# What is the significance of the "Mozart is overrated" attitude?



## millionrainbows

Why does this "Mozart is overrated" idea keep cropping up, in various different places? 
It has become a "meme," and has a life of its own.

There must be some sort of vague, generalized archetypal veracity to this claim, bearing in mind that it is a very non-specific criticism.

What "truth," or perception, if only a generalized notion, is behind this claim?

Here are some possibilities:

1. A segment of the population does not like *'high falootin' artsy music, a*nd Mozart seems to be the 'poster boy' or target for this, because he is the most *famous o*f other possible targets, such as Mendelssohn, Haydn, Handel, etc. Bach might be immune because of his religious associations.
2. *Mozart's image, and his music, convey an effeminate "powder-puff" aesthetic, *and this is toxic to Americans and other cultures which value a more "macho" male image.
3. Mozart is from a removed era of time which is alien to us; the Classical era of kings and royalty. This irks many people, as* they intuitively sense by the 'richness' and delicate, ornate nature of the music, *that this music was not meant for them, but for the distraction and entertainment of royals. Most of what Mozart's appearance and music stands for is irrelevant, and even repellent, to common wage slaves.
4.* Mozart's appearance and music, convey a sense of privileged elitism and wealth, *with his silk and satin suits, fancy hair-do, and ornate, delicate music. This irks common people who must work for a living.

So there you have it. To the great masses of disgruntled, disrespected, unfulfilled proletariat workers, by his appearance and by his music, Mozart represents the higher class, a wealthier class, and these common, disinterested critics can intuitively sense this by the general impression that his appearance and music conveys. He's an easy write-off.









_Mozart: He's better than you
_


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## Nereffid

"X is overrated" is merely shorthand for "I don't like X, and because I'm awesome, everyone who likes X is clearly wrong, and it's important that I make this fact clear to the rest of the world".


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## hpowders

Why should anybody care? Trust your own intelligence. Ignore ridiculous provocations.


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## bigshot

It's "kid thinking"... anything that has been established as being great must be lousy because "kids know best". It's the same as the inevitable "Beatles are overrated" threads on rock forums. It doesn't mean anything about the music. It's all about the narcissism and ignorance of the person making the statement.

When I first started in classical music, I had lots of stupid opinions like this too, including the "Mozart is just the musical equivalent of frilly hankerchiefs" theory. But as time went by and I heard more of Mozart's works, in particular the operas, horn concertos and complete piano concertos (wow! what an accomplishment those are!), my opinion matured.

In general, when I was young and ignorant, there was a lot of music I thought I didn't like. As I gained experience, I realized I just wasn't fluent in those particular musical languages yet. The more I hear and understand, the more I am able to appreciate.


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## Guest

Nereffid said:


> "X is overrated" is merely shorthand for "I don't like X, and because I'm awesome, everyone who likes X is clearly wrong, and it's important that I make this fact clear to the rest of the world".





millionrainbows said:


> What "truth," or perception, if only a generalized notion, is behind this claim?
> 
> Here are some possibilities:
> 
> 1. A segment of the population [etc]


I'll go for Nereffid's much simpler explanation.


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## MarkMcD

I think I have to agree, such a comment says much more about the person making the comment, than it does about the subject of the comment. Obviously not everyone is going to like the same things, but to me, to state that something or someone is over rated, just tells me that the person making the comment doesn´t like it. Or, that because usually the subject will be something that is very much liked by the majority, that the commentator wants to make an anti-the masses type of statement, often to provoke exactly this type of reaction.


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## Blancrocher

Such "memes" are always reactions. Suggestions that Mozart is overrated are in response to the flowery rhetoric of previous generations. Albert Einstein, for example, said that Mozart makes you believe in God--and many others have gone ahead and called him one; now they write essays titled "Mozart as a Working Stiff." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Zaslaw

My own compromise position is that Mozart was a super-intelligent space alien that got accidentally stranded here and had to make his own music to amuse himself.


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## bigshot

In this case, it probably isn't a matter of "not liking". It's most likely "not knowing". Mozart wrote a LOT of music. The kids slagging on him probably know Eine Kleine, Sym 40 and a piano concerto or two and figure they know it all. But that doesn't come close to covering Mozart's genius.

The same kids probably don't like opera because of the "funny sounding singing". Mozart is as great a writer of opera as he is a composer of instrumental music. If you don't know opera, you don't know Mozart.


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## GGluek

It's completely subjective, and has more to do with the tastes of some classical music lovers than any of the non-elite unwashed masses, who have no basis for comparison anyway. Some people don't like Mozart, or don't like enough of his music, or him enough, to go along with the general approbation he receives. That's their right, although I think a lot of it is just tilting at establishment figures and ideas. There arepeople who say "Beethoven bores me," and people who have a lesser appreciation of Shakespeare, or who find Rembrandt too stuffy and make statements to that effect just to get a rise out of people. I don't pay a lot of attention to them. That said, there's a lot of Mozart I don't care to listen to, but that doesn't require I cast aspersions on those who worship every note he wrote, or deny that he was a genius. I don't believe the OPs question requires a lot of thought. 

Cheers ----


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## Ukko

"What is the significance of the "Mozart is overrated" attitude?"The quantity of its presence in forums is directly proportional to the quantity of developmentally juvenile posters in those forums.

[There have been reports in some journals that geezers are vulnerable to a malady wherein they regress to a quasi-juvenile mental state. The reports are overrated.]


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## Sudonim

To piggyback on what Nereffid and bigshot have said, there's a certain mentality that crops up across the internet (I don't agree with bigshot, however, that it's just "kids" making the claims) which is that it's cool and edgy to buck the conventional wisdom, to be contrarian just for contrarianism's sake. See what an iconoclast I am, speaking truth to power! So we learn that Mozart, Shakespeare, and the Beatles all suck. Probably Picasso and Rembrandt too.


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## Xaltotun

I love your threads, millionrainbows, I really do. This one is as excellent as the rest!

All the reasons that you have given, millionrainbows, are valid, but there may be more. A knee-jerk reaction against Mozart may also be a reaction against classicism in general. Mozart's music communicates the idea that the world, while it includes death and sorrow, is still a fundamentally good place, maybe even the proverbial best of all possible worlds. Most people have a modern mindset that is rooted in romanticism, maybe even protestantism when we dig deep enough... the key might indeed be, like you say, the fact that modern workers are fundamentally alienated and unfulfilled (and have been for quite some time). Most music that anyone likes is either escapist or angry, but either way, it condemns the world. Mozart instead faces the world, embraces it and affirms it. It is actually quite irritating in this day and age, to witness such affirmation towards the world, so I lend an understanding shoulder to the stupid Mozart-haters.

I love Mozart, though, and work towards a world that we should not be repulsed of.


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## shangoyal

Luckily for those who still think that Mozart is over-rated, there is a wealth of music waiting to prove them wrong - to really show them that Mozart is somebody whose gigantic reputation is deserved - if they wish to see it. In my experience, Mozart hardly composed anything less than magnificent, but maybe it just depends on the listener. Like, I have always said that "Pink Floyd is over-rated" and have had fights on it, as I genuinely don't like the acid-inspired sleep-inducing music that they made, barring a few songs. I have hardly seen the light about Pink Floyd as of yet, and currently, I do plan to hold that opinion for a long time.


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## Op.123

Mozart is not overratted


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## Blake

Mozart is the most widely recognized composer of all time. Of course "overrated" is going to crop up. You can't expect everyone to be intelligent.


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## PetrB

That less than one penny's worth of information / propaganda in just about everyone's pocket is the bachbeethovenmozartwerethegreatestcomposerslikever. Add the detail that Mozart was the only true child prodigy of that Holy Trinity, and the constant over-hyped mention / mystery of that....

And because no one has yet written a very well-made and wildly successful play then turned into a wildly successful film about either Bach or Beethoven. LOL.

Just sayin'


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## poconoron

Vesuvius said:


> Mozart is the most widely recognized composer of all time. Of course "overrated" is going to crop up. You can't expect everyone to be intelligent.


What he said...............


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## Haydn man

Nereffid said:


> "X is overrated" is merely shorthand for "I don't like X, and because I'm awesome, everyone who likes X is clearly wrong, and it's important that I make this fact clear to the rest of the world".[/ervectQUOTE]
> 
> People like to be provocative it's part of human nature and the internet gives you the perfect vehicle for this
> 
> I also note that if the original statement don't get the fight started then the usual follow up:-
> Picking one of X most famous works and calling it neurotic drivel usually succeeds
> 
> By the way I think classical music is over rated and most of it is neurosis set to music by really weird people


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## KenOC

Nereffid said:


> By the way I think classical music is over rated and most of it is neurosis set to music by really weird people


Well, of course. That's why I listen to it.


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## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> My own compromise position is that Mozart was a super-intelligent space alien that got accidentally stranded here and had to make his own music to amuse himself.


Then, too, some people have huge problems with persistent constant perfection, wherever and whenever it rears its threatening head, i.e. _they have a morbid fear of talent_


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## norman bates

Xaltotun said:


> I love your threads, millionrainbows, I really do. This one is as excellent as the rest!
> 
> All the reasons that you have given, millionrainbows, are valid, but there may be more. A knee-jerk reaction against Mozart may also be a reaction against classicism in general. Mozart's music communicates the idea that the world, while it includes death and sorrow, is still a fundamentally good place, maybe even the proverbial best of all possible worlds. Most people have a modern mindset that is rooted in romanticism, maybe even protestantism when we dig deep enough... the key might indeed be, like you say, the fact that modern workers are fundamentally alienated and unfulfilled (and have been for quite some time). Most music that anyone likes is either escapist or angry, but either way, it condemns the world. Mozart instead faces the world, embraces it and affirms it. It is actually quite irritating in this day and age, to witness such affirmation towards the world, so I lend an understanding shoulder to the stupid Mozart-haters.
> 
> I love Mozart, though, and work towards a world that we should not be repulsed of.


