Is musical talent dependant upon genre? Could Mozart have been a rocker?

[blondebear]

If you’re inclined to believe Ken Russell (and who is?), Franz Liszt was quite the rock star.

[WordMan]

@Krokodil

There was a short story in Playboy in the 80s called “Gianni” by Robert Silverberg. Modern scientists used something called a time scoop to rescue a Mozart-type right before his death and leave a fake corpse in his place. They wanted him to compose new classical pieces, but when he saw how popular Rock n Roll was compared to Classical in the modern era, he totally embraced Rock (and its excesses) instead and died pretty much the same kind of death he was originally going to die from anyway.

What does this prove? Not much, except that someone much more facile than I about “what if?” scenarios wondered this same thing about 27 years ago.

Jeez, I have probably looked at, oh, a half-dozen Playboys in the past 20 years, but I actually read that story. That’s the one where the back-to-the-future piano player overdoses on a drug called “slice” right? Good stuff.

Some key points regarding the OP:

• Musicians work within the rules - meaning, if you pulled a musician from back “then” to today, without them understanding how musical forms and structures have evolved since their day - well, their heads would explode. The fact that commoner’s music (folk, blues, country, gospel = rock) is respected now would have no bearing on a classical musician - they would look at those common music styles as beneath them. There would be a huge effort expended in showing them that today’s music is “okay” and worthy of appreciation - and only then would they be open to exploring the complexity of music/studio production. To be clear: classical composers would look at the drums/rhythm in rock and dismiss us instantly as savages - it would take time to show/explain to them what path music has taken.

• Harmonic complexity comes from different places and they wouldn’t get that - meaning, it is one thing to have a full string section or symphony orchestra pile on layers of harmonic complexity. Eash instrument or group provides a thin layer than can be stacked. Electric guitars are different - Johnny Ramone got all the freakin’ complexity of a string section in his distortion - those overdriven overtones he pushed into the mix with his aqgressive downstroked rhythm added layers of tonal complexity. Now - would Mozart dig that?

• Different eras requires different skill sets - as others have said, folks like Lennon were not academically smart and could not come close to playing within the system. Mozart was the opposite - a prodigy helped through the system of his day. Could Lennon tolerate that structured force-feeding? Could Mozart have been left to a rebellious, relatively unsupervised adolescence and found his way to innovate music? Who the heck knows??

[Larry_Borgia]

@Struan

I like to think that some of them (I’m hoping Bach, personally) would be huddled over a pile of home-made electronics overjoyed that the imagination was no longer bound by the limits of the instruments of the time.

I’m sure they would. And they would make difficult complex music that would fail to reach a popular audience. Again, maybe they could do something prog, or Zappa-esque. Or maybe they would make money through film scores.

[jovan]

@WordMan

they would look at those common music styles as beneath them.

That’s not true. Going back as far as the earliest notated church music, popular songs and forms were always incorporated into “serious” music. You don’t get much more serious than J-S Bach and yet he composed a great many pieces based on popular dances of the day. Mozart wrote pieces based on folk songs, and Beethoven quotes folk melodies in his symphonies. In the eighteenth century, with the rise of nationalism, folk music became an even more important and respected source of musical ideas for classical composers. Of course, it’s impossible to know how a 18th century composer would feel about today’s popular genres, but I don’t think you can say that he would automatically find anything popular beneath him.

The question of whether Mozart would have been a rocker comes up often and in my opinion is utterly meaningless. As busterbloodvessel mentions, genius is not something borne out of a vacuum. Mozart was Mozart in part because of his genes, but also in very large part because of his environment. If he had been born in 1956 instead of 1756, he just simply wouldn’t have been Mozart.

[WordMan]

@jovan

That’s not true. Going back as far as the earliest notated church music, popular songs and forms were always incorporated into “serious” music. You don’t get much more serious than J-S Bach and yet he composed a great many pieces based on popular dances of the day. Mozart wrote pieces based on folk songs, and Beethoven quotes folk melodies in his symphonies. In the eighteenth century, with the rise of nationalism, folk music became an even more important and respected source of musical ideas for classical composers. Of course, it’s impossible to know how a 18th century composer would feel about today’s popular genres, but I don’t think you can say that he would automatically find anything popular beneath him.

The question of whether Mozart would have been a rocker comes up often and in my opinion is utterly meaningless. As busterbloodvessel mentions, genius is not something borne out of a vacuum. Mozart was Mozart in part because of his genes, but also in very large part because of his environment. If he had been born in 1956 instead of 1756, he just simply wouldn’t have been Mozart.

Well stated and of course you are correct about the “masters” co-opting the music of the day in their works…

[Kamino_Neko]

@Larry_Borgia

Mozart might be in a prog band today, or maybe jazz-fusion. Probably though he’d be composing difficult atonal music for the small group of people who appreciate that stuff.

No, I think you were right the first time - he wanted to make a living at his art, too. (He did ditch a good position, because he didn’t like the pay.)

Going the prog route would give him that all important balance of not slaving himself to the stripped down aesthetic of regular rock, and not starving to death, or making music a sideline while he worked at a ‘real’ job.

That’s assuming that he’d find atonal crap to be interesting enough to ever work on, but I don’t think he would.

[Horatio_Hellpop]

A big part of Rock’s appeal is that the musician’s aren’t musical prodigies. Bob Dylan’s success certainly chagrined Jim Nabors, technically a better singer. Rock guitar has seen some virtuosos over the years (Carlos Santana, Jeff Beck, Les Paul, Danny Gatton, etc.), but the biggest success stories are the four lads from Liverpool who know about six chords between them, the white boy from the Memphis projects who could sing “race” music, the girl who won a recording contract on a game show, etc. Rock sticks its finger in the eye of the whole notion of virtuosity; its fans are never far away from thinking “I could do that!” That doesn’t fly in the Classical world.

Classical music is meant to be perfect, and to be heard in Heaven by God. Popular music is meant to be heard in the cheap seats at the Apollo theater, arguably a tougher audience.