Malcolm was making some assertions about musicians, including Mozart. It was clear he didn’t really know much specifically about Mozart and was just generalising by applying assumptions based on his long experience of many other musicians. Brian and I effectively acted as a team (tag team), telling Malcolm some historical facts/events of Mozart’s life, agreeing with each other against Malcolm and explaining how exceptional Mozart was even compared to other exceptional musicians. It wasn’t as confrontational as it perhaps sounds.
It took me some time (many many years) to get into Mozart once I become interested of classical music. When I did it was his Piano Concertos. I think it is easy to believe Mozart's music is simple and even banal, but it is all because as a genius he was able to do difficult things effortlessly making them sound easier than they are.
It took me some time (many many years) to get into Mozart once I become interested of classical music. When I did it was his Piano Concertos. I think it is easy to believe Mozart's music is simple and even banal, but it is all because as a genius he was able to do difficult things effortlessly making them sound easier than they are.
Maybe it's also easy for us today just to look on him as a contemporary composer. But I think we also have to consider him in his era: he was forced from his father to be a virtuoso, and so some of the compositions we analyze are from him as a teenager. I also really have feelings towards his piano concertos, some of his operas, and the requiem. What is amazing is how prolific he was considering him dying at the age of 35.
The incredible pleasantness of Mozart's music makes it easy for people to take him for granted and look at his music as purely decorative. And it's perfectly fine to appreciate his work on that level if you want to. But there's depth behind it if you want to look for it. Handel and some of the French baroque composers used ornament for ornament's sake sometimes. Their stuff can tread water like a lace doily at times, but Mozart usually had guts behind all the prettiness. I think Don Giovanni is fantastic.
It was a bit different for me. If you study classical music at school and higher levels, Mozart is one of those you study to death. A bit like studying English and having to study Shakespeare to death.
I think it is easy to believe Mozart's music is simple and even banal, but it is all because as a genius he was able to do difficult things effortlessly making them sound easier than they are.
I can see how/why you would put it like that. Compared to the previous (Baroque) style, the classical period style sounds simpler because it was based more on the “vertical” than the “horizontal”, more driven by harmony and tonal colour than by counterpoint. Due to when Mozart was composing and for whom, it also sounds simpler/more banal than what came after. The Romantic period composers discovered that audiences weren’t only entertained by beautiful music but by surprising music and even by being shocked. There’s a sort of perfection in Mozart’s compositions, he seems to just know and always do exactly the right “text book” thing. So if you study theory, you know what’s coming next even if you haven’t heard the piece before. This is why I have huge appreciation and admiration for Mozart’s works but I rarely listen to it just for pleasure, it’s too “text book”/predictable for my personal tastes.
It was a bit different for me. If you study classical music at school and higher levels, Mozart is one of those you study to death. A bit like studying English and having to study Shakespeare to death.
I learned practically nothing about music in school. I don't even understand how that is possible and what happened during the music classes, but I have to say I was only getting into music listening in high-school (late 80's) and the music I listened to was electronic dance music (Acid House of late 80's got me interested of music while the popular music/rock/metal other classmates listened did not interest me at all). Since the music in the music classes was totally different from electronic dance music, I wasn't interested and thought about them as totally different things. I even believed that classical music is too old for modern ears and that people liking classical music are "stuck" in the 19th century while the rest of the population is heading to the 21st century with electronic music! I assumed electronic instruments to be vastly superior to acoustic instruments, because they were developed in much later time of technological advancement.
In the university I met my best friend who plays violin and he told me some classical music sounds epic. So, during the 90's I got more interested of classical music and in 1996 I started to listen to a classical radio station. In the beginning the totally acoustic nature of the music was a bit weird to my ears, but I was surprised how fast my ears got used to it and how good classical music sounded! This was the first music lesson in my life I learned: What we think about music is often just stupid prejudice before we know better. My knowledge of classical music skyrocketed in 1996-1997 from almost zero to knowing Nicolaus Bruhns was Dietrich Buxtehude's favorite pupil. I got interested of classical music somewhat late, at around age 25, but most people NEVER get interested! Why would they when they are force-fed Ed Sheeran as the absolute best music has to offer?
I can see how/why you would put it like that. Compared to the previous (Baroque) style, the classical period style sounds simpler because it was based more on the “vertical” than the “horizontal”, more driven by harmony and tonal colour than by counterpoint.
Due to when Mozart was composing and for whom, it also sounds simpler/more banal than what came after. The Romantic period composers discovered that audiences weren’t only entertained by beautiful music but by surprising music and even by being shocked. There’s a sort of perfection in Mozart’s compositions, he seems to just know and always do exactly the right “text book” thing. So if you study theory, you know what’s coming next even if you haven’t heard the piece before. This is why I have huge appreciation and admiration for Mozart’s works but I rarely listen to it just for pleasure, it’s too “text book”/predictable for my personal tastes.
I'll stick up for Wolfie. I grew up on Mozart. My mom loved the piano concertos and had a dozen or so of them on LP, and when I was a teenager, I picked up a used set of Bohm's symphonies. I listened the hell out of those records. Still love them to this day. Simple and appealing isn't as easy to create as complex and convoluted. There's lots of room for the performer to interpret too. The older I get, the more I appreciate Mozart.
I grew up on jazz, because my father is into that and on Christmas time on chocolate Mozart Kugel.
So, if I liked something as a kid, it was Clifford Brown/Max Roach and Cato Barbieri's Bolivia album was also cool. Most of the jazz my father listened wasn't interesting to me and even today I struggle to enjoy jazz, but there are certain types of jazz I do like.
I was the youngest child, so I grew up with 60s pop and singer/songwriters from my sister, classical music and piano jazz from my mother, big band swing and easy listening from my dad, and hard rock and antique music from my brother. I listened to all that and added comedy and synth to the mix. Since then, my tastes have broadened, believe it or not!
No one's mentioned Brahms. When I was only listening to classical I often played his Symphony number 4 and quite a bit of Sibelius, Stravinsky. Scheherazade was a favourite. Mozart was one composer I completely skipped for some reason, probably saw his music as too flamboyant/flashy.
To contribute my limited opinion to the diversion of this thread to classical music:
For Mozart, with his ingenious music, I often found performers to be a limiting link. I commonly enjoyed Mozart performance by children much more - while imperfect technically - often much more in spirit of Mozart to me.
Not able to fully embrace Don Giovanni (may need another lifetime with operas), my most enjoyment and synergy with Mozart comes from his late clarinet masterpieces - a quintet and a clarinet concerto.
There are many great performers, one to note is David Shiffrin with his gentle and delicate interpretation on an extended/basset clarinet in A.
Similarly, Brahms for me - only the late pieces after returning from his "retirement" resonate strongly, - clarinet/viola music and his last unfinished organ masterpiece that touches me profoundly, where he switched from "inheriting" Beethoven to Bach for his very last music.
On another/last note of the intersect of folk/people and classical music (brought by Stravinsky and Lithuanian music) - Vejo Tormis, and especially his "Forgotten People" of resurrecting Finno-Ugric cultural/musical heritage is a choral masterpiece, hopefully, not to be forgotten.
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