I recall reading here a month or so ago, from a couple of people, that in some sense, Mozart was a hack.
Are there a lot of people who think that?
What are the reasons for thinking it?
-FrL-
Well, he wrote on-demand for money, so I guess you could make a “hack” argument there – but in terms of talent or quality, I don’t see how it could be done. Mozart thrills me.
Tracy Lord is right - it depends on what is meant by the term. He made a living out of writing music, as have many composers, and like most composers there’s pieces which sound very much like they were written just to get the thing done and the cheque banked. But also there’s absolute masterpieces which were written to commission (the Requiem being one).
There’s a romantic notion of composers writing whatever their hearts desire, without any concern for the consequences or the audience. There are cases where this is true,* but these are very much the exception. Walking a narrow line between creativity and necessity has been the normal situation for composers, and still is today.
- Two examples: Charles Ives, who ran an insurance company as his day job, and wrote music way ahead of its time with little hope of ever hearing it performed. Mahler, who was better-known as a world-class conductor, and disappeared off to his summerhouse to write music which perplexed most people who heard it. Sorabji, who nobody knows much about, but certainly doesn’t make a living from his music.
Errrr, that’s three examples, isn’t it?
No one expects the GorillaMan Inquisition!
But yeah, Mozart was undoubtedly a musical genius, even if he did write some junk to pay the bills.
Guess I’d better weigh in here, since I’m probably one of the critters who inspired the OP’s question.
First, let me cheerfully note that, as some have pointed out, old Wolfgang did write some splendid pieces.
What I have in mind in calling him a hack are those works that are highly repetitious - as I was fond of saying in my Mozart-lover-baiting days, “He takes a small idea and beats the poor thing to death.” Such an approach makes it easy to crank out a piece in a hurry. Once you figure out your motif, shove it in the sausage machine and start cranking! This, in my book, is how hacks work - maximum productivity with minimum creativity.
(Don’t even get me started on his execrable habit of hammering back and forth between dominant and tonic chords.)
Of course, one can go too far in the other direction. I recall once hearing a piece in which, it soon became apparent, the composed was determined to avoid a tonic chord (expecially at cadance points). Bor - ing!
You must love Bolero.
Now, that Bach guy that died around when Mozart was born… now he was a hack!
Thought that composing music was akin to carpentry, assumed that no talent was necessary to the creation of music (“I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed . . . equally well” :rolleyes: , “There’s nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself” :rolleyes: X 1000), constantly stole from other composers and put their music in his name (poor Vivaldi, he was an especial victim of Bach’s hackery - I pray Vivaldi never heard the travesty that is BWV1065), and frankly peddled his music to Princes and Kings - his Art of the Fugue was nothing more than a cheap means of debasing his music for nothing more than a sinecure! The Brandenburgs… written solely as a means to beg for money.
And his style - or whatever you can call his turgid, repetitive harmonies, dependant as they were upon such base musical forms like the canon and the fugue: imagine pitching your whole career on your ability to write songs akin to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” as done in traditional four-part harmony. :rolleyes: Point… counterpoint. Theme… contratheme. Yawn… counteryawn. If Mozart drew out melodies, it’s because he spent his days chasing the same 2-4 melodic threads in yet another tiresome Bach fugue.
Listen to this spot-on criticism of the man when he was hired as the third, fourth choice at the St. Thomas School: “Since the best man could not be obtained, mediocre ones would have to be accepted.” Surely the Mayor of Leipzig knew his music!
What a hack!
By the way, I just counted:
35 Bach CD’s
27 Mozart CD’s
I love 'em both, by God. But I can understand how one can be bothered by either of them: Mozart is a little too cute at times (I wish he wrote angry more often), Bach is a little too heavy at times… some pieces are almost Kantian in their density.
You had me whooshed for a second. I was about to compose an indignant defense of both of them.
too bad you caught on. A defense might have been fun to read. 
-FrL-
HA!
I’m going to remember that one. Thanks!
-FrL-
(Of course you probably weren’t trying to be funny… but in my line of work (philosophy student) we take every chance we can get to take friendly, loving jabs at Kant’s writing style, whether directly or indirectly as you have.
Actually, Mozart attempted to openly do what no major composer before him did: make a living completely as a free-lancer, devoting his time to projects he wanted to do, not at the long-term command of an aristocrat.
Bach was thrown in jail because he wanted to change employers… IIRC, he was in jail for five months. Mozart’s father, Leopold, was attached to the court orchestra back in Salzburg, the families famed European tours coming only at the forebearance and permission of the Archbishop.
Mozart wanted none of that. Though there isn’t a single mention of the French Revolution in any of his surviving (and there’s a lot!) letters, he was radical in his emphasis on his personal freedom to guide his own career, demanding to be paid well while having the freedom to choose whom he works for/with. Don’t underestimate the uniqueness of his career path compared to hired hands like Bach or pets like Handel.
And he was successful, extremely so: using data found in Solomon’s Mozart: A Life I determined that Mozart had yearly earnings ranging from $70,000-$250,000* for the last decade of his life.
Mozart’s earnings varied widely each year - his biggest year was his last, 1791: he made a killing on La Clemenza de Tito and The Magic Flute, more money on those two pieces than he made in the entirety of 1789.
*You’ll have to take my word on it - I did the calculations 5+ years ago and only wrote the results in the book. I had the most marvelous solutions demonstrating Mozart’s earning power, but the margins were much too small for me to write them there. 
Maybe you’re thinking of the 40th symphony? I think he did this much less than others, especially Beethoven. He was in the classical era (i.e. the period between Baroque and Romantic). The classicalists used well-defined forms like sonata first-movement, theme and variation, rondo, etc - these were all based on repetitions of a small set of themes.
I would be interested in examples. He might have done it (for a purpose) when writing Turkish music, or “outdoor” music. But it was stylized: the form required it, and the audience expected it. Mozart was a master of composition, at a level that even major composers couldn’t come close to. If he wrote simply (like the Sonata Facile or The Magic Flute), he knew it and it was intentional.
He often wrote to his father that, referring to his latest composition, he had managed to please both the unsophisticated and sophisticated listeners at the same time.
Hey! I love K364!
Yeah, I was thinking, BJMoose’s accusations may be more characteristic of the Classic Period in general rather than Mozart in particular. If you think Mozart (and Haydn) cranked 'em out according to formula, what about their less-inspired contemporaries?
You sure you’re not thinking of Haydn, who wrote the same symphony 104 times?
[Drebin]: (slowly) “I love you too, JohnT” [/Drebin]
Oh! You mean the composition!
This tends to be said of Vivaldi and his violin concertos, too, mostly by people who’ve only ever heard four of them 
Mozart the Barry Mannilow of classical music.