[Aiwendil]

Call them levels, types, modes, or what have you of seriousness, Aiwendil, it's the differences in seriousness between which I was trying to distinguish.

Okay. To me, 'levels' implies some sort of progression, which means that one end of the spectrum must be somehow better than the other. Just a syntactical misunderstanding.

I must insist, though, that the classical/roccocco style of composition used by Haydn and Mozart was quite strictly formalized, largely based in dance. The singularity of the music of these two composers was in the refinement Mozart brought to the style, and the profundity Haydn did.

I know we're veering off topic here, but I simply cannot resist a music discussion. I don't see how it matters that Classical music was formalized, or that its ultimate origin was in dances - at least not when we're discussing the quality of the music. What matters is how it sounds, not why it sounds that way. This is something that bothers me about artistic theory in general. Music theory, literary criticism, and such should not, in my view, tell us what things are good; it should tell us why they are good.

I happen to agree that Beethoven surpassed Mozart, but I do not think this had to do with the fact that his music was less formal structurally, nor with the fact that he exerted greater effort in producing it. Mozart, if not the greatest composer of all time, has a pretty decent claim as the second greatest. I tend to think that the two methods of writing do not reflect a difference in greatness, merely a difference in approach.