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Jan. 27th, 2006 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaalaMy incensed (and, I'll admit, not researched) response to this article:
Whoa! Tell us what you really think, Norman! While I agree we're almost certainly going to hear too much Mozart, I hardly think the man deserves such a thorough drubbing.
Mozart is the superstore wallpaper of classical music, the composer who pleases most and offends least. Lively, melodic, dissonance free: what's not to like?
Don Giovanni... the Requiem...
A coprophiliac obsession with bodily functions, accurately evinced in Peter Shaffer's play and Milos Forman's movie Amadeus, was a clear sign of arrested emotional development.
Hang on here--'Amadeus'? Accurate? "From the start we agreed on one thing: we were not making an objective Life of Wolfgang Mozart. This cannot be stressed too strongly. Obviously Amadeus on stage was never intended to be a documentary biography of the composer, and the film is even less of one."
The hard-knocks son of a cynical court musician,[...] he took pleasure in humiliating court rivals and crudely abused them in letters back home. [...] His marriage proved unstable and his inability to control the large amounts he earned[...]
Yes, true.
Musical genius he may have been, but Mozart was no Einstein. For secrets of the universe, seek elsewhere.
How is Einstein relevant to Mozart's humour, marriage and finances? And who ever said Mozart explained the
secrets of the universe anyhow?
The key test of any composer's importance is the extent to which he reshaped the art.
Um, not necessarily. Bach applied the art of counterpoint to quite possibly its most perfect form
but he was hardly an innovator. And how many people have heard of the Florentine Camerata or Jacopo Peri,
the people who basically invented opera?
Mozart merely filled the space between staves with chords that he knew would gratify a pampered audience. [...] a composer content to keep music in a state of servility so long as it kept him well supplied with frilled cuffs and fancy quills.
What else was he supposed to do in order to earn a living? He hardly had a stable long-term position like
Haydn.
He lacked the rage of justice that pushed Beethoven into isolation, or any urge to change the world.
No kidding: he wasn't a Romantic artist.
The 1991 bicentennial of Mozart's death turned Salzburg into a swamp of bad taste and cupidity.
From what I've seen of its remains, agreed.
In this orgy of simple-mindedness, the concurrent centenary of Dmitri Shostakovich - a composer of true
courage and historical significance - is being shunted to the sidelines, celebrated by the few.
Yes, very true (and unfortunate).
Mozart is a menace to musical progress, a relic of rituals that were losing relevance in his own time
Incidentally, I gather people said that about Bach near the end of his life.
Mozart has nothing to give to mind or spirit in the 21st century.
Well, obviously I disagree.
On the other hand, I quite agree with his later article.
Whoa! Tell us what you really think, Norman! While I agree we're almost certainly going to hear too much Mozart, I hardly think the man deserves such a thorough drubbing.
Mozart is the superstore wallpaper of classical music, the composer who pleases most and offends least. Lively, melodic, dissonance free: what's not to like?
Don Giovanni... the Requiem...
A coprophiliac obsession with bodily functions, accurately evinced in Peter Shaffer's play and Milos Forman's movie Amadeus, was a clear sign of arrested emotional development.
Hang on here--'Amadeus'? Accurate? "From the start we agreed on one thing: we were not making an objective Life of Wolfgang Mozart. This cannot be stressed too strongly. Obviously Amadeus on stage was never intended to be a documentary biography of the composer, and the film is even less of one."
The hard-knocks son of a cynical court musician,[...] he took pleasure in humiliating court rivals and crudely abused them in letters back home. [...] His marriage proved unstable and his inability to control the large amounts he earned[...]
Yes, true.
Musical genius he may have been, but Mozart was no Einstein. For secrets of the universe, seek elsewhere.
How is Einstein relevant to Mozart's humour, marriage and finances? And who ever said Mozart explained the
secrets of the universe anyhow?
The key test of any composer's importance is the extent to which he reshaped the art.
Um, not necessarily. Bach applied the art of counterpoint to quite possibly its most perfect form
but he was hardly an innovator. And how many people have heard of the Florentine Camerata or Jacopo Peri,
the people who basically invented opera?
Mozart merely filled the space between staves with chords that he knew would gratify a pampered audience. [...] a composer content to keep music in a state of servility so long as it kept him well supplied with frilled cuffs and fancy quills.
What else was he supposed to do in order to earn a living? He hardly had a stable long-term position like
Haydn.
He lacked the rage of justice that pushed Beethoven into isolation, or any urge to change the world.
No kidding: he wasn't a Romantic artist.
The 1991 bicentennial of Mozart's death turned Salzburg into a swamp of bad taste and cupidity.
From what I've seen of its remains, agreed.
In this orgy of simple-mindedness, the concurrent centenary of Dmitri Shostakovich - a composer of true
courage and historical significance - is being shunted to the sidelines, celebrated by the few.
Yes, very true (and unfortunate).
Mozart is a menace to musical progress, a relic of rituals that were losing relevance in his own time
Incidentally, I gather people said that about Bach near the end of his life.
Mozart has nothing to give to mind or spirit in the 21st century.
Well, obviously I disagree.
On the other hand, I quite agree with his later article.
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 06:02 am (UTC)The whole piece reads like a Clap-For-Credit listening log by some PR (or commerce, or journalism...) hack. Even Vogan would give that a C.
Well...maybe a B-. But he still got paid for it, I bet.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-28 06:43 am (UTC)I honestly have no idea. La Scena Musicale is a free magazine, after all.