Yeah there’ve been threads about him before, but most of them are about some aspect of his life, relation to other composers, specific works, etc. Let’s have a general discussion about the guy. I’ve been listening to his stuff lately for the first time in a while, and damn was he good. Such balance and ease! And some of it so invigorating. Listen to this performance of his Divertimento in D, K136, for example. Passages like that from 3:10 through 3:30 just wake my mind up, no matter how sluggish it may feel.
I don’t want to go on all gushy and fanboy-y, so somebody else jump in. Share your favorite pieces, what you like about them, what you may not like about Mozart, and anything else you feel like saying about the man and his music.
Oh, and if reading this thread has caused you to reach for your iPod to remind yourself what’s so great about Mozart only to discover that you have little or no Mozart on there, may I recommend Rise of the Masters and The 99 Most Essential Mozart Masterpieces. Two downloadable MP3 albums, each only $1.99, giving you 199 tracks between them. Great, great deal.
I once heard a writer on the radio talking about Jerry Garcia’s guitar playing and how it may have had it’s highs and it’s lows but there were moments, however brief, when his playing ‘touched the center of the universe’. I’ve always liked that turn of phrase. To me Bach has that quality as well as some other composers and musicians.
Nothing I’ve heard of Mozart’s ever had that effect on me. I haven’t actively listened to much Mozart but I’ve been exposed to it over the years, playing in bands and orchestras from age 10 through college, listening to classical radio stations, and so on.
I can appreciate his story and his gifts but his music always struck me as kind of nice and frilly but lacking in any sort of deep compelling beauty. His music just doesn’t ‘do it’ for me.
I appreciate Mozart’s almost supernatural genius, but incredible as I know he was, his music almost never moves me. The biggest exception to the rule is his Piano Concerto in D minor.
I don’t know about the “center of the universe” but I find many of his piano concertos moving, as well as genius.
There are moments in some of them, where he slows down and seems to be saying something profound, human and gentle. Those are my favorite moments.
I also like the cheerful frilly stuff. That is also why I like Scarlatti. As a musician, the complexity of it, is mind blowing. And it it is not a heavy downer, like some other classical music.
I prefer the roller-coaster quality of Mozart’s music to the sequencer like procession of most of Bach’s music.
As for comparing the musical abilities of Mozart to Jerry Garcia - don’t make me laugh. Even Garcia would agree, if he was alive, that he is not even close to being in the same realm as Mozart in terms of musical knowledge or composition.
I wasn’t comparing the musical abilities of Mozart to Jerry Garcia. Come on.
I was comparing the effect Mozart’s music has on me vs the effect from a stellar Grateful Dead jam, or passages of Bach, or of Vaughn Williams, or of Ravel, who I’m sure would also place Mozart far above himself. Or any number of musicians and composers who occupy a space in my musical life. Musical ability/genius is only a part of the equation.
Whenever anyone asks me about how to “get started” on opera, I always point them to the same three operas: Rossini’s “Barber of Seville” and Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro” and “The Magic Flute”. The first is just rollicking silliness but Mozart’s two are filled with some of the most striking vocal music ever written. Pretty much every aria from “Marriage of Figaro” is wonderful in its own way, and so simple in its beauty.
I wonder if this would have been different if Mozart had lived and worked in a different era, whose music placed more value on emotional expressiveness and “deep compelling beauty.” Or if he had lived ten or twenty years longer.
I agree. There’s nothing wrong with cheerful music. It can still be moving if the direction it moves you is upward.
I wouldn’t want to subsist on a musical diet of only Mozart, but I wouldn’t want to do without him either.
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