The great thing about the music of Mozart is that not only is it often beautiful, but it is simultaneously logical - nothing is ever out of place, nothing ever jars, every note makes sense and belongs as part of a rational, coherent whole. And all this on top of his seemingly boundless creativity. This is why he is considered by so many as the epitome of the Classical composer.

J.F., you truly are a master of irony.

Daniel - Thanks...I think...but did you mean irony ?

If so, what's ironic in bringing the beautiful music of Mozart to the attention of the good people here at PW? This is a bafflement and you could be in danger of being labeled a master of obfuscation .

Or are you saying - indirectly and deviously - that you don't find his music beautiful? If so, this would certainly not reflect an advanced level of discriminating discernment in matters musical - or so some Mozartians would say

JF

Yes, J.F. and thanks for correcting my typo.

I really thought you were jesting. Come now, he was good, but not that good !

Jesting about Mozart? Never! No one jests about Mozart - we are all too awestruck. May the Almighty rip out my tongue if ever...




No, not that good - much better even! I'm afraid I did this phenominal genius a great disservice by grossly understating his incredible capabilities and achievements...

Before you incur the wrath of the more overzealous devotees of Mozart in residence here at PW perhaps a refresher course auditioning his wonderful music might be in order - there are over 600 possibilities...

JF

I'm on JF's side. Anyone here who's attempted to play Mozart and compared the amateur/student to a pro recording would know that Mozart's piano works appear at best "cute" to the uninitiated, sounds simple enough to the beginner, but is truly complicated and difficult to master.

Even the "beginner" Sonata in C is not as easy as you think! Try playing it as well as Mitsuko Uchida does... Mozart's music is just so near perfect that it takes near-perfect pianists to do it right.

"Gould called Mozart a bad composer (and devoted an entire radio show to proving it). He claimed to like only the early sonatas, condemning the rest as empty theatrical gestures The Glenn Gould Edition: Mozart and Haydnand cliches of self-parody." --Peter Gutmann on Glen Gould.

Haa Haa Haaa! You've gotta love Glenn. I do. While I don't actually agree with his views on Mozart, they certainly give me pause to reconsider my own view.

--Rich

Gould was far too eccentric and illogical to fully appreciate the intricate internal beauty/logic complex of Mozart - he was too interested in gimmicks to develope his interpretive skills to their highest level - isn't it just human nature then to condemn that which one can't understand/master?

You were wise to allow Gould's opinion of Mozart to give you pause - Gould finding him "lacking" is like the average weekend duffer finding Tiger Woods lacking (before the eruption of the infamous bimbo stories, that is)

JF

Ha! I knew you were very wise the moment I read the above.

And then you verified your wisdom by saying this: .

Does anyone remember the scene from The In-Laws (1979 movie) where the general/dictator is discussing his art collection?

I think Gould just like to cause trouble and stir people up. I'd be willing to bet in his heart of hearts he knew what a master Mozart was. How could anyone not?

For me there are a few composers that were as close to the God of music as possible without just dissolving into light. Bach, Mozart and Chopin.

J.F., You say it yourself in your opening statement: his music is often beautiful. When you compose 600 pieces, I should hope you get a few right; one could hardly say that makes you great.

His music is logical - nothing out of place, rational, coherent, whole. But never do you say its stirs profound emotions as so many other composers can and as great music should.

It is one thing to compose cute musir, however intricate and logical; it is another to compose great music, that leaves an indelible emotional inprint on the receptive listener.

I may be an ignoramus, but I don't find Mozart's music moving.

Peyton - you're a genius to make such an obvious and indisputable observation - Beethoven "thundered" like a god (often angry), but it was Mozart more than the others who achieved a near-divine state with his heavenly music - in fact, there are those who claim (not without reason or solid justification) that he was the god of music come to earth to show men the ultimate in musical enlightenment and creativity. I don't go quite that far, and yet...

JF

P.S. which Bach?

Daniel - but Mozart's great music has done all that, and for many millions of listeners, from all corners of the globe, for well over two centuries.

Of course, you're certainly entitled to your own opinion in these matters and I'll be in the frontlines of those defending your unalienable right to it - no matter how "misconcieved" or "ill-advised" it might be...

