Mozart a fraud?

[robnewman]

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.

OK, tell us -

A. Which school Mozart attended between the age of, say, 4 and 21 ?

b. Under which teacher of composition and harmony did Mozart study ? Where ? When. ?

And then I'll stop thinking you're a complete joker ! A 'purveyor of snake oil' !!!

[mahler10th]

I like myths to be challenged.  Thinking outside Mozarts box is refreshing.  If there is room for reasonable doubt on analysis, it should be heard, but not believed until evidence is presented.

[robnewman]

Yes John, and in this particular case the learned Professor Karl Henning, Ph.D.- Composer & Clarinetist - is going to tell us which school Wolfgang Mozart attended as a child and at which school of music he studied harmony and composition.

Let's sit back, put our feet up, and wait for the oracle to speak ! This will be really interesting, for sure !!!  Why, I could almost open a can of beer !!!

[DavidRoss]

Yes John, and in this particular case the learned Professor Karl Henning, Ph.D.- Composer & Clarinetist - is going to tell us which school Wolfgang Mozart attended as a child and at which school of music he studied harmony and composition.

Dude, I'm no music scholar, much less a Mozart specialist, but even I know that Mozart was trained in music from an early age by his father.

John, this guy is a notorious crank with about as much credibility as Chris Dodd or Barney Frank. 

[robnewman]

Dude, I'm no music scholar, much less a Mozart specialist, but even I know that Mozart was trained in music from an early age by his father.

John, this guy is a notorious crank with about as much credibility as Chris Dodd or Barney Frank.  

And the man who built the Golden Gates bridge had a son, who could build suspension bridges also, right ?

Look, Mozart's father was a 4th violinist, a former valet, and was, in his lifetime, promoted to vice-kapellmeister. But this only weeks before he left on a giant tour across Europe by carriage. It lasted almost 3 and a half years. Leopold Mozart, his father, was for a total of 7 years of Mozart's childhood on tour with his son, travelling thousands of miles round the roads of Europe. Now, I don't mean to be rude, but my two questions remain unanswered. I mean, you don't just sit down and write symphonies. You have to be properly taught, by a skilled teacher of harmony, orchestration and instrumentation. Bach had to be taught, for years. So did everyone else. And everyone else went to school.

Which is why I must ask the learned Professor to tell us where Mozart went to school, for how long, and under which teacher of music theory and harmony he actually studied, where, and for how long. Reasonable questions, don't you agree ?

[Holly]

Dude, I'm no music scholar, much less a Mozart specialist, but even I know that Mozart was trained in music from an early age by his father.

John, this guy is a notorious crank with about as much credibility as Chris Dodd or Barney Frank. 

I too thought it was common knowledge that W A Mozart was taught by his father, Leopold, who of course was a composer of some repute.  What does Newman have to say about this?

[robnewman]

'Common knowledge' ? But Mozart's father, in Salzburg, was full time employed by the chapel of Salzburg. And his son, Wolfgang NEVER attended a school for a single day, in his entire life.

I mean, who is kidding who here ?

[Bulldog]

Which is why I must ask the learned Professor to tell us where Mozart went to school, under which teacher of music theory and harmony he studied, where, and for how long. Seems like a reasonable question, don't you agree ?

Your basic problem is that you expect others to prove Mozart's compostional skills.  Since the consensus is that Mozart was one of the greatest composers, don't you think it reasonable that your obligation is to do the proving that he wasn't?  

So I suggest that you take a popular work of Mozart's and prove that he didn't write it.  How about the Mass in C minor?  Piano Concerto No. 20?  The Clarinet Concerto?

[robnewman]

Your basic problem is that you expect others to prove Mozart's compostional skills.  Since the consensus is that Mozart was one of the greatest composers, don't you think it reasonable that your obligation is to do the proving that he wasn't?  

So I suggest that you take a popular work of Mozart's and prove that he didn't write it.  How about the Mass in C minor?  Piano Concerto No. 20?  The Clarinet Concerto?

