Mozart

[Elgarian]

(And here I ought to admit that for many years I wasn't prepared to listen for it, and so I missed it, like James and Teresa do.....but when I did finally learn to listen, I felt I'd been very foolish, and was glad I'd never really spoken my misgivings out loud!)

That's pretty close to my situation too, though I did occasionally express my bafflement at what all the fuss was about. It was the dramatic creativity that he brought to the operas that eventually won me over. Suddenly (I still don't understand what brought about the difference) I was able to hear so much more of what was going on in the music, and most especially the way it related to the drama. Being exposed to the sheer richness of that swept all my prejudices away, and confirmed yet again my long-held view that whether I 'like' or 'don't like' a particular work of art is an unreliable guide to its merits. Indeed, if I find myself talking about 'liking or 'disliking' art, I can be pretty sure I've lost my grasp of the point of it.

[Philoctetes]

For instance, Philoctetes posted this little item earlier ..

http://blogcritics.org/music/article/why-mozart/

I think one should be quite cautious if you plan to use that to bolster your ideas. It's a very specific kind of website, with some amusing anencdotes but little beyond that to substantiate the overall tenor.

Which is not to say that I disagree with your general notion, of not liking Mozart. I personally don't care for him, but that is not what the argument is about anymore, it seems.

[MN Dave]

Okay, James doesn't like Mozart.

Next WAM-related topic?

[Philoctetes]

Okay, James doesn't like Mozart.

Next WAM-related topic?

http://www.jewishjournal.com/travel/article/curtain_rises_on_mozarts_jewish_tie_20060120/

[Lethevich]

Most recent Mozart listening: vol 6 of Rachel Podger and Gary Cooper's series of the Mozart violin sonatas, received as a gift a couple of days ago. It'll take me a couple more listenings yet before I have any opinion about them worth mentioning.

I love that series - the performers opened up the works to me after reactions of varying degrees of ambivolence from the various recordings I had previously heard.

[Herman]

James, let me put it like this.

I don't want you to like Mozart.

It's very good for you to dislike Mozart.

Some people have a special gift, others have a big car, you dislike Mozart.

I'm happy for ya.

And of course the 250 anniversary was overdone. However you can't blame Mozart for what silly marketeers do two centuries later. Personally I think there's a interesting bifurcation in Mozart's reputation. The mass audience listen to Mozart in the commute or while they preparing breakfast like the rhythmic serenadish stuff from Mozart's early years, and they like Mozart was a teenager when he churned out this stuff. They like the a minor sonata because he supposedly wrote it when his mother died, and the A major sonata because of the variations.  And there are the people who love the Da Ponte operas, the piano concertos, the string quintets and quartets, who also like those piano sonatas and symphonies, but are more familiar with the dark heart of Mozart's music. The first group of listeners could possibly find equal satisfaction in other composers of the era.

[Herman]

I'm not using it to bolster my ideas - though there are many serious musicians who dislike his music too, and state it out loud.

I wouldn't call the talking Gould (as opposed to the shutup Gould behind the keyboard) a serious musician.

The talking Gould was a mix of fifties' comedian and canny self-marketeer. Remember he stopped touring, so he had to sell his stuff in some other way, i.e. by making outrageous statements that were bound to get the media's attention.

[Brahmsian]

Ah James that work is sublime!  I heard that in concert.  And you get nothing from it?  Ah well.

David, I agree (RE:  K.361 Gran Partita).  Sublime indeed.  Probably still my favorite Mozart work. 

[karlhenning]

Okay, James doesn't like Mozart.

Well, but that has only dominated about ten pages of the thread so far.

I worry about James that he has so little to do with himself, that he trolls a Mozart thread to sing to the world how he dislikes Mozart.

[Franco]

Considering Gould recorded all the sonatas and fantasies and at least one of the concertos, he seemed to devote significant attention to a composer he did not think highly of.

Of course, his performances are not considered to be very good Mozart.

[karlhenning]

Of course, his performances are not considered to be very good Mozart.

Word.

[Luke]

Not quite sure what you're wanting me to answer, James.... it doesn't mean a thing that Gould, or whoever, didn't care for Mozart. Mike already made a nice little list of much better musicians than Gould who didn't care for [insert composer here] (Britten didn't like Brahms and all that), but none of that means anything, just as I doubt it shakes your own tastes to consider that Bach would, presumably, have hated Stockhausen and Zappa, or whatever. And even if you want, somehow, to argue that the composer of the St Matthew Passion would have just adored FZ's 'I promise not to come in your mouth', the point remains -  no two people will have the same tastes and opinions and nor should they, and nor should the fact that Admired Musician A dislikes Admired Musician B necessarily cast doubt on Admired Musician B. And when you then remember that Admired Musicians C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y and Z disagree with Admired Musician A's disparagement of Admired Musician B, it might be worth paying some attention to them too......