I'm not sure if you're right, but it's an interesting idea. Maybe what I perceive as a "lack of mystery" in his music could be seen this way, I don't know. For instance I love Delius who notoriously hated Mozart, and I think that Delius could be considered a decadent escapist.


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## TurnaboutVox

bigshot said:


> It's "kid thinking"... anything that has been established as being great must be lousy because "kids know best". It's the same as the inevitable "Beatles are overrated" threads on rock forums.


But, the Beatles _*are*_ over-rated!



bigshot said:


> It doesn't mean anything about the music. It's all about the narcissism and ignorance of the person making the statement.


Oh, wait...


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## EdwardBast

Mozart _is_ overrated. The world is full of people who know nothing about classical music but who nevertheless will piously aver that he was an extraordinary genius because this is one of the few assertions they feel they can make about this field of human endeavor without fear of contradiction. Every poser on the planet loves him for this reason. Many of these people think the divertimentos are stunningly interesting.

There is another class of people who are quite knowledgeable about classical music but enjoy tweaking the noses of the posers.

Some of the other suggestions made above are no doubt true as well.


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## Ukko

EdwardBast said:


> [...]
> Many of these people think the divertimentos are stunningly interesting.
> [...]


Is it possible to be stunned and interested at the same time?


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## Blake

I love his Divertimenti.

… and Serenades, Marches, Dances….


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## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> I love his Divertimenti.
> 
> … and Serenades, Marches, Dances….


I was recently given a "listening assignment" for the Cassation in B Flat Major K.99, a divertimento or serenade type piece written by a 13-year old Mozart. The assignment required a review, so I really paid attention and listened.

In short, I was quite astonished by its easy perfection and what seemed to be a fully-formed musical personality, albeit mainly apparent in the slow movements. There seems to be a lot of gold in those lesser-known works of WAM, even the very early ones!


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## Cosmos

I personally think that, while your hypothesies are interesting, the answer is easier then that. The general public considers Mozart to be the best composer of all time. So, those who are told he's the greatest who don't find his music as special are the ones who call him overrated. I was one of those people for a while (mainly because I'm not a fan of the classical aesthetic). Now, I appreciate his music more and, while I don't agree with his general ranking, I understand the appeal better and better.


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## StlukesguildOhio

Mozart is overrated.

"Overrated" would assume the music is not as good as it is believed. I have yet to find this to be true.

The world is full of people who know nothing about classical music but who nevertheless will piously aver that he was an extraordinary genius because this is one of the few assertions they feel they can make about this field of human endeavor without fear of contradiction.

And in what way does this impact the merit of the music?

Every poser on the planet loves him for this reason.

And among those posers I suppose we should count Beethoven, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Rossini, Albert Einstein...?

Many of these people think the divertimentos are stunningly interesting.

Personally, I find there is some exquisite music to be found among the divertimenti... although they might not match the operas, piano concertos, clarinet quintet, or Requiem.


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## Morimur

Mozart isn't overrated but he's suffered from overexposure.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I listen to music from my own personal library. I listen to what I want when I want. As a result, I don't find myself over-saturated with Mozart, the Four Seasons, the Brandenburg Concertos, or anything else.


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## bigshot

Whether or not the general public is familiar with a work makes no difference to whether I enjoy it. I like Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the Brandenburgs, and the Four Seasons as much as any other great piece of music. Overexposure is for those with small frames of reference, not me.


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## bigshot

EdwardBast said:


> There is another class of people who are quite knowledgeable about classical music but enjoy tweaking the noses of the posers.


And those who think their tastes are refined when in truth, their tastes are just contrary and under-informed.


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## Tristan

Nereffid said:


> "X is overrated" is merely shorthand for "I don't like X, and because I'm awesome, everyone who likes X is clearly wrong, and it's important that I make this fact clear to the rest of the world".


That seems to generally be what people mean by "overrated", but really, something can be overrated and you can still like it. It just means that people tend to treat it like it's greater than it is. It doesn't mean it has to be bad.


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## ArtMusic

To be honest, I find that regular listeners of classical music who dislike the music of Mozart to be most perculiar indeed. Just my opinion, nothing more, nothing less.


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## Chordalrock

I've said this before, but making sacred cows of great composers and suggesting that absolutely everything they wrote in their mature years was a deep, stunning, beautiful masterpiece is going to harm rather than help appreciation for newcomers, most of whom will inevitably find that they aren't enjoying _nearly as much as they apparently should_ the piece that they happen to try.

Think of it like this: if everything by Mozart is supposed to be an immortal masterpiece, then you don't have to listen to more than one of his pieces to decide whether Mozart is for you or not. And if that one piece happens to be, in reality, not all that good and interesting, then what has actually happened is that this hype about Mozart has stopped you from exploring his music further than that one piece that was supposed to be a great masterpiece.

But if it was readily admitted that Mozart had to compose a lot of pieces to pay his rent, and most of what he composed he didn't have the motivation or time to make as good & interesting as he could have, then the implication is that you need to listen to a lot of his pieces to find the ones that you like. And this sort of approach is of course much more likely to result in some sort of serious attempt to find something to love about the composer.

A composer shouldn't be evaluated on the basis of his whole ouvre anyway. He should be evaluated on the basis of his best works. So even if it's admitted that Mozart didn't compose a masterpiece every time he wrote a piece, this wouldn't mean he's overrated, although it would mean that most of his stuff is perhaps overrated, which then again it perhaps is.


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## mmsbls

Chordalrock said:


> I've said this before, but making sacred cows of great composers and suggesting that absolutely everything they wrote in their mature years was a deep, stunning, beautiful masterpiece is going to harm rather than help appreciation for newcomers, most of whom will inevitably find that they aren't enjoying _nearly as much as they apparently should_ the piece that they happen to try.


I've never seen anyone state about any composer that "everything they wrote in their mature years was a deep, stunning, beautiful masterpiece". Do you think anyone truly believes this?


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## KenOC

mmsbls said:


> I've never seen anyone state about any composer that "everything they wrote in their mature years was a deep, stunning, beautiful masterpiece". Do you think anyone truly believes this?


Ah, you forget Raff!


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## mmsbls

KenOC said:


> Ah, you forget Raff!


I do like everything I've heard from him though.


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## science

In literature, we get "Shakespeare is overrated" all the time. Occasionally we'll get someone with a good reason for that, but usually it turns out that they can't understand the language very well and wouldn't recognize a theme if one walked up, introduced itself, and punched them in the nose. It can also be a legitimate reaction against Harold Bloom's pompous bloviation. I hate him too, and I love Shakespeare. 

So I think they usually just mean that they don't enjoy Mozart as much as they're supposed to. It's probably intended to be a statement of relativity - i.e., relative to some composer they like who isn't as glorified as Mozart but whose music they enjoy more, Mozart is overrated. But sometimes they might just be trying to be fashionably nonconformist. And other times they might resent the attitudes of Mozart's partisans. 

What I think is most interesting about all this is our attitude toward people who say those things. We cannot be content to observe that there is no arguing with taste, or to silently remind ourselves that the person making the comment may not yet have a deep understanding of the material. Nor do we make any kind of explanation for our respect for Mozart (which for most of us would consist merely of some romantic superlatives). Instead, we get actively insulting, expressing scorn for their self-esteem, maturity, whatever - almost as much as when we see them "parroting" the idea that Mozart is one of the three greatest composers. They've really got to learn to be more subtle if they want us to respectfully tolerate their opinions.


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## Chordalrock

mmsbls said:


> I've never seen anyone state about any composer that "everything they wrote in their mature years was a deep, stunning, beautiful masterpiece". Do you think anyone truly believes this?


I did, ten years ago when I started paying attention to classical music. I don't know if it's stated explicitly in so many words, but somehow I had learned to expect that from these composers, and I'd say it's the impression you easily get just by growing up in Europe, at least outside the internet (America probably has the opposite problem, being so humorously anti-elitist).


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## StevenOBrien

Vesuvius said:


> I love his Divertimenti.
> 
> … and Serenades, Marches, Dances….


Honestly, I think people _underrate_ his more "minor" works to try and introduce a semblance of balance to his output. In my personal opinion, I think the majority of his work is outstanding from age 4 to 35. It actually makes me laugh a little when I see people say "Oh, his first symphony was good, but it was derivative of contemporary works".

The only works of his that have raised my eyebrows turned out to be works finished by other composers after his death (For example, the very end of his first horn concerto as completed by Sussmayr).

With regards to him being overrated, people certainly have a right to their opinion if they've genuinely taken the time to listen to his music and don't get anything out of it.


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## Nereffid

science said:


> What I think is most interesting about all this is our attitude toward people who say those things. *We cannot be content to observe that there is no arguing with taste*, or to silently remind ourselves that the person making the comment may not yet have a deep understanding of the material. Nor do we make any kind of explanation for our respect for Mozart (which for most of us would consist merely of some romantic superlatives). Instead, we get actively insulting, expressing scorn for their self-esteem, maturity, whatever - almost as much as when we see them "parroting" the idea that Mozart is one of the three greatest composers. They've really got to learn to be more subtle if they want us to respectfully tolerate their opinions.


While I agree there are indeed many people who hear "Mozart is overrated" and think/say "hey, this guy doesn't like Mozart, what a moron", the reason _I_ have no patience for the statement "Mozart is overrated" (as opposed to other ways of saying you don't like Mozart) is because this statement itself rejects the idea that there's no arguing with taste, indeed rejects the actual idea of _rating_. Expert after expert after poll after poll says that Mozart is among the greatest classical composers, but the "Mozart is overrated" guy insists that this rating is somehow _wrong_, and if they had just rated Mozart _correctly_ (ie, his way) the composer wouldn't keep coming out tops.


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## PetrB

One thing about this sort of phenomenon in and around all the arts which is evident by the very existence of the phenomenon:

Tossing out a bleated too often repeated beaten into the ground cant about the greats to any n00b without first presenting the actual work, _and then only if that is done without saying much of anything about it at all as per its greatness status, before or after its presentation, _is a really bad way to go


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## millionrainbows

Burroughs said:


> Mozart is not overratted


I don't know about that; now that he is dead, and decomposing, he may very well be "over-ratted."


