Sometimes, nothing but Mozart

[Sammy]

No irony at all.

I like listening to Mozart's music. It's very pleasant.  I just think that it's basically not really in sync with the spirit of the times. That we live in an age where Mozartian values aren't valued highly. But the music remains nice to listen to.

I think this is a widespread problem with old music, by the way. Not just Mozart, but Beethoven too, for example.

I think you're missing the boat here.  The greatest composers of the past (Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) are revered primarily for how well they tapped into the human condition and all the emotions therein.  We don't move on from any of that. 

[Bogey]

Gurn, it may be time for a complete overview (including the fragments that I have) of his music.  Did it once before, as I believe you have (multiple times) and the journey was fantastic.  Do you know of a decent check off list besides the one we used in the past?

[Bogey]

http://www.mozartproject.org/compositions/ko_61_65.html

The above may work.  What do you think of their listings, Gurn?

[Gurn Blanston]

http://www.mozartproject.org/compositions/ko_61_65.html

The above may work.  What do you think of their listings, Gurn?

That seems like a very handy timeline, if you dig in there you find a nice chronology. I made one of those for Haydn to help me get started with my blog. It's a lot of work!! 

[Brahmsian]

Sometimes, nothing but Mozart will do! 

[Bogey]

You'd the man, Ray and thanks, Gurn.

Starting the overview using the above resource and will post my listening here seeing the name of the thread contains "nothing but Mozart".   I will post my listening here so folks can help out when things get tight or indefinable at my end.  A heads up when I omit a composition would be most appreciated and please throw in any bio nuggets that you might have for each piece.   The Brilliant Brick will do most of the work.  :

Keyboard Works
KV 1a-1f
Guy Penson: Clavichord
Almost Renaissance like at times.  Pretty straight forward and repetitive. 

Violin Sonatas
KV 6-7
Pieter-Jan Belder: Harpsichord
Remy Baudet: Baroque Violin (1706)
These were quite nice.  I am guessing that they do not find their way on to too many cds.

Keyboard Works
KV 2-5 and 5a
Guy Penson: Harpsichord
Same as the above, but the harpsichord definitely added some body and brightness to the works.

Violin Sonatas
KV 8-9
Pieter-Jan Belder: Harpsichord
Remy Baudet: Baroque Violin (1706)
These also seem to have a bit more behind them, but I could be swayed by the Paris luv!

Actually the violin sonatas take quite a leap from these early keyboard works if you just consider the length.   On to some flute sonatas tomorrow.

[amw]

Musicians like playing Mozart because he had a fundamental understanding of and affinity with instruments (the same is true of Haydn)—the second violin part in a Mozart string quartet is often as or more enjoyable for the performer than the first violin part in a Beethoven string quartet (Beethoven wrote great music, of course, but was unmerciful in his demands on performers).

For some listeners (especially the more educated ones) the music of Mozart and Haydn is not "pretty" but rather among the most powerful and dramatic ever composed. Charles Rosen's The Classical Style is a good introduction to this sort of viewpoint; look it up in your local library. (That and The Romantic Generation are both worthwhile reads.)

For the executives of the classical music industry there is no such thing as an intelligent listener, and the only reason anyone tunes into a classical radio station is to have "something pleasant for the background". Turns out Mozart is also pretty good at that, if you don't turn the volume up too high.

Mozart has also become a symbol of the elite and powerful, which is why it is played in tube stations and carparks and so forth to keep out the lower classes; synonymous with a policeman's nightstick.

[jochanaan]

...For the executives of the classical music industry there is no such thing as an intelligent listener, and the only reason anyone tunes into a classical radio station is to have "something pleasant for the background". Turns out Mozart is also pretty good at that, if you don't turn the volume up too high...

Or listen too closely.  Some of the dissonances in, say, the second movement of Piano Concerto #21 ("Elvira Madigan") are almost at 20th-century level!

[Karl Henning]

Mozart has also become a symbol of the elite and powerful, which is why it is played in tube stations and carparks and so forth to keep out the lower classes; synonymous with a policeman's nightstick.

