The Mozart Experiment

[KevinP]

Here's the scenario.

A scientist successfully went back to Mozart's time, when the composer was 30, got a bit of his bio-data, and returned to the present, whereupon a scientific research centre cloned him. The result is a copy-and-paste of the composer, replete with all the memories and mannerisms that Mozart had at the moment he was sampled.

They've treated the clone well, but they keep him in the lab, at least until such a time that he's been reasonably acculturated and ready to move outside. They have introduced him to the concept of recorded music, though so far they have only played him music he is already familiar with, both his and others'.

You've been called in as the local resident expert in classical music. As an experiment, they want to introduce him to music that hasn't yet been written.

What music would you play for him? Beethoven? Debussy? John Cage? Steve Reich? The Go-Gos? Switched on Bach?

You decide.

[San Antone]

they want to introduce him to music that hasn't yet been written.

Is this really what you meant to write?

[KevinP]

Oops. No. Music that hadn't yet been written at that point in Mozart's life.

[AnotherSpin]

It would probably be easier to take some living composer, let's say Steve Reich, lock him in a lab and let him listen to Mozart recordings.

[Florestan]

The scientists eventually realized that what they did is both unethical and absurd and decided to terminate the exoeriment. As they couldn't simply kill "Mozart", they decided to play him something by Xenakis, reckoning that chances are great he might either have a fatal heart failure or commit suicide. 

[Jo498]

There is a humourous novel "Herr Mozart wacht auf" (Mr. Mozart awakes) by Eva Baronsky that has Mozart time travelling to 2006 Vienna. It's not badly done, but it's too long I read it to recall details. Among other things Mozart plays in cafés and pubs for a living. Not sure if it has been translated. Apparently the author wrote a sequel in 2017 (Mr. Mozart celebrates Christmas).

[Spotted Horses]

You could have bypassed that elaborate preamble about the medical data and just said, "what if you had a time machine and could bring a 30 year old Mozart to the present day." (Sort of like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.)

It's something I imagine at times, for fun. I'd take him for a taxi ride thorough a modern city to a concert hall where Karajan is conducting his Symphony No 41. He'd astonished by modern life, then he'd be shocked that 200 years later they are still playing his symphony. I'd be curious to see if he said, "that performance was unimaginably good" or "that was awful!" The next thing on the program would be Brahms' 4th symphony. What would Mozart say? "That composer needs lessons, so many wrong notes!"

[Florestan]

You could have bypassed that elaborate preamble about the medical data and just said, "what if you had a time machine and could bring a 30 year old Mozart to the present day." (Sort of like Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.)

It's something I imagine at times, for fun. I'd take him for a taxi ride thorough a modern city to a concert hall where Karajan is conducting his Symphony No 41. He'd astonished by modern life, then he'd be shocked that 200 years later they are still playing his symphony. I'd be curious to see if he said, "that performance was unimaginably good" or "that was awful!" The next thing on the program would be Brahms' 4th symphony. What would Mozart say? "That composer needs lessons, so many wrong notes!"

You could also play him, or have him attend live, Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra and tell him "this music is by one of your pupils". Now, his reaction to that would be indeed something to watch. 

[amw]

I mean the obvious answer with any musician from the past is to have them take a music history/literature and materials of music/etc class that covers things in sequential order. with Mozart you could skip the first half and start in 1791 or whatever with late Haydn, Beethoven, Rossini, Weber, etc and then work your way through the next 230 years on a weekly basis. these have fairly standardized curricula for a reason. juxtapose Beethoven 5 with the French Revolution and Napoleon sweeping away the old aristocratic order or whatever, Der Freischütz with the birth of German nationalism, Chopin's piano works with the growth of the urban bourgeoisie, Symphonie Fantastique with the vision of the artist as hero (or villain), etc. but also I suspect Mozart would be way more interested in like, learning how to play games on his smartphone, watching TV etc.

[Spotted Horses]

You could also play him, or have him attend live, Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra and tell him "this music is by one of your pupils". Now, his reaction to that would be indeed something to watch. 

I think Brahms is close enough and respectful enough of Mozart's tradition that Mozart would recognize it as music, very free and transgressive. I don't think he'd recognize the Schoenberg pieces as music. He'd be like, "okay, they've tuned their instruments, when are they going to play something? That was it? You have to be kidding me." If you showed Rembrandt a Jackson Pollock painting, he'd think it was a drop cloth.

And I agree Mozart would probably find music as the least shocking thing about modern life.

[DavidW]

Carter, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Boulez, Crumb etc.  A wide variety of styles including minimalism (Glass), neotonal (Penderecki)... and then see what he does.  What would a Mozart produce if unfettered by form and convention?  Or is he such a product of his time that he could not leave it?  I have a feeling that Beethoven could transcend classicism, but I don't know about Mozart.

[Spotted Horses]

Carter, Stockhausen, Xenakis, Boulez, Crumb etc.  A wide variety of styles including minimalism (Glass), neotonal (Penderecki)... and then see what he does.  What would a Mozart produce if unfettered by form and convention?  Or is he such a product of his time that he could not leave it?  I have a feeling that Beethoven could transcend classicism, but I don't know about Mozart.

In Mozart I find passages which transcend the style of his time in a way which is hardly noticeable to someone who is not attentive. I think he'd be keen on extending his style.I don't think he'd assimilate Boulez. I imagine his music sounding like Brahms.

Mozart was also a practical musician. We might find him mostly impressed by the ability to make money, and he might decide to focus on lucrative movie soundtracks.

[San Antone]

I don't think that Mozart would be surprised by any music written and what we see as innovations were present in the music of Bach, Mozart, and many other composers during, and before, Mozart's time.  These elements may have been submerged, or handled differently, but they were not something foreign to Mozart's comprehension.

He might be disappointed, though, with the course that classical music has taken.  And he might find more value in other kinds of music.

[Florestan]

Given his personality and lifestyle, I believe he'd have felt most at home and at ease in Paris in the 1820s and 1830s, where he would have made big money precisely from what he loved most: opera and piano playing. Imagine his thrill at writing arias, duets and ensembles for the superlative array of singers available; imagine his excitement at playing, and writing for, the Erard and Pleyel pianos; finally, imagine Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Meyerbeer combined in one and the same person in whom Liszt, Thalberg and Herz were also combined. What with his versatile genius and his superhuman ability to adapt to, and creatively use, all available styles and conventions without breaking them he'd have outdone them all, and not only in music. He'd have been the uncrowned king of the musical and social life in Paris, that is in the whole Europe, earning huge money and wasting them just as quick with his lavish and carefree lifestyle. He'd have been amused or bored by Schumann's sanctimonious pronouncements against the sort of music he wrote (if he paid any attention at all to them, that is). He'd have toured Europe and quite possibly the Americas as well. Also quite possibly, at some point he might have retired from the active life as a composer and performer and spent the remainder of his life enjoying his hobbies and entertaining distinguished guests, just as Rossini did (of all subsequent composers, I think it's Rossini who is the closest to Mozart in personality and musical philosophy, insofar as both can be said to have had any --- philosophy that is, not personality which they had aplenty).

The next best place for him would have been also Paris, this time during the Second Empire, where he'd have outdone Gounod, Offenbach and Saint-Saens.

Of course, early 19th century Vienna might have been the natural place for him but from there he'd surely have gone on tour to Paris and once there he'd have never looked back.

I don't think he'd have enoyed living and working in Berlin, Leipzig or London. Maybe Milan, Naples or Venice.

Just my two cents.