JF

I loathed Mozart for many years -- it was too orderly and pretty-sounding for my tastes. I used to quip that I loved classical music, just so long as it wasn't composed between eras of Bach & Bartok. From the time I was young, I loved Baroque music (I was a math geek), and found most 20-th century-ish musica interesting & amusing, but the stuff in between seemed either predictable & overly pretty (Mozart, Haydn), bombastic (Beethoven), or full of whiny drama-queens (Romantic).

Do note, these were the sentiments of my teen to 20-something self. I now find Mozart beautiful, like some Beethoven string quartets, and am beginning to make some inroads some inroads with the Romantics (still need conscious work on that one, tho ). But my main classical loves are still Baroque & 20th century music.

But when looking at all the music in the world, my true favorites are the products of traditional acoustic regional folk music culture, stuff which is relatively uncontaminated by what I call "the creeping sameness", the worldwide metastasizing of a certain ubiquitous predictable tonal structure and pop sound. What really lights my fire is music that uses tones and rhythms that make me sit up and think, "WTF was that?" I like how it expands my musical boundaries.

Anyone who hears Mozart only as "cute", "rational", "pretty" etc is listening to a performer who has not even started to explore the depths of Mozart's emotional soul. True, it is not Tchaikovsky and it is subtle but Mozart plumbed the depths of human emotion. Not all the time, I grant you. His ability to suddenly switch to a deep reflective melancholy in the midst of a joyous finale for example and then move seamlessly back to joy.
Mozart is pure feeling within a conventional wrapping of classical form. You need to unwrap him.

Mozart, of course, is more - much more - than his piano music. To hear the aforementioned "plumbing" one needs only to attend (or listen to the music from) his marvelous operas - this is superlative emotional stuff!



Well stated

JF

A recovering anti-Mozartian! For some with age and maturity comes much wisdom...

JF

Was Mozart a Great Composer? Sounds like the title of a doctoral thesis. Of course this has so many levels and variables that need to be touched upon. Obviously he was a musical genius. Don't think so? Try writing one piece of music that's good and people will be playing centuries from now. I agree a lot of his pieces sound similar, using similar themes and structure, but there are many that are so popular and well written that stand out above his many works that qualify him as great. He was adept at all forms, from solo piano to opera, something not found in Chopin or Liszt to name a few. Remember, he was writing mostly for the Kings of the day, and in the classical style. People today have been exposed to all styles of music, from early chants to Lady Gaga. Back then the only music his audience was familiar with was basically Baroque, and mostly heard in the churches and royal halls of the day. Plus music was a luxury that couldn't be enjoyed with the push of a play button. We can listen to music for hours a day anytime we want, not so back then. Classical was fairly new, and it would have been difficult to really push the envelope with his audiences. He still managed to create new and great works within this confined structure, remember, he had to make money this way, turning off patrons didn't pay the bills. I agree that his music generally is very upbeat, and lacks the passion and emotion of Beethoven, Chopin, Lizst, Brahams, et al that came after, but he was the beginning of all that. He elevated the classical form and showed some very early romantic undertones in his work. Perhaps he was too musically gifted, in that it seems like the music just flowed from his brain to paper. There is little strife or darkness to his music, little conflict with the whole process. I am sure his life wasn't all sunshine and roses, but the style of the day shaped his works to a good degree. Today we enjoy conflict and strife, and dynamics, back then, I'm not so sure. I would love to go back in time with a full Ipod of the great music that was written after his death and see his opinion of it and of course it would probably influence his future music. Many of the great composers that came after Mozart were working in a much different musical environment. Sure they had their commissions and patronage, but there was a growing market with the general public as well. Tastes were changing as well, and continued to do so to present day.

Sounds like the most obvious of all possible rhetorical questions, sort of like asking if the Pope is Catholic, or if Donald Trump wears a really lousey hairpiece...




Upbeat, of course, but lacking in passion and emotion? Obviously you've never listened to his opera music, or some of the most delightful and joyous music of any kind ever compsed: his Serenades and Divertimenti for small chamber orchesta.




Well, yes - but this is one of the sources of it's greatness - who the hell needs stife, angst, darkness and conflict? There's more than enough of that in the world - we don't need it in our art, and especially not in our music.

JF

Listen to Don Giovanni, or the C minor or D minor Piano Concertos. Beethoven found the D minor frightening.