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## Nereffid

"Too many rats, Herr Mozart!"


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## millionrainbows

Right now I'm listening to The Complete Sonatas for Organ and Orchestra (all on one compact disc!). I had never heard these, or heard of them, until yesterday, while digging through used CDs at the Half-Price bookstore.

Has anyone else, other than Mozart completeists, ever heard these? I can recognize them as Mozart, because of my extensive listening experience, but in one sense they are undistinguished, seeming to exemplify perfect sonata form; but I can easily see how they could be forgotten in a day. I can see the need for a repeated listening experience to refresh their identifiable, yet somehow vague, cookie-cutter character. On the other hand, when I do hear them, I can identify them as being vaguely "Mozartian," enough to win a Jeopardy round, should it ever come up. In other words, they need to be listened to because they are rather forgettable. I can't say I've heard any of these melodies "ear-worming" through my head, since listening to them yesterday. Does this mean Mozart is deficient, or me?

I do think it should be conceded that Mozart was a product of the times, which did not exactly encourage individuality; and I think all of his works (even the flute concertos) are worth listening to, especially in the context of being a Mozart completist or semi-expert. Although some of these fringe works may not shine with individuality or unorthodox harmonic procedures, they are at least of the highest standards of craftsmanship.

*What is really needed, in order to truly grasp the quality of Mozart, is to hear some mediocre or bad music from this same era. 
*
Any suggestions of* "crummy" *composers during Mozart's life, who would serve to highlight his strengths, since his own music seems unable to do this except in best-case works?


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## bigshot

Chordalrock said:


> I've said this before, but making sacred cows of great composers and suggesting that absolutely everything they wrote in their mature years was a deep, stunning, beautiful masterpiece is going to harm rather than help appreciation for newcomers, most of whom will inevitably find that they aren't enjoying _nearly as much as they apparently should_ the piece that they happen to try.


One of the things that I've found about all kinds of music, not just classical, is that there are certain artists and composers whose works pretty much all deserve attention, even the minor works. Certain artists stand out and although every single one of their works don't stand up to the same "masterpiece" level, they do all stand up to "worthwhile". Whether for historical purposes, or developmental or craftsmanship... there is something there worth listening to. There aren't a lot of artists or composers who fit in this category, but Mozart certainly does.


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## lupinix

Mozart is overrated as wel as underrated, sometimes (though maybe rarely) even by the same people, but obviously for different reasons....

He is also not alone in this

and I'm too tired atm to explain or give examples


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## Petwhac

Mozart_ is _overrated.

It has been said, and even written in a book (The Mozart Effect) that listening to Mozart can heal the body and strengthen the mind.

Well after many years of listening I'm still the weak, sickly and stupid idiot I always was!!


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## Celloman

People like to criticize whatever they know nothing about. It makes them feel more intelligent than they really are.
And it just isn't "cool" to listen to Mozart anymore.


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## EdwardBast

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Mozart is overrated.
> 
> "Overrated" would assume the music is not as good as it is believed. I have yet to find this to be true.


I find large swaths of his music, symphonies, piano concertos, piano sonatas, string quartets, etc., of little interest. It is mostly perfectly crafted and the works are perfect art objects of their kind. The problem for me is with the kind. Perfection doesn't particularly impress me.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> The world is full of people who know nothing about classical music but who nevertheless will piously aver that he was an extraordinary genius because this is one of the few assertions they feel they can make about this field of human endeavor without fear of contradiction.
> 
> And in what way does this impact the merit of the music?


It doesn't. Never said it did. Mass adulation with no thought behind it is a form of overrating - at least in the theory I was going with. Now that I think about it, it isn't a very good theory. ;-)



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Every poser on the planet loves him for this reason.
> 
> And among those posers I suppose we should count Beethoven, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Rossini, Albert Einstein...?


Every dog likes bacon. Beethoven liked bacon. Therefore Beethoven was a dog? This is the form of your argument? To be perfectly clear: Just because I think every dog likes bacon, one cannot necessarily conclude that I think Beethoven was a dog.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Many of these people think the divertimentos are stunningly interesting.
> 
> Personally, I find there is some exquisite music to be found among the divertimenti... although they might not match the operas, piano concertos, clarinet quintet, or Requiem.


Tell me I am going to have to listen to several of them in succession, hand me a razor, and see how long it takes for me to open a vein.


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## millionrainbows

*Mozart* is definitely one of the greats; people just can't remember any of his music. But that doesn't matter, does it?


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## bigshot

EdwardBast said:


> I find large swaths of his music, symphonies, piano concertos, piano sonatas, string quartets, etc., of little interest.


The only reaction to that I can muster up is pity. It's a shame that some of the greatest music ever created doesn't interest you. But in our current sorry state of culture, I don't think you are alone in that.

To me, perfection brings joy and wonder. Mozart is an unending font of that. I would be very sorry if I wasn't able to appreciate having something that perfect in my life.


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## violadude

Chordalrock said:


> (America probably has the opposite problem, being so humorously anti-elitist).


Not so humorous for us, I'm afraid


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## shangoyal

Mozart may be overrated but his music has given me a lot of joy. Eventually I guess people will tire of the "fact" that Mozart is the greatest - and we might see a time when somebody like Bartok or Prokofiev will be considered the best.


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## trazom

shangoyal said:


> *Mozart may be overrated* but his music has given me a lot of joy. Eventually I guess people will tire of the "fact" that Mozart is the greatest - and we might see a time when somebody like Bartok or Prokofiev will be considered the best.


How? Where are all these people claiming he's "the greatest!" and how do you know there are more of them than any other classical fans that claims their favorite is ALSO the greatest composer? I'm sure you can find just as many who think Bach or Beethoven is the best. Would that make them overrated as well?


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## hpowders

The significance is that one of the top three or four composers who ever walked the planet, the composer of the Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, Cosi Fan Tutti, the greatest composer who ever wrote for the soprano voice, piano concertos #9-27, the Linz, Jupiter, Haffner and 40th symphonies, the Gran Partita and Haffner Serenades, the 6 string quartets dedicated to Haydn and the Prussian Quartets, the String Quintets in g minor and C Major, the a minor piano sonata, the incomplete Requiem and the Great c minor mass is not over-rated and never will be.


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## bigshot

shangoyal said:


> we might see a time when somebody like Bartok or Prokofiev will be considered the best.


I don't think that's very likely. Not to take anything away from Bartok and Prokofiev, but the greatness of Mozart is just about as close to being self evident as anything in this imperfect world we live in.


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## PetrB

trazom said:


> How? Where are all these people claiming he's "the greatest!" and how do you know there are more of them than any other classical fans that claims their favorite is ALSO the greatest composer? I'm sure you can find just as many who think Bach or Beethoven is the best. Would that make them overrated as well?


Name Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and there is a raft of both 'they are the greatest' and 'they are overrated' verbiage attached to each.


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## bigshot

And all three of them stand head and shoulders in importance above all the rest of the composers in history. Self evident.


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## KenOC

bigshot said:


> And all three of them stand head and shoulders in importance above all the rest of the composers in history. Self evident.


When I was studying math in college ("studying" being a very generous term) we had to do proofs. Lots of proofs. I was very bad at this and would sometimes just write, "Intuitively obvious". My prof was unamused.


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## PetrB

bigshot said:


> And all three of them stand head and shoulders in importance above all the rest of the composers in history. Self evident.


Is that "self-evident" like the same "self-evident" that the really good and acceptable / accessible Classical music left the concert hall for Hollywood film scores in ca. 1930?


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## bigshot

No, my theory on the shift from classical music away from concert hall music is pretty much my own. I haven't heard other people talking about that. Obviously not self evident.

Mozart, Bach and Beethoven stand at the top of their field in just about any way you care to measure by. That is self evident.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> And all three of them stand head and shoulders *in importance* above all the rest of the composers in history. Self evident.


They are important, yes. But head and shoulders above all other composers in importance? On what grounds? Couldn't an argument be made for, say, Wagner, Stravinsky and Schoenberg being at least as important for their impact in history in their own way?


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## HaydnBearstheClock

KenOC said:


> When I was studying math in college ("studying" being a very generous term) we had to do proofs. Lots of proofs. I was very bad at this and would sometimes just write, "Intuitively obvious". My prof was unamused.


Hehe, excellent. If your prof was Haydn, he would have been more amused .


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## HaydnBearstheClock

bigshot said:


> No, my theory on the shift from classical music away from concert hall music is pretty much my own. I haven't heard other people talking about that. Obviously not self evident.
> 
> Mozart, Bach and Beethoven stand at the top of their field in just about any way you care to measure by. That is self evident.


Well, I think that's a subjective judgment. All 3 were extremely skilled composers, that is no question. But always putting them on the pedestal is a bit of an exaggeration, I think. There are plenty of other amazing composers - all 'great' composers have their own, original way of being so. Instead of categorizing and setting 'golden standards', I think it's best to enjoy the variety we have.


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## Chordalrock

I think up until recently it was commonly thought that Beethoven and Wagner were the greatest composers. You could easily add Bach and Mozart, maybe Brahms. Beyond those five though, I think you'd have to expand into Renaissance to find composers of equal eminence (Palestrina, Josquin).

But what people often fail to note is that minor composers often composed a few pieces that are just as original and great as anything else, and the greats didn't compose pieces of equal interest all the time, or even most of the time. So it pays to pay attention to minor, even unknown composers. Heaven can be glimpsed at in unexpected places.


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## PetrB

bigshot said:


> And all three of them stand head and shoulders in importance above all the rest of the composers in history. Self evident.


Beg to differ: Wagner / Debussy / Stravinsky / Schoenberg / Webern -- and that is just up through the first half of the 20th century.

Just updating the 'Self-Evident' saw... probably in place because people are too lazy (and too economically tight) to change the next edition of textbooks and encyclopedias with that old holy trinity schtick which has been floating about for over one-hundred and fifty years.