How does that work exactly?  Do Britain's homeless have a visceral aversion to Alberti bass?

[starrynight]

Today I was tuning around some of my favorite classical music streaming stations on the web, and every one of them had on something by Mozart. I have nothing against Mozart, except that his frequent prettiness is sometimes a little cloying to me.

Cloying in bad performances, the likes of Ushida.

Mozart has also become a symbol of the elite and powerful, which is why it is played in tube stations and carparks and so forth to keep out the lower classes; synonymous with a policeman's nightstick.

I think the price of things like the underground keeps people out, not that I would want to breathe the air down there anyway.

[Chaszz]

Well, but (as I cited) the first option in the poll is baldly an invitation to dismiss the work, in a body, as pretty, and further to dismiss the listeners who find the music engaging. There is no seem to think involved there.

Agreed. The first option is poorly worded and incomplete, and should have indicated prettiness was neither his only mode nor prevalent everywhere in his works. And suggested that the pretty aspects are what draw in a large number of listeners who come to classical music mostly for prettiness, and thus avoid a lot of it. I would rewrite it now and pack all that into one sentence, albeit with a lot of effort - but that would invalidate the votes of those who have voted already.

[Chaszz]

... Then again, the very finest of things, those rarefied things in life - are usually always truly appreciated, absorbed & understood by a small minority who make the time and put in an effort. The truly passionate. And this is typically the pattern across most areas of human endeavour...

This is an overgeneralization. Some artists who express the spirit of their times are appreciated during their lifetimes by a large number of people, not all of whom are connoisseurs or intellectuals. Good examples are Handel, Haydn, Mozart himself who made a good living as a free-lancer, not easy at all in those days when most composers sought court or church positions. Brahms earned enough from composing to retire from conducting.  Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Giorgione, Titian and Rubens were all more or less instant successes. Phidias, Praxiteles, Polykleitos. Shakespeare had aristocrats and intellectuals in the expensive seats and the lower classes in the pit. Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky sold well.  Picasso, Stravinsky and T.S. Eliot all produced serious and difficult work which radically altered their art forms but all of them had widespread appreciation before middle age. During the several centuries when opera filled the role as a popular art that movies and TV do today, many ordinary people attended. Who is to say some or perhaps many of them did not appreciate the music deeply for what it was? 

It's true that most average people today more or less ignore the art of the past, but some of what they like instead may be of equivalent value. IMO some  rock and roll may survive into posterity, as well as some of the multi-season TV dramatic series that are popular now. Some, not all. Who can say with certainty what will survive? Japanese prints were enjoyed by lower-class people and considered insignificant and vulgar by the upper classes when they were made. Since the nineteenth century they have been widely appreciated all over the world, while the more refined art of their era has faded into the background or been forgotten. 

[Bogey]

Today some flute sonatas, KV 10-15.
Grauwels: Flute
Penson: Pianoforte/Harpsichord
Sciffer: Cello

Most were somewhat choppy at moments, but the harpsichord added a baroqueness that helped carry them through.  I did find the KV12 to be worth a second spin, even though it only lasted 9+ minutes.


Moving on to some symphony action tomorrow.

[starrynight]

It's true that most average people today more or less ignore the art of the past, but some of what they like instead may be of equivalent value.

I don't believe that.  People are probably more knowledgable about about older art and classical music than newer.  And I don't see the point in comparing it to the completely different genre of popular music, where older stuff is also more familiar to many people than recent things.  Most people are actually completely preoccupied with the past now, so I disagree with you totally.

[Beale]

I think you're missing the boat here.  The greatest composers of the past (Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) are revered primarily for how well they tapped into the human condition and all the emotions therein.  We don't move on from any of that.

I like and agree with what you wrote there, but it makes the OP's case even more curious. In the OP's location and experience there is an overabundance of Mozart music relative to the other Greats, it appears to be an unexplained imbalance. I don't think we have the same imbalance problem, the orchestras here are more likely to do a Beethoven festival, Mahler, Brahms, or Sibelius cycle.