I actually don't think he wears a hairpiece, it's just a terrible comb-over.




OK, I'll give you Opera, but since Opera involves so much more than just music, it's essentially the movies of the era, it is somewhat in its own category. Yes there are delightful, joyous works, but again, a lot of them come from the same mold, and have a robotic feel to them. Obviously this isn't the case for all his works, but on the whole...



So all art should be rainbows and kittens? "We don't need it in our art, especially our music?" Are you serious? Do you even like any of the arts? If this is how you feel about art then there is no point in having a discussion with you about any of the arts.

I am coming a bit late to this discussion, but I'd like to point out something: there are written records of people "swooning in the aisles" upon hearing Mozart play his music. I think this is something we should consider - why doesn't anyone swoon to his music anymore?

I woudl contend that is because so few are playing Mozart the way he would have played him. It tends to over-simplify, and while we can still glimpse the mastery of Mozart's compositional skills, we still lose the expression in the translation.

I'll probably get reamed for this, but listen to this recording and make note that I do not believe there are many notated (if any) rolled chords in the score:

http://instrumentgallery.keithhillharpsichords.com/downloads/Carl_Reineke--Mozart-Concerto__26_D.mp3

Now, before people go off the handle, it is a player piano recording, however I've heard player piano recordings and they certainly can play notes simultaneously. This was played this way on purpose.

"This is an extremely interesting and important performance of a reduction of Mozart's Coronation Concerto. The performer is CARL REINEKE. The recording is not even of a person playing!! It is a player piano!! This marvelous recording was made in 1905 and finally put on CD by the Welte Mignon Museum in Frieburg, Germany a few years ago.

Carl Reineke was born in 1824!!!!!! Three years before Beethoven died. His way of playing was very likely learned by the time he was 13 years old as he was a child prodigy and a mature pianist on a level with Liszt, Thalberg, and Clara Schumann. He was a lifelong personal friend of the Schumanns. So he knew exactly what he was doing when he recorded this piece at the Welte Factory on their recording Steinway (the same one restored and used on this recording). Interestingly, he left off a career as a concert pianist to conduct Gewandhous Orchestra and compose.

This recording is not merely an historical curiosity. It is one of the most communicative and musical performances in existance. Reineke sings through his instrument like a great artist singer...a way of playing that Bach was described as using by his great grand student, Griepenkerl." Keith Hill

Wow, there's a *lot* of darkness in many of Mozart's works, especially later. What about his Requiem? And you find it in his Sonata in A minor or the D minor Fantasy?

Well, I think "a lot of darkness" is somewhat of a of exaggeration, although the examples given above are good ones of the "darker" side of Mozart - but these are rare exceptions in the complete catalog of his over 600 works, and the exceptions prove the rule: that the vast majority of his compositions are filled with creative inventiveness, feel-good emotion and non-contradictory internal logic - in a word, the very essence of great art at the highest level.

JF

I spoke mainly about his later pieces. I do listen a lot to his operas, too, and they are evenly balanced between happier and darker emotions. To state that it's all one or the other I think is too simplistic. And one can be creative and inventive with darker emotions. What amazes me most about Mozart is how very difficult his music is to play, an dhow very chromatic it is, while remaining tonal. He never repeats anything the same way twice, there's always a change the 2nd time around! A true master of composition, indeed!

Say what? Are you serious?

Because I prefer art to be joyous and inspiring and uplifting and delightful and positive this is a sure sign that I don't like art, and there's no point in discussing it futher?

Huh? If I don't agree with you then you won't talk to me anymore about art? I don't think Mozart would approve of your opinion of his music or your general approach to a mature, rational discussion of the arts

JF

Trump's problem is not with his hair, it's with the head under the hair.

The Reinecke Mozart recording was the subject of a fierce debate in the Pianist Corner forum a while back. I think it ended up being locked because of the level of vitriol.

Gee, imagine Mozart's "rainbows and kittens" inspiring otherwise rational people to go for each others' throats.

That's possible, I don't recall (that happens a lot on PC anyways :D). However, when I play Mozart in that particular fashion, people who don't 'know any better' enjoy it more than when I play it straight. Take that as you will...there's definitely no swooning going on these days.