It really is time for a titch of a realistic update.


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## bigshot

Wagner probably is in the same league as the big three. Haydn and Brahms perhaps too. But that doesn't change the self evident greatness of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Really, it's kind of silly to argue that they aren't self evidently great. Quality, Quantity, Consistency, Supreme Peaks of Achievement, Popularity, Influence, Versatility, Originality, Respect from other Artists... I can't think of a single way of judging where these three composers don't come out at the top.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> Wagner probably is in the same league as the big three. Haydn and Brahms perhaps too. But that doesn't change the self evident greatness of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Really, it's kind of silly to argue that they aren't self evidently great. Quality, Quantity, Consistency, Supreme Peaks of Achievement, Popularity, Influence, Versatility, Originality, Respect from other Artists... I can't think of a single way of judging where these three composers don't come out at the top.


I don't accept that these things are self-evident. They are arguable propositions, but require evidence or explanation.


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## Fortinbras Armstrong

I was told a story by a rabbi I know. He was in the Louvre. On the tour was an elderly American woman who didn't think much of the paintings. "Is the Mona Lisa smiling or not smiling? Can't DiVinci make up his mind?" she kvetched. The Rembrandts and Reubens did not forego her criticisms either. "I really don't see what is so wonderful about these pictures!"

The guide responded, "Madam, when you go to the Louvre you must realize the paintings have already been scrutinized, analyzed, praised and critiqued. The paintings are not on trial. It is you who are on trial."


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## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> The only reaction to that I can muster up is pity. It's a shame that some of the greatest music ever created doesn't interest you. But in our current sorry state of culture, I don't think you are alone in that.
> 
> To me, perfection brings joy and wonder. Mozart is an unending font of that. I would be very sorry if I wasn't able to appreciate having something that perfect in my life.


I could muster up an equal reaction to you. Its a shame that you're satisfied by a mass of homogenous, bland, lazy work.

Mozart's music is not perfect. There is no such thing as perfection in music, as there is no such thing as perfection in humanity.


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## EdwardBast

bigshot said:


> The only reaction to that I can muster up is pity. It's a shame that some of the greatest music ever created doesn't interest you. But in our current sorry state of culture, I don't think you are alone in that.
> 
> To me, perfection brings joy and wonder. Mozart is an unending font of that. I would be very sorry if I wasn't able to appreciate having something that perfect in my life.


I thoroughly enjoy lots of Mozart's music. There just happens to be a lot of it I don't find particularly interesting.


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## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> Wagner probably is in the same league as the big three. Haydn and Brahms perhaps too. But that doesn't change the self evident greatness of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Really, it's kind of silly to argue that they aren't self evidently great. Quality, Quantity, Consistency, Supreme Peaks of Achievement, Popularity, Influence, Versatility, Originality, Respect from other Artists... I can't think of a single way of judging where these three composers don't come out at the top.


LOL Versatility. Okay... whatever you say bigshot 

And the popularity wouldn't be there if not for the work of others keeping the music around. Influence isn't really a quality that should be considered as an element of greatness, because everything influences anything it comes into contact with. By that logic, an obscure predecessor of Bach that influenced him must be the most influential, because their ideas that were passed onto Bach reached all those that Bach influenced, right? Popularity is also a pointless attribute, that has nothing to do with quality.


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## BurningDesire

what I find so obnoxious about this cult of Mozart, as well as the one surrounding Bach (Beethoven is quite popular, but he doesn't seem to be quite so fetishized as those other two) is the absurdity of claiming that these extremely narrow aesthetics are somehow perfect, that this is the epitome of music as an art form. Its like saying that Robert Johnson is the greatest musician and creator of music to ever live in the history of humankind, implying that delta blues music is the perfect idiom of music, or that Japanese Gagaku music is superior to any other form of music. There are so many kinds of musical aesthetics that are so different from Mozart's classical aesthetic, and Bach's contrapuntal one. Really, there's nothing wrong with their aesthetics inherently (though I do have a problem with the culture around Mozart's time that promoted extremely homogenous writing, and I do acknowledge he was trying to break free from that at times), and both of them were great artists. But to say that this form of music, German, common-practice Western tonality, following very limiting forms, is inherently better than anything else in the whole universe of music... its just ridiculous.


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## violadude

BurningDesire said:


> what I find so obnoxious about this cult of Mozart, as well as the one surrounding Bach (Beethoven is quite popular, but he doesn't seem to be quite so fetishized as those other two)


Really? I've heard quite often that his 9th symphony is the greatest symphony ever composed in the whole world.


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## StlukesguildOhio

I find large swaths of his music, symphonies, piano concertos, piano sonatas, string quartets, etc., of little interest.

And this proves what? Picasso probably painted more truly bad paintings than any artist in history. But he probably also painted more great paintings than anyone in history. Yes, there are a good many works by Mozart that I find of little interest... but he also composed more truly magical works than any other composer save Bach and perhaps one or two others.

It is mostly perfectly crafted and the works are perfect art objects of their kind. The problem for me is with the kind. Perfection doesn't particularly impress me.

That would seem to be more about your own biases or limitations than any failings on the part of the composer.

Mass adulation with no thought behind it is a form of overrating -

I suppose... but I've never really thought that Mozart was the recipient of such... "mass adulation". How many listen to Mozart or any classical composer of the larger populace as a whole... let alone enough to have some misinformed notion of who is or isn't the "greatest"?

Every dog likes bacon. Beethoven liked bacon. Therefore Beethoven was a dog? This is the form of your argument? To be perfectly clear: Just because I think every dog likes bacon, one cannot necessarily conclude that I think Beethoven was a dog.

That's got to be one of the weakest rebuttals yet posted. And you question my "argument". 

_Personally, I find there is some exquisite music to be found among the divertimenti... although they might not match the operas, piano concertos, clarinet quintet, or Requiem._

Tell me I am going to have to listen to several of them in succession, hand me a razor, and see how long it takes for me to open a vein.

Again, that seems to be more about you than the music. You do understand, perhaps, that what you like or dislike are not inherently the same as what is "good" or "bad"?


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## EdwardBast

BurningDesire said:


> I could muster up an equal reaction to you. Its a shame that you're satisfied by a mass of homogenous, bland, lazy work.
> 
> Mozart's music is not perfect. There is no such thing as perfection in music, as there is no such thing as perfection in humanity.


I must disagree. I think most of Mozart's works are perfect things of their kind. They are subtly crafted down to the most minute details, beautifully balanced. I see no reason to call such work lazy, and I can thoroughly understand why bigshot and others could revel in the details of his work. I have enjoyed many happy hours with it. The reason I am, apparently, less enamored with Mozart than many others, is because I find the aesthetic ideals of the high classical era kind of lackluster and not terribly ambitious.


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## tdc

BurningDesire said:


> what I find so obnoxious about this cult of Mozart, as well as the one surrounding Bach (Beethoven is quite popular, but he doesn't seem to be quite so fetishized as those other two) is the absurdity of claiming that these extremely narrow aesthetics are somehow perfect, that this is the epitome of music as an art form. Its like saying that Robert Johnson is the greatest musician and creator of music to ever live in the history of humankind, implying that delta blues music is the perfect idiom of music, or that Japanese Gagaku music is superior to any other form of music.


Its not the same, you have used this argument before and it doesn't make sense. If Bach and Mozart worked within extremely narrow aesthetics than almost every other composer in history has also worked within extremely narrow aesthetics.

Just because someone thinks Bach or Mozart is the greatest composer and achieved perfection within the forms they were using, doesn't necessarily imply they think the forms themselves are what are so great. Otherwise what is it that separates them from any other composers from their eras? Its the same form! It is what a composer does _within_ the forms they use, _not the forms themselves_. Virtually every composer uses limited forms.


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## EdwardBast

.................................


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## Blancrocher

EdwardBast said:


> I must disagree. I think most of Mozart's works are perfect things of their kind. They are subtly crafted down to the most minute details, beautifully balanced. I see no reason to call such work lazy, and I can thoroughly understand why bigshot and others could revel in the details of his work. I have enjoyed many happy hours with it. The reason I am, apparently, less enamored with Mozart than many others, is because I find the aesthetic ideals of the high classical era kind of lackluster and not terribly ambitious.


It's possible that Beethoven had a similar view. He himself seems to have taken most interest in some of the rougher-sounding Mozart, like the 18th String Quartet--which is admittedly still pretty smooth.

From your posts, I suspect that you know Mozart better than I do, but I thought I'd recommend the "Adagio in B minor" (K540) just in case you don't know it; it's a simple work, maybe even perfect (despite possibly being a part of an unfinished work), but one of the most passionate works of the Classical Period that I know of.


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## EdwardBast

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I find large swaths of his music, symphonies, piano concertos, piano sonatas, string quartets, etc., of little interest.
> 
> And this proves what? Picasso probably painted more truly bad paintings than any artist in history. But he probably also painted more great paintings than anyone in history. Yes, there are a good many works by Mozart that I find of little interest... but he also composed more truly magical works than any other composer save Bach and perhaps one or two others.


We are generally in agreement here. You just happen to find a higher percentage of his work magical. What I was getting at is that there are many who believe everything Mozart wrote was magical. These folks, IMO, are overrating Mozart.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> It is mostly perfectly crafted and the works are perfect art objects of their kind. The problem for me is with the kind. Perfection doesn't particularly impress me.
> 
> That would seem to be more about your own biases or limitations than any failings on the part of the composer.


I wouldn't say failings of the composer. I would say it is more often a matter of succeeding very well at a not particularly ambitious art form.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Every dog likes bacon. Beethoven liked bacon. Therefore Beethoven was a dog? This is the form of your argument? To be perfectly clear: Just because I think every dog likes bacon, one cannot necessarily conclude that I think Beethoven was a dog.
> 
> That's got to be one of the weakest rebuttals yet posted. And you question my "argument".


