Concerto in B-flat major, KV.595 - Allegro I
Piano Concerto in B-flat, KV.595 - incipit, main theme.
This is one of the most beautiful and fleeting moments in all of Mozart. The piano twice gives forth the main theme from m.197 two which the strings reply with a sturdy forte response. The first time the winds, as if interjecting politely, add a descending piano tag to the string response; the second time they take it over and then take over the main theme from the piano offering it in a brief canonic procedure before in imitation. Then we get so caught up in following the imitative exchange between the winds and the strings here:
Piano Concerto in B-flat, KV.595 - Allegro m.220-222
(click to enlarge)
that at last when the second violin enters with the main theme and then the first a fifth above in canon we are blissfully overwhelmed.
Bibliography
Abert, Hermann. W. A. Mozart. Yale University Press. New Haven and New York. 2007.
Dreyfus, Laurence. The Hermeneutics of Lament: A Neglected Paradigm in a Mozartian 'Trauermusik' Music Analysis, Vol. 10, No. 3. (Oct., 1991), pp. 329-343.
Eisen, Cliff. Mozart's Chamber Music, essay in The Cambridge Companion to Mozart. Keefe, Simon P. (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Mozart. Cambridge. 2003.
Gutman, Robert W. Mozart: A Cultural Biography. Harcourt. 1999.
Keefe, Simon P. (ed.) Cambridge Companion to Mozart. Cambridge. 2003.
King, Alec Hyatt. Mozart Chamber Music. BBC Publications, London. 1968.
Richards, Annette. Automatic Genius: Mozart and the Mechanical Sublime. Music and Letters 80, (1999), 366-89
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Footnotes
21. ". . . the two dedications will bring me something as well." Letter to friend and fellow mason in Vienna, Michael Puchberg. Vienna, July, 12 1789.
22. ". . . I am forced to sell my quartets, all that hard work, for a trifle, just to get some cash into my hands and meet my immediate obligations." To Michael Puchberg, Vienna before or on June 12, 1790.
23. Keller, Hans. Program notes on Mozart's chamber music. [YouTube]
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