Mozart

Started by facehugger, April 06, 2007, 02:37:52 PM

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Herman

and essentially untranslatable, sorry.

karlhenning

Quote from: Mozart on May 29, 2009, 10:37:15 PM
I've read many times of the dirty letters Mozart wrote his cousin, but I've never actually read the letter...I'm so curious!

If your interest extends beyond that scatological frisson . . . all the letters together are a fascinating and enjoyable read, and not a huge book.

karlhenning

Quote from: snyprrr on May 29, 2009, 02:32:24 PM
I'm listening to Mozart SQ No.23 again now. It still sounds more "subdued", but those "dangling floral chromatics", the "perfume" still say "Mozart" to me. So I ask, are "noodly chromatic embellishments" Mozart's trademark? To me, it gives the music a slightly "tipsy" character, like a drunk who doesn't know whether to laugh or cry?

Yes, those chromatic graces of turn are one of his trademarks.

I tell you, I really missed them in a symphony I recently heard by one of Mozart's contemporaries  ;)

karlhenning

Quote from: Herman on May 29, 2009, 06:15:54 AM
Indeed. Mozart's genius didn't just consist in 'inventing' new stuff, but also in combining and juxtaposing all kinds of material and tropes he'd met on his way to maturity. The feverish way he absorbed the J.S. Bach material Baron Von Swieten provided him with in the early eighties is a case in point. All really great art geniuses have had this sponge-like capacity.

And whether Mozart actually knew this particular Haydn symphony or not, I got a huge kick out of the do-re-fa-mi quasi-cantus firmus in the last movement of the Haydn Symphony № 13.

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 30, 2009, 01:38:12 PM
And whether Mozart actually knew this particular Haydn symphony or not, I got a huge kick out of the do-re-fa-mi quasi-cantus firmus in the last movement of the Haydn Symphony № 13.

You can be fairly sure he hadn'[t ever heard it, it was written in 1763 in Esterházy and likely never left there in Mozart's lifetime (most of the earlier ones weren't published until all concerned were dead and gone). But that is a lovely fugato finale, an early prelude to what he would essay in the Op 20 quartets a few years later. :)

8)

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Listening to:
The Rasumovsky Quartet - Boughton Quartet in F for Strings "From the Welsh Hills"  Landscape from the Hilltops
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 30, 2009, 02:56:35 PM
You can be fairly sure he hadn'[t ever heard it, it was written in 1763 in Esterházy and likely never left there in Mozart's lifetime (most of the earlier ones weren't published until all concerned were dead and gone). But that is a lovely fugato finale, an early prelude to what he would essay in the Op 20 quartets a few years later. :)

8)

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Listening to:
The Rasumovsky Quartet - Boughton Quartet in F for Strings "From the Welsh Hills"  Landscape from the Hilltops

Invertible counterpoint?  :)

8)

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Listening to:
Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra / Fischer - Hob 01 013 Symphony in D 4th mvmt - Finale: Allegro molto
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

karlhenning

Yes, if I had been driven to hazard a guess, Gurn, I should have thought it unlikely that Mozart had known so early a work (particularly) of Papa's.

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 30, 2009, 03:25:42 PM
Yes, if I had been driven to hazard a guess, Gurn, I should have thought it unlikely that Mozart had known so early a work (particularly) of Papa's.

I would love to gain access to something like Robbins-Landon's magnum opus in order to be able to see when such things occurred. New Grove has some (but not all) of that sort of info. I guess i could cut loose a thousand or so for the set... :D

8)

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Listening to:
Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra / Fischer - Hob 01 014 Symphony in A 4th mvmt - Finale: Presto
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

karlhenning

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on May 30, 2009, 03:32:57 PM
I would love to gain access to something like Robbins-Landon's magnum opus in order to be able to see when such things occurred. New Grove has some (but not all) of that sort of info. I guess i could cut loose a thousand or so for the set... :D

Or come to Boston;  I'll bring you in to the NEC library  8)

karlhenning

Do you know, ten of the messages on p. 1 of this thread are by members who "went guest."

Just a funny thing.

Carry on . . . .

Herman

It's the Mozart Curse no doubt.

Quote from: postman on May 31, 2009, 04:26:38 AM
Mozart being presented as a naïve and transcendental 'genius', a person who floats through the alleged artistic episodes of his life 

Reading one recent post of the Postman Who Keeps On Knocking it struck me how hopelessly outdated this strawman Mozart of his is. The research that demonstrated that Mozart, contrary to 19th century wishful thinking, did indeed work really hard on his more ambitious compositions, was done several generations ago.

Nevermind.

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: Herman on June 01, 2009, 04:22:55 AM
It's the Mozart Curse no doubt.

Reading one recent post of the Postman Who Keeps On Knocking it struck me how hopelessly outdated this strawman Mozart of his is. The research that demonstrated that Mozart, contrary to 19th century wishful thinking, did indeed work really hard on his more ambitious compositions, was done several generations ago.

Nevermind.

The letter that this myth is based on wasn't written until 1815 and has been proven to be a totally bogus "recollection", yet the myth it engendered appears to be ineradicable. ::)

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

karlhenning

Doesn't help that there are yet more doofi eager to mythologize  8)

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 01, 2009, 03:40:11 AM
Or come to Boston;  I'll bring you in to the NEC library  8)

Oh, bring me in, sure. Who in hell is going to get me out again? And with how many helpers?  No, it's too scary to contemplate;

He may ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston
He's a man who never returned


:D

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 01, 2009, 04:37:23 AM
Doesn't help that there are yet more doofi eager to mythologize  8)

Well, the world needs doofi, too. If only to make we, the flawless, more aware of our crystalline omniscience. ;D

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

Herman

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on June 01, 2009, 04:36:04 AM
The letter that this myth is based on wasn't written until 1815 and has been proven to be a totally bogus "recollection", yet the myth it engendered appears to be ineradicable. ::)

Remind me please who wrote this letter?

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: Herman on June 01, 2009, 04:47:47 AM
Remind me please who wrote this letter?

Can't remember the name OTTOMH, but it is the one that describes Mozart as going into a trancelike state when he composes, and that from that point it is like "automatic writing" until a finished fair copy is completed. I'll look it up tonight and post it. In any case, within a few years of the publication of it, this myth was totally incorporated into the biography. ::)

8)
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Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)

DavidRoss

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on June 01, 2009, 04:39:32 AM
Well, the world needs doofi, too.

Thank you.  As a doofus in several respects, I'm grateful not only to be tolerated, but also to be corrected, educated, even (insofar as possible) enlightened.  How else could I hope to become less doofy?

"Maybe the problem most of you have ... is that you're not listening to Barbirolli." ~Sarge

"The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other people's money." ~Margaret Thatcher

karlhenning

Some of my best friends are doofs . . . .

Gurn Blanston

Quote from: DavidRoss on June 01, 2009, 05:26:55 AM
Thank you.  As a doofus in several respects, I'm grateful not only to be tolerated, but also to be corrected, educated, even (insofar as possible) enlightened.  How else could I hope to become less doofy?



Such a wonderful attitude; would there were more like you... ;D

8)
Visit my Haydn blog: HaydnSeek

Haydn: that genius of vulgar music who induces an inordinate thirst for beer - Mily Balakirev (1860)