[Chaszz]

I don't believe that.  People are probably more knowledgable about about older art and classical music than newer.  And I don't see the point in comparing it to the completely different genre of popular music, where older stuff is also more familiar to many people than recent things.  Most people are actually completely preoccupied with the past now, so I disagree with you totally.

You make some good points. But it's not as simple as saying 'most people.' People who listen to old classical music may be a majority of classical music listeners, but all classical music listeners are a minority compared to those who follow popular art forms like TV, movies and pop music. To them the past is much more immediate. To older people who listen to rock, the past is the 1960s or 70s, not the eighteenth century. They listen to what they grew up with and are preoccupied with their own youthful past, not the cultural past. (Among them, the specialists who listen, beyond their own youth, to the slightly older past like Sinatra and swing bands are most likely a minority next to the Springsteen, Dylan, Beatles and Grateful Dead listeners.) Then, there are the large masses of young listeners to current rap, rock and bubble gum soul and pop. They are not interested in any past. We could put them outside the pale and say what they listen to is junk, and much of it probably is, but I'd be very wary of saying none of it has lasting value. That would put me in the category of most older people throughout the ages who rejected new art in favor of established art.

So "most people are preoccupied with the past now'' has a several important qualifiers and subsets, and when considering the young, is not even true. Plus the overall situation is not just of now, but was more or less true at any point in cultural history, with the new replacing the old and its hangers-on, and perhaps a specialist minority interested in the even older old.   

[Mandryka]

Mozart has also become a symbol of the elite and powerful, which is why it is played in tube stations and carparks and so forth to keep out the lower classes; synonymous with a policeman's nightstick.

I think that this is interesting and I'd like to explore the idea. Is there any academic litereature? Did  Foucault write about music, or influence any writing about it?

[jochanaan]

...I don't think we have the same imbalance problem, the orchestras here are more likely to do a Beethoven festival, Mahler, Brahms, or Sibelius cycle.

That's orchestra programming for live concerts, not broadcasting--two very different animals.

[Beale]

That's orchestra programming for live concerts, not broadcasting--two very different animals.

That is correct. On our radio station Mozart is played regularly but not relentlessly. This is despite his Clarinet Concert voted one of the audience's most loved piece of music (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_100_Countdowns_(ABC)).

[starrynight]

You make some good points. But it's not as simple as saying 'most people.' People who listen to old classical music may be a majority of classical music listeners, but all classical music listeners are a minority compared to those who follow popular art forms like TV, movies and pop music. To them the past is much more immediate. To older people who listen to rock, the past is the 1960s or 70s, not the eighteenth century. They listen to what they grew up with and are preoccupied with their own youthful past, not the cultural past. (Among them, the specialists who listen, beyond their own youth, to the slightly older past like Sinatra and swing bands are most likely a minority next to the Springsteen, Dylan, Beatles and Grateful Dead listeners.) Then, there are the large masses of young listeners to current rap, rock and bubble gum soul and pop. They are not interested in any past. We could put them outside the pale and say what they listen to is junk, and much of it probably is, but I'd be very wary of saying none of it has lasting value. That would put me in the category of most older people throughout the ages who rejected new art in favor of established art.

So "most people are preoccupied with the past now'' has a several important qualifiers and subsets, and when considering the young, is not even true. Plus the overall situation is not just of now, but was more or less true at any point in cultural history, with the new replacing the old and its hangers-on, and perhaps a specialist minority interested in the even older old.

Well obviously there wasn't popular music as we know it in the 18th century, so people couldn't go to that anyway.  However I agree that people have nostalgia for that music that was produced in their earlier years, such as their teens.  But looking at now I don't think there is the same amount of agreement with popular music as their used to be, people are much more diverse, so I'm not sure the popular music of now has as big an impact.  And I know there is good music now as I've heard loads, just like there can be good in contemporary classical music too.  But it is very little known.  The hyped stuff is often not that great at all.  So in that sense the best music of our time now is passing people by, and the music that is good and that gets acclaim still is more older music.