You missed the point. *This was your argument.* My bacon example is of exactly the same fallacious logical structure as the reasoning behind your statement. I wrote: Every poser loves Mozart. You, for some inexplicable reason, took this to mean Everyone who likes Mozart is a poser, hence your reply:

And among those posers I suppose we should count Beethoven, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner, Rossini, Albert Einstein...?

This reply simply has no logical connection to my premise. My silly syllogism with the bacon was to demonstrate to you that the statement: "Every poser loves Mozart," is not logically equivalent to "Everyone who loves Mozart is a poser," which was what you took it to mean. I was simply mirroring back to you the logical error underlying your response.


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## EdwardBast

Blancrocher said:


> It's possible that Beethoven had a similar view. He himself seems to have taken most interest in some of the rougher-sounding Mozart, like the 18th String Quartet--which is admittedly still pretty smooth.
> 
> From your posts, I suspect that you know Mozart better than I do, but I thought I'd recommend the "Adagio in B minor" (K540) just in case you don't know it; it's a simple work, maybe even perfect (despite possibly being a part of an unfinished work), but one of the most passionate works of the Classical Period that I know of.


I would say Beethoven quickly became discontent with treating multimovement sonata structures (sonatas, quartets, symphonies) as suite-like entertainments with no strong overriding unity, hence the stylistic changes from the middle period on. Given such discontent, I guess it wouldn't be surprising if he was drawn to the wilder or more passionate or "rougher" side of Mozart.


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## Petwhac

I think it boils down to the fact that many people enjoy debunking commonly held beliefs and attitudes. Myself included. Especially when the beliefs and attitudes _received_ and not the product of independent thought by those holding them.
For instance I take great pleasure in telling people that their glass of apple juice contains more calories and sugar than my glass of Coke.

When it comes to the greatness of Mozart, the proposition may be supported by reference to the number of 'experts' who, since the composer's death have held him in the utmost esteem. I don't mean scholars and teachers but fellow composers through the centuries. However, although the proposition may be supported and this 'argument from authority' used as a proof, it will never be a _conclusive_ proof nor can it be.

There is no law which says anyone must defer to the _opinion _of another because opinion is not proof.
Expert witness in a court case cannot offer proof but may only be able to persuade.

When I hear somebody who has never studied a score, let alone written one, say that Schumann was a lousy orchestrator, I get irritated. Not because I think Schumann was necessarily a great orchestrator (however that is defined) but because the person is just trotting out an un-proovable opinion as fact. An opinion that they hold not through due consideration but because they heard it somewhere else.

In general, people tend to overrate what they like and underrate what they dislike.


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## Guest

Petwhac said:


> In general, people tend to overrate what they like and underrate what they dislike.


In general, its not 'people' but 'other people' who do the overrating and underating. In other words, whatever my rating of Mozart, it's someone else who will say I underrate him or overrate him, according to whether _they _like or dislike him. I rate him exactly as much as I think he deserves.


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## millionrainbows

[QUOTE A]I find large swaths of his music, symphonies, piano concertos, piano sonatas, string quartets, etc., of little interest. [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE B]And this proves what? Picasso probably painted more truly bad paintings than any artist in history. But he probably also painted more great paintings than anyone in history. Yes, there are a good many works by Mozart that I find of little interest... but he also composed more truly magical works than any other composer save Bach and perhaps one or two others. [/QUOTE]

No, *A *said *"of little interest," *not *bad*. There's a difference. Although Mozart's popularity has, if anything, increased during the last ten years or so, perhaps owing much in this regard to the success of Peter Shaffer's fictionalized dramatisation of his life in the stage play and subsequent film 'Amadeus,' there are several aspects of his output which remain unknown, and amongst these rarely-heard works must be Mozart's set of seventeen Sonatas for Organ and Orchestra. I notice that B just got through listening to these in the 'current listening' thread yesterday, so he must be a Mozart specialist.

[QUOTE A]It is mostly perfectly crafted and the works are perfect art objects of their kind. The problem for me is with the kind. Perfection doesn't particularly impress me.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE B]That would seem to be more about your own biases or limitations than any failings on the part of the composer.[/QUOTE]

No, *A* is referring to the cookie-cutter nature of the Classical era works by Mozart, in question. Many times these were commissioned works for royals, composed within limitations, such as what orchestra was available, and how proficient they were. *Those *limitations.

[QUOTE A]Mass adulation with no thought behind it is a form of overrating -[/QUOTE]


[QUOTE B]I suppose... but I've never really thought that Mozart was the recipient of such... "mass adulation". How many listen to Mozart or any classical composer of the larger populace as a whole... let alone enough to have some misinformed notion of who is or isn't the "greatest"? [/QUOTE]

A is referring to the context we are discussing, Classical music. But "mass adulation" was still a pretty close descriptor after the _*Amadeus *_movie.

But the point is, nobody can name anything Mozart wrote; he's like a 'brand' which eveyone recognizes, yet no one can get specific.

*It's like The Three Tenors: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and that other guy.*


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## Blancrocher

millionrainbows said:


> Although Mozart's popularity has, if anything, increased during the last ten years or so, perhaps owing much in this regard to the success of Peter Shaffer's fictionalized dramatisation of his life in the stage play and subsequent film 'Amadeus,' there are several aspects of his output which remain unknown, and amongst these rarely-heard works must be Mozart's set of seventeen Sonatas for Organ and Orchestra. I notice that B just got through listening to these in the 'current listening' thread yesterday, so he must be a Mozart specialist.


Actually, on the basis of his "Current Listening" habits, I've inferred that he's an everything specialist.


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## StlukesguildOhio

No, A said "of little interest," not bad. There's a difference.

Thus "not bad"... or perhaps even "good" but "of little interest"? Of little interest to whom?

Although Mozart's popularity has, if anything, increased during the last ten years or so, perhaps owing much in this regard to the success of Peter Shaffer's fictionalized dramatisation of his life in the stage play and subsequent film 'Amadeus',...

Hmmm... Shaffer's play dates from 1979 and the Forman's film from 1984. That's 30 years ago... 10 years older than _Immortal Beloved_... a film about that other overrated composer. Is it really likely that a great many are still first being turned onto Mozart due to _Amadeus_?

No, A is referring to the cookie-cutter nature of the Classical era works by Mozart, in question.

One might just as well speak of the cookie-cutter format of the sonnet or the limitations of theater, film, or TV... yet all have resulted in some of the most masterful work. Are all of Mozart's compositions masterpieces? Of course not. But then again, neither are all of the compositions by Beethoven or Mahler... in spite of the fact that they enjoyed the advantage (?) of being able to labor over their works for years.

Many times these were commissioned works for royals, composed within limitations, such as what orchestra was available, and how proficient they were. Those limitations.

Again... the finest artists have always been able to use such limitations to their advantage... whether it is the poet limited by the constraints of a given poetic form (such as Dante's terza rima) or a film-maker limited to 90-minutes in black-and-white.

But "mass adulation" was still a pretty close descriptor after the Amadeus movie.

Again, you are talking about a film now 30 years old. How relevant is it upon the imagined "mass adulation" of Mozart today?

But the point is, nobody can name anything Mozart wrote; he's like a 'brand' which eveyone recognizes, yet no one can get specific.

It's like The Three Tenors: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, and that other guy.

That may be true of those who take little real interest in classical music. But it is probably no less true of Beethoven or Bach... or within other artistic forms... it may be no less true of Leonardo (with the exception of the _Mona Lisa_), Rembrandt, Shakespeare, Monet, etc...


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## EdwardBast

Petwhac said:


> I think it boils down to the fact that many people enjoy debunking commonly held beliefs and attitudes. Myself included. Especially when the beliefs and attitudes _received_ and not the product of independent thought by those holding them.


I resemble that remark.


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## bigshot

Margaret Dumont is a funnier target than Mozart for that sort of thing.


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## hpowders

You made your marx, now you're stuck with it.


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## PetrB

BurningDesire said:


> what I find so obnoxious about this cult of Mozart, as well as the one surrounding Bach (Beethoven is quite popular, but he doesn't seem to be quite so fetishized as those other two) is the absurdity of claiming that these extremely narrow aesthetics are somehow perfect, that this is the epitome of music as an art form.


I agree with you on the plummy audacity of the constantly repeated "pronouncement" that BachMozartBeethoven is a holy trinity and the accompanying aesthetic of those works -- and that alone of all music -- is often touted by the fusty and dusty souls as "the highest achievement of western civilization." That is a very closed set mentality which excludes Rameau as well as earlier and later equally great composers. In a more current mode of thinking, fairly alien to all in the eras of that holy trinity, that cant is now seen -- only through a much later lens ground well after the fact of Beethoven -- as being blisteringly cultural jingoist; this is a johnny come very lately view which, its roots understood, I cannot include as part of the tirade against, while I can get irritated if it is continually perpetuated in teaching young minds.

I agree that trinity, or extreme attention and adulation focused on any one of the holy trinity, is both as ridiculous as it is reductionist in the extreme.

The extremists who think that BachBeethovenMozart are the only true great composers and that all else is less or fell rapidly downhill are, imho, obsessive nutters glamorizing only that which they get, and the rest of their counterarguments against any other candidates named as holding the same merit or rank is a mere rationale. I.e. "at least they understood that much." _There are some, not nutters, who have genuinely found that for them, the works of one of that holy trinity satisfy them more than any other composer's music._ *Good on them; it is a personal viewpoint based upon a personal taste, not a universal truth.*

The dutiful rote teaching of that holy trinity cant is to account for many of those who later become nutters as well as those who get wildly over-reactionary contra that pronouncement of holy trinity.

