Re: Mozart Dissing

["Mark Williamson" <mwilliamson@alston.com>]

     Here, here (or is it hear, hear?) to all of this.  I agree 
     with everything you said.  Particularly with respect to the 
     relationship between form and classicism.
     
     Except maybe the movie "Amadeus."  This is meant as a work 
     of fiction drawing loosely from real-life characters.  
     (There are also some unintended historical inaccuracies, but 
     there has been some very important scholarship since that 
     movie was made and I'm not sure it would be written exactly 
     the same way today.)  My primitive understanding, from the 
     theatrical reviews I have read, is that the stage version 
     was much more clearly presented as a fictional work, almost 
     as a murder mystery.  (Salieri is a murderer in the movie 
     only in the loosest since of the word.)  Sadly, I have never 
     had the opportunity to see the stage version.  Has anyone 
     else seen it, and would care to comment?
     
     Warm hugs
     
     Mark


______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Mozart Dissing
Author:  "Bob & Judy Williams" <prospero@netins.net> at internet
Date:    9/3/97 9:35 AM


This is an interesting subject and something that came as a surprise 
to me. I belong to more music lists than this one and on each of them 
Mozart has been a topic. A very large number of posters are left cold 
by Mozart. One, a man whose opinion in other areas I respect highly, 
said that for him Mozart's music just laid there. For him it didn't do 
anything or go anywhere. He made an exception of the G Minor Quintet. 
This proves his perception since this work is different.
     
It cannot be argued that the composers of this period used set forms 
and poured new ideas into them, a creative approach which is foreign 
to our more individualistic age. Haydn followed patterns just as 
Mozart did but most addicts to music like Haydn. I do myself. I see 
in Haydn a more robust composer than Mozart but I can't always tell 
one from the other if I am listening to a new piece by either.
     
I agree with Rohan's assessment of Amadeus. This is a terrible movie 
although the incredibly high production values can suck you in and 
blind you temporarily to its deficiencies.
     
GG's opinion of Mozart may represent an undercurrent of 
dissatisfaction that has a certain relationship to personality 
phases. At times every person capable of growth will shake off 
particular fixations. Sometimes the process is notably destructive 
but such a process is necessary to the development of the individual.
     
Bob Williams