Charles Petzold

Like many people who turned 11 years old in 1964, the first record album I bought “on my own” — in other words by pleading “Mom, can you get this album for me?” — was Meet the Beatles!, their first release in the United States. But so what? I have about as much inclination to listen to that album now as to watch episodes of My Favorite Martian, which was my favorite television series at the time.

Of course, I can still sing most of the lyrics to most of the songs in Meet the Beatles!, but hearing this music today doesn’t do anything emotionally for me. It doesn’t bring back poignant memories of my life at that time or make me wistful for the 1960s.

I must confess to having a deficient sense of nostalgia.

I don’t know if that’s a problem or not. But I know for sure that I don’t feel any emotional connection with memories of my childhood or my high school years or my college years, and I’m thankful I don’t think of them as my “glory days”! Nor do I feel nostalgia about my early years in the computer industry. If someone starts a discussion about the “good old days” of DOS interrupts or segmented memory management in early Windows, I will leave the room.

I am equally indifferent to songs I heard on the radio during my formative years. If I hear these songs today (which is pretty much unavoidable in supermarkets and other public places), I recognize the music, I can remember hearing the songs when they first came out, I can often sing along, but I don’t want to hear these songs now. I’ve moved on.

In that attitude, I know that I am different from most people. Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that for many people, nostalgia shapes music preferences. Even as people get as old as I am, the music they like is often the music that they first encountered as teenagers. The combination of music and puberty seems to imprint something on the brain that is not easily dislodged, so that even decades later, people will identify the music heard during their adolescence as the “best songs ever.”

Sometimes people argue about “the best decade in music,” usually whether it’s the 1960s or the 1970s or the 1980s or later decades. Most of the time, a person’s stand on this pressing issue reveals nothing more profound than the advocate’s age. And when someone says that a particular song “brings back memories,” you’re not surprised to learn that they were 14 or 15 years old when the song came out.

As someone unburdened by nostalgia, my evaluation of “the best decade in music” is somewhat different from the choices made by more “normal” people. If we’re truly attempting to identify the decade during which the greatest quantity of beloved and enduring music was composed, I believe that to be the 1820s.

The 1820s win this contest mostly because they encompass the last six years of the life of Ludwig van Beethoven. These are the years that Beethoven composed much of his greatest music, including his Piano Sonatas Nos. 30, 31, and 32, the finale of the last of which journeys in time signature from 9/16 to 6/16 to 12/32, during which Beethoven invents boogie-woogie. His other major piano work during the 1820s is the Diabelli Variations, based on a stupid ditty that Anton Diabelli proposed as a publicity stunt, but which Beethoven takes through 33 variations that turn shit into gold.

Beethoven’s mass, the Missa Solemnis dates from this period, as well as his amazing Symphony No. 9, unprecedented in its length and use of a chorus in a universally familiar finale that sings of joy and fellowship.

Beethoven devoted the last few years of his life to his String Quartets Nos. 12 through 16. I will mention only No. 13 in B♭ Major that concludes with the Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue) that remains a pinnacle of modernism in music; No. 14 in C♯ Minor with seven numbered movements that are intended to be played as if they were continuous; No. 15 in A minor with its transcendent “Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart” (Holy Song of Thanksgiving from a Convalescent to the Deity, in the Lydian Mode) commemorating Beethoven’s recovery from a serious illness; and No. 16 in F major, Beethoven’s last completed string quartet that asks the question “Muss es sein?” (Must it be?) and answers it “Es muss sein” (It must be).

Beethoven’s late music would be enough to establish the 1820s as the greatest decade in music, but the 1820s also encompassed the last nine years (almost) of Franz Schubert, who also spent his late years turning out some of this best music, including the two-movement Symphony No. 8 (the “Unfinished”) and his Symphony No. 9 (the “Great”).

Schubert also composed some of his most enduring piano music during this decade, including his Wanderer Fantasy, his last several Piano Sonatas, and the wonderful Fantasy in F minor for piano duet.

Also in this decade we find some of Schubert’s best chamber music, including his String Quartets No. 13 (the “Rosamunde”) and 14 (“Death and the Maiden”); his Piano Trios No. 1 and 2, the first movement of the second of which is well known for its use in numerous films (including Barry Lyndon) and the HBO miniseries John Adams; and his String Quintet in C major, which many people rank among the greatest pieces of chamber music ever.

And let us not forget Schubert’s two great song cycles, Die schöne Müllerin and particularly, particularly, particularly, Winterreise. In modern terms, these were the first “concept albums.” A live performance of Winterreise — during which a tenor (usually) stands alone in front of a piano and sings 24 songs without interruption over the course of an hour — is one of the most moving of concert experiences.

Many of the composers who further defined the 19th century (such as Brahms) were not yet born in the 1820s. Chopin and Schumann were only 19 years old when the 1820s ended and had yet to make much of a mark, but Felix Mendelssohn, who was only a year older, had already composed three Piano Quartets, three String Quartets, his famous String Octet in E♭ major, and the incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream that includes the famous wedding march traditionally performed at the end of the marriage ceremony as the bride and groom run down the aisle out of the church.

Perhaps there’s more wonderful music of the 1820s that escapes me at the moment, but I rest my case.