Well, I am asking some basic, fundamental questions related to Mozart, his schooling, and such a simple question as the name of his teacher in composition, orchestration and harmony. And it seems to me that nobody has a real answer. We just accept it. Now, I don't ask you to accept anything without evidence. So why should I ?

Now, it may be possible for a young child to be a great bricklayer, or to be a great portrait painter, or to be able to repair car engines. Even to fly a 747. But isn't it fair and reasonable to have details of where he learned to do these things, if from anyone ? They are highly skilled things and they take time, real time, to learn well. You can't do them without being properly taught. Exactly what composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach said.

We believe such things because they are pumped out by the mainstream 'Mozart industry'. But on what actual facts are they based ?

[jwinter]

OK, tell us -

A. Which school Mozart attended between the age of, say, 4 and 21 ?

b. Under which teacher of composition and harmony did Mozart study ? Where ? When. ?

Perhaps I am a hopeless curmudgeon, but I fail to see the relevance of any answer to the above questions to an honest reckoning of Mozart's worth as a composer.  It is silliness itself to disregard the clear and obvious genius of Mozart's music (not to support Josquin's usage in other contexts, but in this case the term genius is justified), just because we can't produce a record of which music school he may or may not have attended.  It's the same tired argument the anti-Stratfordians use -- we can't find records that Shakespeare ever studied Latin, therefore he couldn't have written Julius Caesar.  The logic doesn't hold.  Great artists in many fields have been able to master their craft without much formal education on the subject -- it's not the rule, certainly, but it happens.  Einstein noodled out the mysteries of the universe while sitting at the patent office -- who's to say that someone with great natural gifts couldn't write a symphony after learning the basics of music from his father and others, and using scores or other materials for personal study?  How can you disprove the possibility?  Rolling your eyes is not a sufficient rebuttal.

More to the point, how and by whom besides his father young Mozart was tutored (I claim no expertise on that point) is interesting from a musicological standpoint no doubt, but it doesn't add anything to an appreciation of the music in my opinion.  Nor do the silly statistics about X percentage of Mozart's music being by someone else -- clearly, unscrupulous publishers did try to pass off some works as early Mozart in the years after his death, but that's very old news, and reflects nothing upon the Magic Flute.

Why do I get the impression that you are just casting about for strawmen to poke at in your upcoming book?

[robnewman]

OK jwinter,

So your argument is that you have no evidence, but you want us to believe that Mozart is a musical genius. And if we ask these sorts of question we are wrong. Is that your argument ?

If I told you that a baby flew a 747 from Denver to Florida would you believe me ? I don't have the evidence, but, you see, who cares about evidence ?

[DavidRoss]

Well, I am asking some basic, fundamental questions related to Mozart, his schooling, and such a simple question as the name of his teacher in composition, orchestration and harmony. And it seems to me that nobody has a real answer. We just accept it. Now, I don't ask you to accept anything without evidence. So why should I ?

This is almost as hilarious as Ernie's pretense of rationality or Sean's treatises on anything.  There is abundant evidence that Leopold Mozart, a musician and teacher of music, author of a noted treatise on the violin, and the father of Amadeus, was his son's teacher.  You are indeed asking others not only to accept your deranged speculation as evidence, but to deny two centuries worth of real evidence in the process.

You have been banned from similar forums for the nonsense that follows your moronic trolling.  It's only a matter of time here.  Personally, I think you're just a harmless fruitcake and that others with a nastier agenda ought be removed first, but it's not my call.

[jwinter]

OK jwinter,

So your argument is that you have no evidence, but you want us to believe that Mozart is a musical genius. And if we ask these sorts of question we are wrong. Is that your argument ?

I don't say that you are wrong:  I merely say that the origins of genius are not necessarily reducible to any easily grasped explanation.  I say again, the argument is equivalent to the argument against Shakespeare.  Simply apply Occam's Razor:  which is more likely, a centuries-long conspiracy involving many people, or the simple fact that Mozart and Shakespeare were a damned-sight cleverer than we'll ever be able to understand?

