Mozart a fraud?

[ChamberNut]

Oh, this is that fruitcake who pops up on sites like this from time to time to peddle his crackpot claims.  Too bad his material is so stale that it's not even good for a chuckle, let alone the guffaws it merits.

You are darn right....it isn't funny.  In fact, it's downright disgusting, and technically it's slanderous.  In some parts of the world, this is a criminal act and punishable by law.

[Josquin des Prez]

The lunatics are taking over the asylum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1bgxfxchkQ

I always play this song in my head every time Robert Newman shows up.

[DavidRoss]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1bgxfxchkQ

I always play this song in my head every time Robert Newman shows up.

Perhaps he returns the favor.

[Josquin des Prez]

Perhaps he returns the favor.

I'm better then Newman because i know the meaning of self irony.

[robnewman]

You are darn right....it isn't funny.  In fact, it's downright disgusting, and technically it's slanderous.  In some parts of the world, this is a criminal act and punishable by law.

Salzburg, perhaps ?

[Josquin des Prez]

Salzburg, perhaps ?

Yeah, they don't like radical crypto-Marxists trying to undermine the prestige of European history and by extension ruining tourism to their city. Can't blame them.

[DavidRoss]

Popcorn, anyone?

[Josquin des Prez]

Popcorn, anyone?

You wish. Robert Newman is too dull to be trolled effectively.

[robnewman]

Yeah, they don't like radical crypto-Marxists trying to undermine the prestige of European history and by extension ruining tourism to their city. Can't blame them.

Last I heard Mickey Mouse was still attracting lots of tourists. So too Santa Claus in Lapland. That 'Mozart studies' (a supposed science) is unable to accept criticism of its underlying dogmas and that its supporters are hostile ignoramuses of the music and musicians of Mozart's time, well, this speaks for itself. That this same body of Mozartean 'experts' presides over the teaching of music history in schools and universities to a grotesque degree, that the performance of 'Mozart' outshines and often forces off the programme works by other composers, that the industry surrounding this 200 year old nonsense is valued at tens of millions of dollars, and that the history of the subject is riddled with more false attributions than that of any other famous composer, well, what is one to expect except hostility, from its pious consumers ?

Proofs are really not what you are interested in. Let's be honest about that. You want no criticism. You are drifting away without the slightest realisation of what fair, open, criticism actually is. It's alien to you. You want to shut it down. To ban it. To pretend that it does not exist. And all of this in the name of music and high culture. The Mozart industry and its juvenile admirers are a marriage made in Austria, posturing today as history. 'Everything you've heard is true' says Amadeus. And the truth is that everything is a packet of fictions, exaggerations and worse. Stunned to learn of the very existence of a contrary view the corporate myth is that of a giggling genius who, in plain fact, never spent a day at school and who was at no time in his entire life able to study music under anyone for any notable period of time. This is the stuff of Hollywood. The buffoonery of the musical under-achiever. The antidote to which is reality itself.

[Josquin des Prez]

[Josquin des Prez]

Let's be honest about that.

Indeed. Why don't we do that? Why not reveal your real purpose is to diminish and destroy western culture, and rake profits in the process by braking into the conspiracy market? Come on, you have nothing to risk at this point. Your book is almost done, and you have already goated enough gullible truthers during the years to guarantee a substantial return. Wouldn't it be fun to take the mask off for a while?

[robnewman]

My real purpose is to diminish and destroy western culture ?

To which culture are you refering ? The one which inspires you and your colleagues to make posts that are nothing but insults ? The one which is hostile to cross-examination of Mozart and his iconic status ? But you are the guys who claim that culture is on your side !! Who claim that the evidence is entirely supportive of your view ! The living proof of which is that you act in packs, and have nothing to say except insults ?

The 'diminishing and destruction of western culture' occurs when it is being relentlessly condensed in to a series of god-like figures in a musical pantheon, the members of which are routinely worshipped with all the trappings of a secular religion. Is THAT 'western culture' ? Why, I dare to say you know less of talented composers of the 18th century than does my next-door neighbour's cat ! A fair and impartial reader can see for themselves whose attitude tends to diminish and destroy western culture. And no, I am not a Marxist and never would be. So you see, your scrambled letters are already filled with errors, though you speak like a jesuit crusader, in the name of 'culture' and 'civilization', hardly realising these terms become meaningless because of your attitude.

The issue is rather simple. If, as you claim, the iconic status of Mozart is supported by documentary and other sorts of evidence you will have the chance to show us. But if it is not, you must get used to the fact that all areas of academic study must always be open to cross-examination and criticism, without which they are, as said, the 'diminishing and destruction' of western culture.