Bach's works are all pretty much 'perfectly made,' and there can be some satisfaction in just that quality alone, while I think that the 'perfectly made' -- which is pretty much all of Bach -- can be just as perfectly boring. Ditto some of Mozart's works, while for me, nonetheless, a number of his childhood pieces are perfectly made and do sometimes have a childlike boyish charm. There is a lightness and grace and _suavity_ I find in even the least of Mozart's works, not that those are the ones I would opt to listen to often 

You get to Beethoven and you get to a great composer with a much higher 'fail rate,' it is not all of it 'perfectly made,' but flawed... making I suppose another feature an attraction vs. its being a detraction. I get less those who adore all his works unreservedly. I have noticed that with his overt drama, and as 'elegant or subtle' some of his music sometimes is, the _obviousness_ of that drama and its at the time unique quality of somehow evoking in the listener strong thoughts of the individual, heroics, and struggle, does have a very wide appeal, and that is often the first music the n00b, child or adult just starting in on classical, latches onto and is (rightfully) wowed by. The cult of Beethoven, not downgrading his music at all, are very big fans of the more overt type of drama; or conversely, it is so hammer over the head strong that is the first music which sinks in 

Then we have Stravinsky, whose entire output, with maybe one or two exceptions, is also 'perfectly made' great music. There are others as good, before Bach and after Beethoven

So much for that Trinity, eh?


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## KenDuctor

We may also have to look at which generation this statement came from. Because if it isn't Free, easy, instantaneous, or blinging, well then the mass majority of the this new generation want respect it. Not all, but the mass majority.


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## Blake

……………………….


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## BurningDesire

KenDuctor said:


> We may also have to look at which generation this statement came from. Because if it isn't Free, easy, instantaneous, or blinging, well then the mass majority of the this new generation want respect it. Not all, but the mass majority.


I resent that insinuation. I work hard in every aspect of my love for music.


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## Morimur

KenDuctor said:


> We may also have to look at which generation this statement came from. Because if it isn't Free, easy, instantaneous, or blinging, well then the mass majority of the this new generation want respect it. Not all, but the mass majority.


Oh no you didn't!


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## aleazk

Mozart was a complete genius in the style in which he wrote. As others said here, his products are "perfect" when considered from this point of view.

Said that, the aesthetic in which he wrote prevents me from a full visceral enjoyment of his music. To wit, his aesthetic is kind of "meh" to my taste. Things I often don't like about the classical style: the straightforward CPT; its often light character; its formulaic structures. Things I love: the incredibly clever gesture/counter-gesture syntactic; the formal balance of the music; the sense of development and cohesion starting from simple themes/motifs.


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## science

Fortinbras Armstrong said:


> I was told a story by a rabbi I know. He was in the Louvre. On the tour was an elderly American woman who didn't think much of the paintings. "Is the Mona Lisa smiling or not smiling? Can't DiVinci make up his mind?" she kvetched. The Rembrandts and Reubens did not forego her criticisms either. "I really don't see what is so wonderful about these pictures!"
> 
> The guide responded, "Madam, when you go to the Louvre you must realize the paintings have already been scrutinized, analyzed, praised and critiqued. The paintings are not on trial. It is you who are on trial."


Well, maybe she was honest at least.

Most people know something like what they're supposed to say, and fake it. Discussing high culture _usually_ boils down to people figuring out what they're supposed to say. If we say the wrong thing, we're reproached, and sometimes even in clever ways by clever people.

If the guide actually wasn't able to tell her why the paintings have been admired by others, he should have just been honest with her, "Madame, these paintings are for people of higher cultural status than you, and you're supposed to know your place."


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## millionrainbows

After hearing a lively, impassioned reading of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, the one in G, it strikes me that Mozart never gets "lost in flights of ecstacy." There is a restraint, a certain lack of emotion, a self-centeredness that seems not to need us.


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## aleazk

millionrainbows said:


> After hearing a lively, impassioned reading of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, the one in G, it strikes me that Mozart never gets "lost in flights of ecstacy." There is a restraint, a certain lack of emotion, a self-centeredness that seems not to need us.


Yes, that's true. In fact, this detachment can be a very attractive thing in music. If you ask me, I prefer Ravel's (LTdC) or Webern's (the piano variations) detachment than Mozart's. In Mozart, there's some kind frivolity (proper of that era I guess) that I don't find in the other two.


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## Blancrocher

millionrainbows said:


> After hearing a lively, impassioned reading of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, the one in G, it strikes me that Mozart never gets "lost in flights of ecstacy." There is a restraint, a certain lack of emotion, a self-centeredness that seems not to need us.


I find Mozart a very affecting and emotional composer--especially in his slow movements. He also has an impeccable sense of humor: some of his instrumental compositions and parts from all of his operas (including the so-called "opera seria") bring tears of laughter to my eyes--and I wish that some of his wilder operatic ideas had been finished! I don't see him as in the least self-centered, but this is a hard thing to talk about.

The quality of his emotional climaxes is very different from Bach's, however--they were very different personalities.


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## bigshot

KenDuctor said:


> We may also have to look at which generation this statement came from. Because if it isn't Free, easy, instantaneous, or blinging, well then the mass majority of the this new generation want respect it. Not all, but the mass majority.


That actually isn't what I've noticed about young people's tastes... I think young people tend to prefer things with a single emotion- serious music with no humor or lightness. They see nuance and contrasts as weakness. I also think they immediately dismiss things that are generally accepted as "the best" out of hand, just to be contrary and to attempt to establish an identity for themselves and their opinions. They tend to speak in absolutes about things they know (either very good or very bad) and tend to dismiss everything they don't know much about yet (which is most things).

As time passes, they tend to realize that the generally accepted "greats" have that reputation for a good reason, and that there is a lot more greatness that they don't know about yet than the greatness they know. I don't think this is any different than young people in the past. The folly of youth is curable by age.


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## Fortinbras Armstrong

violadude said:


> Really? I've heard quite often that his 9th symphony is the greatest symphony ever composed in the whole world.


In his autobiography, Peter Ustinov speaks of being asked by one of his teachers, "Who is the world's greatest composer?" Ustinov replied, "Mozart." The teacher said that he was wrong, the answer is "Beethoven."


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## Blancrocher

Despite recent criticisms, I believe that Mozart will survive--in one way or another.

*p.s.* Sorry about this post.


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## Blake

millionrainbows said:


> After hearing a lively, impassioned reading of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto, the one in G, it strikes me that Mozart never gets "lost in flights of ecstacy." There is a restraint, a certain lack of emotion, a self-centeredness that seems not to need us.


It seems when he's lost in his compositions that he doesn't want anyone, so everyone wants him. There's this sort of spacious coolness about Mozart that really sets him apart from his contemporaries. But this coolness is coupled with an embracing sweetness that makes his music nearly irresistible.


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## PetrB

Blancrocher said:


> Despite recent criticisms, I believe that Mozart will survive--in one way or another.
> 
> *p.s.* Sorry about this post.


LOL. I did not listen to this, but the photo looks like open mike / Kareoke night, where the guy on the left, who is in that cliche state of overemotional sloppy drunkenness, is about to tell the guy on the right, with that whole near teary sloppy drunk's sentimental thing going full throttle, _"I love ya, buddy!"_


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## Ondine

I can't tell about the ideas exposed at the OP about the overrated attitude because I haven't been aware of it.

The first time I listen to Mozart was at my teen years with Beethoven as a hero. I didn't liked Mozart. Also I found Amadeus, the movie, silly and stupid. 

But after many years and in a very deep Bach period -I don't know why- I bought, from the Complete Mozart Edition, his Divertimenti for Strings and Winds; that music shocked me. It was so brilliant and beautiful. Since then Mozart became the greatest one for me. He caught my soul. 

I was not aware about 'memes', fashion commentaries, populace opinions or high brows opinionated people. I don't care if he is overrated or not. What matters to me is his music. About his life, I found it just amazing. The only biography I have read recently is the one of Wolfgang Hildesheimer and it confirms much of what I suspected about him.


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## Richannes Wrahms

Your quest for meaning is doomed. I could contaminate Mozart's entire oeuvre with my overt rationalism and pinpoint everything I stand for and Mozart would still be Mozart and perfection and beauty and logic would still be Mozart and Mozart.


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## Planetsuite

Many wise words have been spoken and we probably agree, amongst us, that Mozart cannot be overrated. But if you're not fully aquainted with his music you can easily make the mistake of thinking it light-weight and superficial, especially if you believe that classical music is big orchestras making a big sound. I too can remember a time when his chamber music would have sounded silly...nothing happening, repetetive melodies etc....these were juvenile delusions I needed to grow out of. Now, middle-aged, I often find rock music has nothing happening, repetetive melodies etc...but I'm not complaining. We all have our own tastes.


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## PetrB

bigshot said:


> Wagner probably is in the same league as the big three. Haydn and Brahms perhaps too. But that doesn't change the self evident greatness of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Really, it's kind of silly to argue that they aren't self evidently great. Quality, Quantity, Consistency, Supreme Peaks of Achievement, Popularity, Influence, Versatility, Originality, Respect from other Artists... I can't think of a single way of judging where these three composers don't come out at the top.


It is an antique 'top' and its repute (unrevised / not updated for generations) is in place now primarily due to generations of rote teaching, like state propaganda... yes it has a genuine validity. It is a complete falsehood that there is not room at that same top for some of the others I mentioned, and I think the sovereignty of that plateau being solely Germanic is also political, and no longer at all valid.

"Self-evident,' if programmed in by rote repetition since we were tots, seriously needs some examining. We need to think for ourselves, realize that perhaps Debussy has as much universal respect and admiration from composers and musicians, for example, and Stravinsky, and not feel fear that it would 'knock off or down,' the holy trinity if they were no longer a trinity.


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## bigshot

I suppose if this was golf, you could apply a handicap and we could compare mice to men.

Debussy's music is very pretty. I like it a lot. Stravinsky sure did start out with a bang, didn't he? What happened there?


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## Mahlerian

bigshot said:


> Debussy's music is very pretty. I like it a lot.


But its far more than simply pretty.



bigshot said:


> Stravinsky sure did start out with a bang, didn't he? What happened there?


He went on even further. Don't worry, the audience is starting to catch up.


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## PetrB

bigshot said:


> I suppose if this was golf, you could apply a handicap and we could compare mice to men.


If music was a sport, sport, I suppose one could. But music is not a sport, sport.



bigshot said:


> Debussy's music is very pretty. I like it a lot.