[robnewman]

This is almost as hilarious as Ernie's pretense of rationality or Sean's treatises on anything.  There is abundant evidence that Leopold Mozart, a musician and teacher of music, author of a noted treatise on the violin, and the father of Amadeus, was his son's teacher.  You are indeed asking others not only to accept your deranged speculation as evidence, but to deny two centuries worth of real evidence in the process.

You have been banned from similar forums for the nonsense that follows your moronic trolling.  It's only a matter of time here.  Personally, I think you're just a harmless fruitcake and that others with a nastier agenda ought be removed first, but it's not my call.

Well, no David Ross - personally I think you're just a harmless fruitcake myself. Since the chance of a baby flying a 747 from Denver to Florida is about the same as a child writing a symphony without intensive study under an expert teacher of harmony, orchestration and instrumentation. Or a child who becomes a brain surgeon. Which begs answers to the original questions -

1. Where, if at all, Mozart went to school before the age of 21
2. Where, if at all, he made detailed study of orchestration, harmony and instrumentation under a recognised/skilled teacher of the same.

Incidentally Leopold Mozart did NOT write a treatise on the violin. This violin treatise was actually stolen/plagiarised in most of its contents from an unpublished violin treatise by an Italian violonist Tartini and was falsely published in the name of Leopold Mozart in 1756, the year of Wolfgang's birth. So, you see, still more fakery and falsehood in this story.

Anyway, your errors are innocent enough.

[c#minor]

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

haha

[c#minor]

1. Where, if at all, Mozart went to school before the age of 21
2. Where, if at all, he made detailed study of orchestration, harmony and instrumentation under a recognised/skilled teacher of the same.

He attended ITT Tech when he was 12 and there he met the band Meatloaf who schooled him in the ways of orchestration, harmony, and instrumentation. And yes, Mozart could time travel.

[Bulldog]

Well, I am asking some basic, fundamental questions related to Mozart, his schooling, and such a simple question as the name of his teacher in composition, orchestration and harmony. And it seems to me that nobody has a real answer. We just accept it. Now, I don't ask you to accept anything without evidence. So why should I ?

Now, it may be possible for a young child to be a great bricklayer, or to be a great portrait painter, or to be able to repair car engines. Even to fly a 747. But isn't it fair and reasonable to have details of where he learned to do these things, if from anyone ? They are highly skilled things and they take time, real time, to learn well. You can't do them without being properly taught. Exactly what composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach said.

We believe such things because they are pumped out by the mainstream 'Mozart industry'. But on what actual facts are they based ?

Here I am ready to read your proof that one or more popular Mozart works were not composed by Mozart, and your response is basically nothing.  So far, you're very disappointing.  The burden is on you.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Mr Newman, do you know the book by Robert Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style? A friend of mine recommended it to me. It is an excellent read.

Quote about the book:

"Gjerdingen's study promises to reframe nearly all the work that scholars have lavished on compositional practice in the eighteenth century by answering a question that no one seems to have asked before now - how were eighteenth-century composers (Italian-born and Italian-trained composers above all) able to produce such massive quantities of music in such a broad spectrum of genres, and to do so with both facility and taste?"--Thomas Bauman, Professor of Musicology, Northwestern University

I personally don't like Mozart as much as I do Beethoven, beacuse I find Mozart at times to be rather formulaic. This books gives one explanation - there were schemata which composers used, which they had internalized. The greatness of Mozart (or 'Mozart') resides in the fact that he plays with them in startlingly original ways.

I await your book to see how you buttress your claims. Do you have a publisher?

[Josquin des Prez]

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.

