Quote:
Originally Posted by Lisa.Kinzer
Your comment reminds me of the scene in Amadeus where Mozart debuts his opera for his patron:
Emperor Joseph II says, "there are simply too many notes...just cut a few."
And Mozart goes half-postal and replies, "which few did you have in mind?"
Emperor's complaint is really funny, but so true...
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Hey now, I am a big fan of Mozart. Which few notes, indeed? At the time and place Mozart was composing most or all of his contemporaries were engaged in wirting works full of cliches such as scale runs to a chrod or arpeggios repeated in different steps, etc. The audience expected, ney, demanded, these types of cliches in their music. THe genius of mozart lies, among other places, in the fact that he could deliver the expected cliches in an unsrupassed artisitc package.
Also, I think one has to put his light opera and popular work (for example the SF Symphony chorus perfromed a canon that was called something like "You Assinine Martin" which was full of very explicit scatological jokes) in a separate category from his concertos , etc., which are all in a different catefogry from his serious opera and liturgical works. His unfinished Requiem Mass is sublimely beautiful and has not one note too many. Similarly, Don Giovanni is also superb and not unduly technical or contrived.
Don't forget, Mozart was a young man, leaving this incredible ouevre without ever reaching the age of 40. Heck, I didn't even quit using 'pull my finger' jokes with my kids until I was older htan that, so who knows what he might have accomplished had he been pernmitted to linger longer in this life?
Sometimes listening to Mozart I get the feeling that he worte some of the things he did becasue he could. No other reason, just becasue he could and no one else could and it was fun and he would have been bored otherwise. He was, musically, that far beyond most everyone else.