No, this isn't about Gould's opinion (one which I always take with a plateful of salt anyway). It is about, as you have said, individual tastes, I agree with you. So to just add something to what I said earlier which I didn't think needed saying - I can imagine, in another life, having 'learnt' how to hear Mozart.....and yet still not liking him. I just found, once I knew how to listen, once I stopped dismissing him, that he was to my tastes after all. He might well not have been, I suppose.

[Scarpia]

It's time to stop feeding the troll. 

This thread should be about the wonderful things we have discovered listening to or playing works by Mozart.  Let our resident Mozart denier pipe up about how the piece of music that sends us into transports of ecstasy is actually boring and of poor quality.  These statements are just cries for undeserved attention, and not worth replying to.

[Elgarian]

I love that series - the performers opened up the works to me after reactions of varying degrees of ambivolence from the various recordings I had previously heard.

Yes. I already had the first five volumes in the series; a feature of them is that Podger and Cooper seem to convey how much they're enjoying the whole business, somehow.

What I haven't yet attempted is to compare them with the other collection I have:

Have you heard these? It was the first time I'd heard the sonatas, and this box knocked me for six. I can't explain why it made such an impact, though I felt that the sheer sense of 'presence' of the sounds that Devos and Kuijken were producing had a lot to do with it. Podger and Cooper seem a bit more 'polite', a bit 'smoother', but this may be arising from the character of the individual instruments they're using as well as the recording technique. And my memory may be playing tricks, as I recall the Golden Days of discovering the violin sonatas! I'm still feeling my way, and at some point I'll have to compare them properly.

[Gurn Blanston]

Yes. I already had the first five volumes in the series; a feature of them is that Podger and Cooper seem to convey how much they're enjoying the whole business, somehow.

What I haven't yet attempted is to compare them with the other collection I have:

Have you heard these? It was the first time I'd heard the sonatas, and this box knocked me for six. I can't explain why it made such an impact, though I felt that the sheer sense of 'presence' of the sounds that Devos and Kuijken were producing had a lot to do with it. Podger and Cooper seem a bit more 'polite', a bit 'smoother', but this may be arising from the character of the individual instruments they're using as well as the recording technique. And my memory may be playing tricks, as I recall the Golden Days of discovering the violin sonatas! I'm still feeling my way, and at some point I'll have to compare them properly.

I wouldn't, but then, that's just me. I have this Kuijken/Devos set, and also Breitman/Rivest and Banchini & (damn, can't remember the pianist right now ) and a whole lot of PI   F & V sonatas. I know that comparative listening is all the rage, but for whatever reason I get more pleasure by far in just listening to them as they come along, no matter the results of my (inevitably subjective) comparisons. All of these people are great musicians, and the music matches; enjoy them. As for Podger and her pianist, I'm sorely tempted to give them a try too. Not sure if they could have stretched the set over more disks than they have, though.  

[Elgarian]

I wouldn't, but then, that's just me. I have this Kuijken/Devos set, and also Breitman/Rivest and Banchini & (damn, can't remember the pianist right now ) and a whole lot of PI   F & V sonatas. I know that comparative listening is all the rage, but for whatever reason I get more pleasure by far in just listening to them as they come along, no matter the results of my (inevitably subjective) comparisons. All of these people are great musicians, and the music matches; enjoy them.

I had to smile, Gurn, reading this - because of course as you could probably guess from my post, my inclination has been NOT to sit down and compare them, work for work, but to do exactly what you suggest, and just enjoy each for what it is. Fact is that I haven't really wanted to do the comparative listening thing in this case, despite plenty of opportunity to do so. I just felt a vague misplaced sense of duty that I ought: as if there were a question that I really needed to answer. Well, sometimes there really is. There are pieces of music where I've felt excited at the prospect of comparing different interpretations; but the Mozart violin sonatas don't seem to be among them, at present. I've no idea why.

[Philoctetes]

Feltsman's playing Mozart on his very own Fortepiano, PLUS ONE! !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83yVM64pBXY

[Franco]

I am another one who does not try to compare recordings (except very rarely), and always feel a put little on the spot when I'm asked which of two or three different recordings I prefer, and why.  I am more of a "love the one I'm with" kind of listener.

[Elgarian]

I am another one who does not try to compare recordings (except very rarely), and always feel a put little on the spot when I'm asked which of two or three different recordings I prefer, and why.  I am more of a "love the one I'm with" kind of listener.

Yes, and yet I remember becoming really excited some months ago when I was comparing versions of the Mozart 25th piano concerto by Brendel, Schmidt, and Sofronitzki. The process opened up the music to me in a way I'd never have managed to achieve just by listening in my usual way, and what I learned about PC 25 was far more significant to me than what I learned about the differing interpretations. But generally speaking, each listening is like a walk in the countryside; I may recognise that the weather was different yesterday, and the day before, but I don't need a meteorological analysis in order to appreciate today's walk for what it is.

[bhodges]

But generally speaking, each listening is like a walk in the countryside; I may recognise that the weather was different yesterday, and the day before, but I don't need a meteorological analysis in order to appreciate today's walk for what it is.

Now that is quite beautifully put, thank you.

--Bruce