Cassation (music)

Works titled cassation were especially common in southern Germany, Austria and Bohemia in the mid-to-later part of the eighteenth century.[2] Some early works by Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart bear the title cassation; other composers of the classical and pre-classical era who produced cassations include Franz Joseph Aumann, Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Michael Haydn, Leopold Hofmann, Antonio Rosetti, Joseph Schmitt, Johannes Sperger and Johann Baptist Wanhal.[1][2] Leopold Mozart's Toy symphony was a reduction of his earlier Cassation in G.[3] The Italianized term, cassazione, appears to have been used by Antonio Salieri.[4]

It is hard to discern any substantive formal characteristic that could distinguish cassations from other serenade-like genres, such as the divertimento, notturno, or Finalmusik.[n 1][1] It seems likely that the term cassation was used to refer to the intended social function of the music as outdoor entertainment rather than any particular structural features.[6] Breitkopf's thematic catalogues of the time tended to apply titles such as "cassation" and "divertimento" rather interchangeably, as did the composers themselves.[2] This terminological overlap makes it difficult to distinguish formal characteristics of the cassation as a musical genre.[2] Both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Michael Haydn seem to have used the term only to refer to orchestral pieces, whereas Joseph Haydn called his op. 1 and op. 2 string quartets "cassations".[2] Instrumental and orchestral cassations seem to be stylistically linked to the divertimento and serenade, respectively.[2] By the end of the eighteenth century, the term had fallen out of fashion.[2]

The term was also sporadically adopted in the twentieth century.[2] Malcolm Williamson composed a series of ten mini-operas involving audience participation (especially aimed at children), which he called "cassations".[7] Cassazione is the title of a divertimento-like orchestral piece in a single movement by Jean Sibelius,[8] and of a string sextet by Riccardo Malipiero.[9]

The etymology of the musical term is uncertain.[2] Mozart’s cassations K. 63 and K. 99 open with marches, and the term has been speculatively linked to the Italian word cassa, meaning "drum".[6] Hermann Abert was among those who thought that the term derives from the Italian cassare, meaning "to dismiss",[n 2] implying a musical farewell, or Abschiedsmusik.[2] The French word casser (to break) was also invoked, based on the notion that the movements could be freely broken up into any order.[2] A more likely derivation, reflecting the outdoor character of the genre, involves a transformation of the Austrian dialectal word gassatim: specifically, gassatim gehen was an expression commonly used by local eighteenth-century musicians to refer to street performance.[2][6][11]