Thanks

[Josquin des Prez]

The 'diminishing and destruction of western culture' occurs when it is being relentlessly condensed in to a series of god-like figures in a musical pantheon

Yes, but that is precisely what separates western culture from the rest of the world you see. We are an individualistic people, and genius is the ultimate expression of our culture-soul. From the moment Homer created the Greeks, western culture has been propelled forward by the fortuitous intercession of its great individualities. Of course, i know that genius is a foreign concept to you. You are a collectivist being, and the very idea of individual expression is odious to you. That is why you wish to destroy it. Nobody who truly understands genius can fail to recognize the music of Mozart to be the single expression of a unique individuality, and no amount of historical distortion and insinuation regarding the authorship of his works can change this understanding. That is why you are being attacked. That, and the fact you haven't provided the single stretch of proof to sustain your hateful lies in all the years your noxious presence has drifted thought out the net, corrupting the most confused of our minds in your wake. Time and time again your arguments have been crushed, your evidence destroyed. Yet, onward you go, unhindered, imperturbable. And why not? Who needs truth when your purpose is to destroy?

[71 dB]

I don't think cross-examination could do much harm to Mozart. He was a damn fine composer, one of the best.

[Josquin des Prez]

I don't think cross-examination could do much harm to Mozart. He was a damn fine composer, one of the best.

It doesn't matter. It is enough to plant the idea in order to tarnish the image and perhaps sell a book or two in the process. Newman is not alone in his efforts. Not only is Mozart a fraud, Bach also happen to have plagiarized his wife, haven't you heard? Or that Shakespeare was a homophone and a woman hater, and so on and so forth ad nauseum. Dint by dint, slowly but surely, our cultural identity is corroded. Down with the dead white males they say, and down they are going. And boy, aren't the profits good?

[Joe Barron]

Which begs the question, of course, of WHO wrote this music, and how such a thing can possibly be true ?

No, it does not beg the question. It raises the question. To beg the question means to assume the thing you are trying to prove. Get it right, people.

On a more substative note, arguments like this --- the Shakpespeare authorship question comes to mind --- rely on the warrantless assumption that the person to whom the works are attributed could not possibly have written them, either in Shakepseare's case because he wasn't educated enough, or, in Mozart's case, as seems to be argued here, that there is too much music for one person to write. I'm also reminded of the earlier debate about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: no, Jeffererson could not possibly have done that, because it goes against everything he stood for, until, of course, it turned out he did.

Always be skeptical of arguments that turn on a priori assumptions about what a person was or was not capable of. My own warrantless assumptions are that (1) it is unlikely that a crew of ghost composers could have turned out so much good music that is also stylistically consistent and (2) that they would have kept their mouths shut about it.

[c#minor]

This again, really?

[robnewman]

Civiizations need myths. It's practically the definition of civilization itself - a myth to which the inhabitants subscribe and around which an elite priesthood emerge. Since the time of the Babylonians the creation of myths was an integral part of civilization. The same in ancient Egypt. In Greece. In Rome. Our time is no different. That's fact number one. Its the lazy FOX news enthusiast who believes the TV is telling them truth. And in the field of culture and the arts the situation is the very same.

The textbooks admit, themselves, that dozens of early 'Mozart' works are NOT by Mozart. Have you not learned this ? When will this FACT finally be acknowleged by you ? Literally dozens of symphonies alone. That's fact. But can you, dare you, accept this ? The same is true of the first 7 piano concertos. This too is a FACT. A fact you just have to accept. Now, over half of 'Mozart's' symphonies are today recognised, even by the most conservative 'Mozartean' NOT to be by W.A. Mozart. Get it yet ? Shall I continue ? Do you need references ? What planet are you living on that such FACTS still have not formed part of your understanding or education ? And we are only just starting. The scale of musical misattribution is larger and more consistent with Mozart Frankenstein than with that of any other famous composer in the entire history of western music. That too is a FACT. Falsification, exaggeration, fakery and downright lies surround the cult of Mozart. Those too are shown to be plain fact. The moment you can come to terms with these basic FACTS is the moment you will be able to have a conversation on this subject.

To say I 'haven't provided a single stretch of proof' is contradicted by a mass of evidence. Are you so gullible, so easily seduced, you cannot hear and accept FACTS even when they are presented to you ? If so, it's not for you. You are a consumer of musical mythology and can't/won't accept anything except what you read off the sleeves of commercial C.D.'s.

Mozart never went to school in his life ! He at NO time studied music theory or composition in his entire life ! Such are FACTS too. Inconvenient facts, but FACTS all the same. Now, who is the fool ? So Western people are 'Individualistic people' ?? Why then do they act like a herd of blind sheep with a mountain of plain facts right under their noses ? The answer is, of course, that Mozart is for the musical under-achiever. A fairy story. In which reality is neither welcome nor relevant.

Fortunately, any fair minded person sees this is the truth of it.

[karlhenning]

Mozart never went to school in his life ! He at NO time studied music theory or composition in his entire life ! Such are FACTS too. Inconvenient facts, but FACTS all the same. Now, who is the fool ?

Why, you are.  Because these are not all facts FACTS, as you so petulantly cry.

You, in those two initial claims up there, are the fraud, you frightful bore.

[ChamberNut]

As Seinfeld would exclaim.................Newman!