More and more you betray your collectivist mindset, by seeing collectivist motives in the minds and hearts of other individuals. But what is this myth you are trying to disprove, exactly? That the individual whom we call Mozart is not really the author of the body of work which we have come to venerate? What difference does that really make? What vested interest does a society have in creating a myth centered around a particular individual or another, when the object of our veneration is the tangible, readily available results of what is obviously the work of a single fertile mind to anybody but the most impoverished of intellects? Is it necessary to the myth that the author is an Austrian musician as opposed to an Italian, or a French man? Don't we have Italian and French geniuses?

Or maybe you are saying that such a stupendous legacy cannot be the work of a single individual. That it must be a composite of different authors, even though they all appear to miraculously employ the same stylistic devices and express the same individual character. But wait, the reason why Mozart is such a venerated figure is that he wrote music of an unprecedented level of quality and originality, not that he wrote a lot of it. The only composer whom even approached the genius of this music at the time was Haydn. Yet, by your argument, there was not one genius, not two, but many, all writing in secret on behalf of this made up historical character. Is this really believable? And why just Mozart? What about Bach? Or Mendelssohn? Or Schubert? More Frauds?

Or maybe it is the fact he was a prodigy that you are trying to disprove. That no child could ever write such music at such an early age and in such quantities. But again, why just Mozart? What about Mendelssohn? Schubert? Chopin? Saint-Saens? Enescu? Kornhold? More frauds? What about the recent Jay Greenberg? Fraud?

The textbooks admit, themselves, that dozens of early 'Mozart' works are NOT by Mozart.

What textbooks, and what sources have they employed? You are the scholar here. Surely, it shouldn't be too hard for you to demonstrate those FACTS with hard evidence and the proper documentation.

But even it if was true, so what? What difference does it make whether the child Mozart was or wasn't the author of compositions which are irrelevant to the great masterworks of maturity which his legacy as a genius depends upon in the first place? Compositions which, mind you, are well within the possibility of a child and have been so in the case of numerous other prodigies as well.

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.

By all means, let the EVIDENCE speak for itself. 

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.

Nota bene, if you dispute the evidence i provided, it is obvious that you are just incapable of accepting the truth. Why is this starting to sound like a religion? Who's creating myths here?

Mozart never went to school in his life ! He at NO time studied music theory or composition in his entire life !

This is a blatant lie. Not only did Mozart receive musical education from his father, whom just so happened not only to be academically trained but also the author of one the most widely distributed method books for violin, in case you'd like to question his credentials as a teacher, but the whole point is moot considering there's tons of evidence concerning a certain child prodigy named Mozart touring Europe, giving performances and creating a sensation, which to me indicates some level of musical education, i would think. In fact, now that i think it, do you actually believe there ever even was an individual named Mozart in the first place? At this point i'm not even sure how large your delusion has grown during the years. 

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.

Are we attacking the person or the music now? Are you going to claim the music itself isn't a work of genius?

[robnewman]

Mr Newman, do you know the book by Robert Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style? A friend of mine recommended it to me. It is an excellent read.

Quote about the book:

"Gjerdingen's study promises to reframe nearly all the work that scholars have lavished on compositional practice in the eighteenth century by answering a question that no one seems to have asked before now - how were eighteenth-century composers (Italian-born and Italian-trained composers above all) able to produce such massive quantities of music in such a broad spectrum of genres, and to do so with both facility and taste?"--Thomas Bauman, Professor of Musicology, Northwestern University

I personally don't like Mozart as much as I do Beethoven, beacuse I find Mozart at times to be rather formulaic. This books gives one explanation - there were schemata which composers used, which they had internalized. The greatness of Mozart (or 'Mozart') resides in the fact that he plays with them in startlingly original ways.

I await your book to see how you buttress your claims. Do you have a publisher?

Hello there Jezetha,

Thomas Bauman is asking all the right questions, yes, for sure.

You ask whether I have a publisher. No, not yet. I hope to finish in September and yes, I have many sorts of evidence covering most of the life and official career of Mozart. I hope that you will agree that it provides some remarkable new information. Please let me have your email and I can send you an advanced copy if you like when it is ready, with my regards.

Regards

Robert