Even most in the profession, including musicologists, were so snookered by the superficial cosmetic of the 'prettiness' of Debussy's music that they did not realize, until about the 1960's or 1970's, that underlying that surface is one of the most potent and profoundly great composers of all time. Ergo, "Rank & Status" officially changed. Maybe reading some more recent entries on the composer will at least convince you of that sea-change, if not the estimation itself.



bigshot said:


> Stravinsky sure did start out with a bang, didn't he? What happened there?


He went on to continue to write music of such strength and integrity he is now given the official position of "the 20th century Bach" (By the same people who brought you and perpetuate Bach being ranked so high.) Some listeners are still stuck on the first three ballets written to commissions by Diaghilev, and can or do not go any further, or if they do, miss what is of such strength, integrity, and dare I mention deep and moving beauty?


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## Woodduck

Blancrocher said:


> I find Mozart a very affecting and emotional composer--especially in his slow movements. He also has an impeccable sense of humor: some of his instrumental compositions and parts from all of his operas (including the so-called "opera seria") bring tears of laughter to my eyes--and I wish that some of his wilder operatic ideas had been finished! I don't see him as in the least self-centered, but this is a hard thing to talk about.
> 
> The quality of his emotional climaxes is very different from Bach's, however--they were very different personalities.


It isn't their individual personalities that make the difference so much as the differing aesthetics of the Baroque and the Classical. Baroque art thrives on tension, Classical seeks balance. Baroque tension comes from straining against a framework, unfurling an emotion in a long trajectory which reaches a peak of tension before finally resolving (specimen: Bach's organ Prelude and Fugue in E-flat, "St. Anne"). Classical balance comes from setting one element in dialogue with another within a framework which is rarely far from sight and so gives us a sense of stability (specimen: Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik"). This doesn't mean that Baroque art can't have clarity and balance, or that Classical art need lack tension. Baroque composers wrote elegant suites with varied dances in symmetrical forms juxtaposing contrasting elements, while Classical composers created the sonata form which allowed for extended irresolution and accumulation of energy in its development sections.

The Classical tendency is indeed to "never get lost in flights of ecstasy" (as MillionRainbows put it), or of anything else, but to keep all affects in balance with their contraries, or at least on a short leash. The Baroque tendency is to explore an affect in depth, to lengthen the leash and to pull back on it only when it threatens to break.

The Romantic tendency is to let go of the leash.


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## bigshot

PetrB said:


> Some listeners are still stuck on the first three ballets written to commissions by Diaghilev, and can or do not go any further, or if they do, miss what is of such strength, integrity, and dare I mention deep and moving beauty?


Dumbarton Oaks and a few other things in the later period are good, but it gets a lot more spare after the huge explosion at the beginning. I'm actually genuinely interested in finding out what happened. Stravinsky went from emotions bursting out all over the place to academic austerity. Huge shift. Maybe some people prefer the classicism to the early wild stuff. But I tend to prefer real powerful emotions.

As for Debussy, I love his work... although I think I might actually like Ravel a tiny bit more. But even though Debussy's work is important and wonderful, it isn't on the same large scale. I understand that smaller perfection on its own terms is a great thing, but it's hard not to stand in awe with your jaw on the floor with the monumental and varied achievements of the big three (plus two). They are larger than life.


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## bigshot

Woodduck said:


> It isn't their individual personalities that make the difference so much as the differing aesthetics of the Baroque and the Classical. Baroque art thrives on tension, Classical seeks balance.


It's funny that you say that, because my impression of the two is quite different.

To me Baroque is more purely musical in an almost mathematical way. I've heard it described disparagingly as "sewing machine music" and to a certain respect, that is true. It is balanced and clear in structure. All of the loose ends are tied up neatly.

In the Classical era, the structure is more complex and the emotional content is considerably higher. Both Haydn and Mozart have considerable emotional content. (Bach has a lot of emotional content too, but he isn't really typical of other Baroque composers in that regard.)


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## StlukesguildOhio

It is an antique 'top' and its repute (unrevised / not updated for generations) is in place now primarily due to generations of rote teaching, like state propaganda... yes it has a genuine validity. It is a complete falsehood that there is not room at that same top for some of the others I mentioned, and I think the sovereignty of that plateau being solely Germanic is also political, and no longer at all valid.

Petr... I'm not certain I fully accept your interpretation. I agree there are biases against more contemporary works of art... but I would also suggest that "influence" is one of the elements we consider in weighing the importance of a given artist. It is hard, for example, to compare James Joyce or Proust to Shakespeare in part due to the fact that Shakespeare has benefited from centuries of subsequent artists (including Joyce and Proust) who have built upon his achievements.

Personally, I would almost certainly include Debussy, Ravel, Richard Strauss, and quite possibly Stravinsky among my own pantheon of the "Greatest 25 Composers". Others would likely include Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. I personally find that I am not overly fond of the direction in which they took music, and I'd be more inclined to include Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, and Thelonius Monk.

Not certain about your Austro-Germanic hegemony holding sway due to politics. The French and Anglo-Americans (along with the Russians/Soviets post-WWII) have held political/economic dominance since at least the 1800s... and the Austrians and Germans have not exactly been their favorite cousins.


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## Blake

bigshot said:


> It's funny that you say that, because my impression of the two is quite different.
> 
> To me Baroque is more purely musical in an almost mathematical way. I've heard it described disparagingly as "sewing machine music" and to a certain respect, that is true. It is balanced and clear in structure. All of the loose ends are tied up neatly.
> 
> In the Classical era, the structure is more complex and the emotional content is considerably higher. Both Haydn and Mozart have considerable emotional content. (Bach has a lot of emotional content too, but he isn't really typical of other Baroque composers in that regard.)


Bach seems so "heady" to me. I just can't seem to get into much of his instrumental work.


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## bigshot

Vesuvius said:


> Bach seems so "heady" to me. I just can't seem to get into much of his instrumental work.


I've been listening to classical music pretty seriously for about 30 years now. I know *exactly* what you're talking about. Bach always seemed to me to be really abstract, almost inhumanly abstract. I set his music aside and listened to a bunch of other stuff. In the past few years, I've dipped my toe back into Bach, and with my broader frame of reference, I am seeing a whole different level to Bach's music that I was completely blind to before. There is a powerful undertow of emotion running below the mathematical Baroque surface. I can only compare it to Persian carpets that are made up of complex patterns but express things much more human, or stained glass windows that are made of thousands of tiny shards of glass in a matrix of lead, but when the light shines through it right, it becomes something incredibly profound.

Nothing wrong with not beating your head up against Bach. Set it aside, and when you're ready, you're ready.


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## Woodduck

bigshot said:


> It's funny that you say that, because my impression of the two is quite different.
> 
> To me Baroque is more purely musical in an almost mathematical way. I've heard it described disparagingly as "sewing machine music" and to a certain respect, that is true. It is balanced and clear in structure. All of the loose ends are tied up neatly.
> 
> In the Classical era, the structure is more complex and the emotional content is considerably higher. Both Haydn and Mozart have considerable emotional content. (Bach has a lot of emotional content too, but he isn't really typical of other Baroque composers in that regard.)


What you call the "mathematical" aspect of Baroque music is the leash by which its affective content is restrained. The formal devices of the Baroque must be strong, because that content can be strong indeed. For example, Monteverdi or Purcell or Pachelbel or Bach will set going a "ground," a bass figure which repeats over and over - a simple, "mathematical " device - but against it almost anything can and does happen, from soulful _cantilena_ to exuberant _fioriture_ to the most extravagant sequences of variations. Dido's Lament in Purcell's opera owes its poignant power to the tension set up between her cry of sorrow and precisely this kind of relentless ground bass over which her phrases fall at remarkable, staggered intervals. It's a "mathematical" trick - but the effect is profound, noble, and heartbreaking. That's the Baroque "expressiveness through constraint" principle at work, and I can think of nothing in Classical music to parallel it.

From the way you speak of Baroque music, quoting that old saw about "sewing machine music" (which I would not concede as being in any respect true except in bad performances), I wonder how much of it you know well. You may feel that the emotional content of Classical music is higher, but that of course only speaks to what you yourself feel when listening. Others feel differently.

As for structures, the only peculiarly Classical form which achieves great complexity is the "sonata form" used mainly in opening movements of multi-movement works (symphonies, concertos, etc.). Sonata form is where much of the "drama" in Classical music is concentrated. Middle movements tend to be song or dance forms, episodic in structure, and final movements often set forth alternating material (rondo), producing "additive" structures. Sets of variations may occur in slow movements or may stand alone. Unlike sonata-allegro, none of these other structural principles is original with Classical style.

The Baroque spawned a great variety of forms which are quite varied and far from "mathematical": dance forms similar to Classical ones (the ancestors of them, actually); long-breathed, harmonically adventurous cantilenas; wildly free-form toccatas and fantasias; free variations on a theme or a ground; and the limitless formal possibilities of fugue, which is not truly a form but a process allowing composers to create their own forms to whatever degree of complexity their technique and inventiveness will permit.

Most composers, Baroque or Classical, aspired to finished works that were "balanced and clear," and in which "loose ends" were effectively "tied up." Those are not period or stylistic traits; they're just marks of competent writing.

Bach, Mozart and Haydn are the only composers you mention, but although you point to Bach as being not typical of the Baroque, you apparently accept Mozart and Haydn as typically Classical. I'd suggest that these are all culminating figures in their respective stylistic eras, and that if you want to explore the full scope of these eras you need to branch out way beyond these three and their most striking and powerful, but for that very reason, not wholly representative works.


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## PetrB

bigshot said:


> Dumbarton Oaks and a few other things in the later period are good, but it gets a lot more spare after the huge explosion at the beginning. I'm actually genuinely interested in finding out what happened. Stravinsky went from emotions bursting out all over the place to academic austerity. Huge shift. Maybe some people prefer the classicism to the early wild stuff. But I tend to prefer real powerful emotions.
> 
> As for Debussy, I love his work... although I think I might actually like Ravel a tiny bit more. But even though Debussy's work is important and wonderful, it isn't on the same large scale. I understand that smaller perfection on its own terms is a great thing, but it's hard not to stand in awe with your jaw on the floor with the monumental and varied achievements of the big three (plus two). They are larger than life.


