Sometimes, nothing but Mozart

[starrynight]

If Mozart just sounds 'pretty' it's probably a problem with the performance in most cases.  And really most music tries to sound pretty and well crafted anyway, music is about order rather than chaos.

[Florestan]

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.

That's a whole load of crap!

[Karl Henning]

+ 1

[NJ Joe]

If Mozart just sounds 'pretty' it's probably a problem with the performance in most cases. 

+1

[NJ Joe]

>>Why is Mozart scheduled so relentlessly on classical music radio stations and in Mozart music festivals??<<

My simple answer would be:
His music is highly intelligent, supremely crafted, infectiously melodious, and easy on the ear.  All at the same time.

But what do I know?  Therefore, I searched the internet for an answer and found the perfect explanation on Ask.com:

Answer
Mozart was so famous because he composed over 600 musical pieces. His works included compositions in symphony, operatic, chamber, piano and choral, among others. He was 5 inches tall.

[Mandryka]

That's a whole load of crap!

I don't think that's quite fair.


For many people in the UK at least, music is very strongly linked to identity. The music you listen to, like your clothes, your argot, your accent, partly constitutes who you are.

Piped classical music, Mozart included (Mozart especially) is known to be an effective means of crowd control, it repels crowds of teenagers who may be up to no good in public spaces. And my guess is that it works partly because their identity is strongly opposed to the music's social dimension. The music makes them feel in the wrong place.

I don't know if Mozart is such a good repellent because it's "a symbol of the elite and powerful", as amw wrote, that's why I asked him of there was any literature on this, but it sounds quite possible to me.

[prémont]

I remember you once arguing that when something's in French ouverture form it should be regally played. I thought of this when I was exploring CU 3 recently because BWV 681 is a French Ouverture, and true to form, there are some very good regal performances (Astronio's for example, and Hans Otto)

But it was Kåre Nordstoga's gentle melancholy account which made me see that there was a better way, not the one on her complete CU3 record, but rather the one on a disc which includes Bach corales and Norwegian folk hymns. But best of all Hans Fagius, because of the sweet emotional depth that he finds in it. My bet is that Fagius sees the music as a commentary on the second verse of the hymn, a meditation of Jesus, the dramatic dissonant chords towards the end a representation of his crucifixion, followed by the glory of his rising.

I'm posting this because the most satisfying performances may not base the emotions they find in the music on the music itself, in my opinion.

But your last sentence may well be true for music which isn't grounded in a text.

Trying to deduce a musician's interpretation of a choral prelude from parts of the hymn text often proves to be more confusing than instructive, so I think that one should only refer to the overall affect of the text, in order not to overinterprete the composers intention.

So I maintain that BWV 681 (Wir glauben all an einen Gott = CREDO) should be played in a regal way and not in a gentle melancolic way, so much more as the music from a formal consideration is cast in the style of a French ouverture. I suppose Bach had his own reasons.

[NorthNYMark]

Mr Lebrecht seems to commit the false-consensus error with quite a bit of regularity. I think even he is aware that while you and a few others may agree with him, the vast majority of musicians, listeners and critics do not -- thus his little swipes at that majority, dismissing them as not "true" music lovers or aesthetes. I also like his claim to understand Mozart better than Schnabel or Brendel did, and the unstated assumption that of course they would agree with him if they were as enlightened.

I'm just pointing these things out for anyone who might question why I find NL among the most disreputable, unscrupulous and generally unpleasant writers on music nowadays. That article is hardly the worst example out there, either.

Yes, yes, indeed.  Lebrecht is the personification of "junk musicology" (to adapt the term "junk science"). [ Taking Lebrecht's "journalism" seriously ] = confirmation bias 

Anyone who finds too much Mozart obnoxious, can simply supplement by listening to any of a hundred other composers.  It's a win-win, because one's ear does not tire of Mozart, and Mozart does not at all suffer in the comparison.

I'm not familiar with Mr. Lebrecht's writing in general, and it looks to me like it's meant to be taken more on the level of entertainment than serious musicology or journalism.  That being said, I noticed an interesting tension in the essay--on the one hand, he sometimes seems to be criticizing Mozart very harshly, especially in comparison to Beethoven; on the other, by the conclusion, he is back to talking about Mozart in terms of genius, which I think is meant to suggest that overexposure to ANY artist, even a genius, can result in the kind of cranky reaction that he may be exaggerating for effect in the "offending" parts of the essay.  In the end, his essay is not the critique of Mozart that it initially appears to be, but a critique of unimaginative radio and festival programmers who do a disservice to Mozart's art more than anything else in their alleged relentlessness in programming it in wall-to-wall fashion.

Perhaps I give the essay author credit for a subtlety that further exposure would cause me to re-evaluate; nonetheless, I do think that what I have described is closer to this thread's original poster's intent than some have been implying.  The critique is not of Mozart's "prettiness," but of the radio programmers and audiences that he feels overexpose Mozart.  His question was not whether Mozart's music was in fact "too pretty," but whether that prettiness is the characteristic that causes the popular "Mostly Mozart" phenomenon that may bother fans of Mozart just as much as detractors.

In the spirit of full disclosure, my own reaction to Mozart was initially not far from what Lebrecht describes in his more cantankerous paragraphs, but after listening to some very impressive performances of the piano concertos, my appreciation of his music is beginning to develop considerably (and to be sure, I always suspected that would happen).  I have some sympathy for what I take to be Lebrecht's (and the OP's) position here, in that I feel the sheer (and yes, unrelenting) ubiquity of Mozart's music may have had an effect on my initially (and unfairly) negative response to 18th century music in general.

[Florestan]

For many people in the UK at least, music is very strongly linked to identity. The music you listen to, like your clothes, your argot, your accent, partly constitutes who you are.

Get outta here, man!  Are you going to tell me seriously that. musically speaking, the whole British society is strictly compartmentalized in rigid, tightly insulated boxes without any intercommunication whatsoever, and that somebody listening to Mozart cannot possibly listen to hard rock or pop, and viceversa?

Piped classical music, Mozart included (Mozart especially) is known to be an effective means of crowd control, it repels crowds of teenagers who may be up to no good in public spaces.

Get outta here, man!  Are you going to tell me seriously that suddenly playing Mozart in a mall is guaranteed to make teenagers run like hell and never come back? Or that playing Mozart in a parking is the surest way to prevent the blue-collars from using it?

And my guess is that it works partly because their identity is strongly opposed to the music's social dimension. The music makes them feel in the wrong place.

"Their identity", hmmmm... Who are "they"? And what is their "identity"? And, above all, what is the social dimension of Mozart's music? Are you going to try selling me the tired cliche of classical music as a bourgeois, or even aristocratic, affair that has nothing to do with the common man in the street? Sorry, I don't buy it --- for the simple reason that the vast majority of musicians, composers and performers alike, were never ever either aristocrats or bourgeois. (Not that I fault anyone for being aristocrat or bourgeois; not what someone is, but what someone does is by far the most important criterion). 

I don't know if Mozart is such a good repellent because it's "a symbol of the elite and powerful", as amw wrote, that's why I asked him of there was any literature on this, but it sounds quite possible to me.

Poor Mozart... All his life was a battle against snobbery, proper or reverse, and he didn't have much use for "the elite and powerful' as such, yet now he is their symbol and their gendarme. And according to you, it's all the fault of the UK-ers. 

[Szykneij]

For those of us who do appreciate Mozart, there's some great stuff here. The last video, "Mozart on Mozart's Own Instrument" is fascinating.

http://www.wgbh.org/articles/Celebrate-Mozart-8954