Haha, has anyone ever played Mozart as if he were Schubert? Holding some sort of deep and dark melancholy within the music he composed? Even when it was in a happy setting/mood there would still be some sort of sadness within it. Perhaps this could be how Mozart could be played, matching the depression, illness and poverty he felt throughout parts of his life.

maybe switching an e flat for an e in the key of c?

No, but I have tried playing him like Chopin, and that doesn't work.

BTW, I think the way you're defining "as if he were Schubert" could just as easily be said to be Mozart himself. But you'd need to do it subtly -- and arguably that's true for playing Schubert too.

It works a lot better than trying to play Chopin like Mozart.

Or maybe play b flat instead of b?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNtYYuWILNE&feature=related

Most posters in your other thread about Mozart's music disagreed with your characterization of his music.

But even if it were true, i.e. if one felt about Schubert's music that when it was "in a happy mood there was still be some sort of sadness within it", how would one play it differently?

No but I once tried playing Mozart as if he were Jerry Lee Lewis.

Six months later, looking back - I must say the food at the asylum wasn't really all that bad now that I think of it.

Best Post of the Day award?

-J

No, Furtwangler's post in the other Mozart thread wins.

While practicing at home, I see no harm in re-contextualizing an interpretation of a piece in that manner. You might strike onto a discovery about the piece that you wouldn't have encountered otherwise.

It could subtly worm it's way into your interpretation when you go back to a more idiomatic conception - and maybe add a little spice or flavor.

Or it can be your own little version of an in-joke that only you will get - as it no doubt will irritate your teachers.

Maybe, but my impression is that Mozart is more of the fun-poking even in his serious parts. I think you would have a hard time dealing with that fun-poking if you kept playing as if he were serious

At one time when I was in college, the sophomore humanities course was reading Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther, a very emotionally turbulent work that had stirred all of Europe in the late 18th century, and is effective even today. My roommate, who was learning K. 310 at the time, finished the book and went off to practice the Mozart, playing it as if it were Tchaikovsky, as he described it to me later. Someone else who had been in the practice rooms listening to this, asked me later, "Good grief! Does he always play like that?"

The answer is yes. I've heard LL do just that precisely.