If your taste is for the overtly grand and emotional, high thee to the romantics. I don't expect 19th century sensibilities and emotions from 20th century composers. If you have a _preference,_ there is nothing wrong with that. If that _preference_ is to become a yardstick to measure all else, well anyone can see the flaw in that one-size-fits all mentality.


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## PetrB

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Petr... I'm not certain I fully accept your interpretation. I agree there are biases against more contemporary works of art... but I would also suggest that "influence" is one of the elements we consider in weighing the importance of a given artist. It is hard, for example, to compare James Joyce or Proust to Shakespeare in part due to the fact that Shakespeare has benefited from centuries of subsequent artists (including Joyce and Proust) who have built upon his achievements.


St.Luke'sGuild Oh:
Can we discredit those who came later than the earlier composers for using and taking off what was at hand? We don't discredit or discount Bach because of all the masters and direct forces of influence on his musical sensibility, at least I hope not.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Not certain about your Austro-Germanic hegemony holding sway due to politics. The French and Anglo-Americans (along with the Russians/Soviets post-WWII) have held political/economic dominance since at least the 1800s... and the Austrians and Germans have not exactly been their favorite cousins.


b b b but...England is where all of us in English speaking former colonies 'come from.' and until well into the 1900's, 'we are more German' in thought and opinions on music than we are French, Italian, etc. I wonder if that Germanic Holy Trinity might not instead be a quartet with Rameau included if the dominating fashion of thought had been more French than Anglo-Saxon ? ... a hypothetical idea, to be sure, never to be substantiated any more than how many angels can dance on a pin could ever be answered 

I was also, far less than tongue in cheek, strongly advocating an update to include other clearly great composers from later than the common practice period, and it is to be hoped that list is not generated by a double pun about the spelling of a key signature, as were "The Three B's" -- which up through the fifties were the rote taught Holy Trinity


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## bigshot

PetrB said:


> If your taste is for the overtly grand and emotional, high thee to the romantics.


There are powerful emotions in all periods and forms of art. That emotional wallop is what sets the greats apart from the also rans.


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## KenOC

bigshot said:


> There are powerful emotions in all periods and forms of art. That emotional wallop is what sets the greats apart from the also rans.


Where does that leave Bach's WTC? Or AoF?


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## bigshot

You're right Woodduck... I find that with vocal music and opera, analytical abstractness is a very, very rare thing, and it's hard to be emotionless when you're dancing!


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## Guest

PetrB said:


> b b b but...England is where all of us in English speaking former colonies 'come from.' and until well into the 1900's, 'we are more German' in thought and opinions on music than we are French, Italian, etc. I wonder if that Germanic Holy Trinity might not instead be a quartet with Rameau included if the dominating fashion of thought had been more French than Anglo-Saxon ?


I'm not sure that I agree with you 100% on your genealogy work there, Lou. Some of us "English" carry Celt, Saxon, Viking, Roman, French ancestry and the nation influenced by the succession of Saxon, French, Scots and Germanic dynasties that ruled over us.

Besides, everyone knows that Americans draw their heritage from Ireland and Scotland, where German sensibility barely ventured!


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## violadude

bigshot said:


> There are powerful emotions in all periods and forms of art. That emotional wallop is what sets the greats apart from the also rans.


That would be a pretty narrow way of defining what made great music.


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## bigshot

i wasn't talking just about music. The expression of powerful emotion is at the core of all the arts. Touching people's souls is the difference between artistry and craftsmanship.


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## violadude

bigshot said:


> i wasn't talking just about music. The expression of powerful emotion is at the core of all the arts. Touching people's souls is the difference between artistry and craftsmanship.


I don't think it can be, because "touching people's souls" is dependent on the person listening to the music, not just the music. People's souls are touched by a variety of different things, including terrible art. The 21st century pop music scene is proof of that.

But I keep forgetting that the "laws of what makes good music" suddenly don't apply when we are talking about other genres.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> i wasn't talking just about music. The expression of powerful emotion is at the core of all the arts. Touching people's souls is the difference between artistry and craftsmanship.


You may have been talking about 'all the arts', but it was reasonable for violadude to have singled out music. In any case, the 'soul' is not the place where emotions are touched, is it?


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## bigshot

Yes, music is the same in its core as the rest of the arts.

Emotion is the way to touch the soul. Craftsmanship touches the intellect.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> Emotion is the way to touch the soul. Craftsmanship touches the intellect.


Well, I guess you can have your soul wherever you will. Mine maybe somewhere between my brain and my stomach, encompassing both. I can't separate the types of pleasure I get from listening to Prokofiev's 5th Symphony - but it's all just hormones anyway - no soul involved at all really.


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## bigshot

Too bad. Are you young? It could be an age thing. When I was young I appreciated things for the good aspects of them that were clearly objective and on the surface. As I get older, I start valuing the things that are inside- the things that express humanity. A direct link between the artist and me without need for words or explanation.

Maybe that sounds hippie-dippy but it's the best I can describe it right now.


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## violadude

bigshot said:


> Yes, music is the same in its core as the rest of the arts.
> 
> Emotion is the way to touch the soul. Craftsmanship touches the intellect.


I don't think the two things are so separable. Good craftsmanship is usually involved in making an aesthetically touching/pleasing piece. Depending on what you are looking for in a piece, of course.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> Too bad. Are you young?


Who? Me? Definitely young at heart.


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## PetrB

bigshot said:


> There are powerful emotions in all periods and forms of art. That emotional wallop is what sets the greats apart from the also rans.


As long as that is not exclusively the big, grand, overt to your particular set of emotional wallops  In fact, the emotional wallop on its own is no criterion whatsoever.


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## bigshot

When I look at something that has a high level of craftsmanship, I'm impressed. I see the functionality of the design and the pleasing form that makes it appealing to the eye or ear. I *like* it. I *appreciate* it. It's perfectly possible to appreciate great art only on that level. That's fine.

But as I get older, more and more I see the purpose the craftsmanship, functionality and appeal serve. They're the technique used to put across something that can only be felt. When you look at the Pieta, you see beautiful texture in the marble, amazing observation of anatomy, drapery, composition, light and shade, etc. You can appreciate it purely as a well made, beautiful sculpture. But there is so much more there... humanity, life, passion, emotion... things you can't fully express with words, and things that go far beyond craftsmanship.

Here in this newsgroup, there is a lot of discussion of the details *around* classical music... who composed the best second symphony? ranking works by which ones we like, listing the music we're tired of, which composer had the most odious politics? etc... but not a lot about what the music says to us or means to us. Maybe that's because a lot of posters are just enjoying the external things about music. Maybe it's because they aren't perceiving that deeper level. Maybe it's because it requires a certain amount of honesty and bravery to put yourself out there to describe how music makes you feel. Maybe because that level of expression can't be described in words... I don't know which. Take your pick.


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## bigshot

PetrB said:


> As long as that is not exclusively the big, grand, overt to your particular set of emotional wallops  In fact, the emotional wallop on its own is no criterion whatsoever.


The big grand emotional wallop isn't in the music. It's in the listener. Music has a meaning. The meaning is in the feeling.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> Maybe it's because they aren't perceiving that deeper level. Maybe it's because it requires a certain amount of honesty and bravery to put yourself out there to describe how music makes you feel. Maybe because that level of expression can't be described in words... I don't know which. Take your pick.


Maybe it's just because it isn't in the music - or we'd all hear it. It isn't the same as being able to recognise that there is an oboe 'in it' or a cadence 'in it'. I defend you're right to assert that you hear the big emotions and that's what matters to _you _in the Big Three (that you claim are self-evidently head and shoulders above all the rest) and I would recognise that that is what matters to many listeners.

But as has been argued many times here before, this is a far cry from establishing an objective judgement about the value of Mozart.


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## bigshot

MacLeod said:


> Maybe it's just because it isn't in the music - or we'd all hear it.


Hearing and understanding are two different things. You could recite Shakespere's sonnets to someone and the words would contain great profundity, but to a person that only speaks Chinese, it's nothing more than sound.

Not everyone is capable of fully feeling what art communicates. I don't know why that is. Maybe they choose not to feel. Maybe it's just the way they're wired. But it's true. Some people hear Beethoven's fifth and just hear four notes. Others feel what Beethoven felt.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> Hearing and understanding are two different things. You could recite Shakespere's sonnets to someone and the words would contain great profundity, but to a person that only speaks Chinese, it's nothing more than sound.
> 
> Not everyone is capable of fully feeling what art communicates. I don't know why that is. Maybe they choose not to feel. Maybe it's just the way they're wired. But it's true. Some people hear Beethoven's fifth and just hear four notes. Others feel what Beethoven felt.


Now you're confusing the technical capability to 'understand' (can't speak the language) with the inexplicable preferences and responses of the listener (by which I mean all the factors that go into the personal reaction of the individual listener). You're perilously close to arguing the falsehood that once one has the capability to hear and understand, one _must _hear the great content that is surely there.


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## bigshot

Well, I think that the reverse is definitely true... Not being able to understand the language of art is a fantastic way not to be able to perceive self-evident greatness. An awful lot of people are incapable of connecting with the emotional core of art. Even me when I was younger... even folks in internet chat rooms dedicated to the subject of art!

It's easy to be so familiar with one layer that you don't realize that there are more layers to understand that you've never even considered.


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## Guest

Speaking subjectively, I would argue that what marks out greatness in art is that it communicates something or worth _without _the observer having to 'understand the language'? Surely one of the reasons Mozart's reputation and popularity has been maintained is that the music appeals to many who just hear and enjoy?

It's the overraters who exhort us to realise that there is oh-so-much-more once you are a sophisticated enough listener to _understand_!


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## bigshot

Well, there are concepts that can be put across with a basic vocabulary and concepts that require a more sophisticated vocabulary. Mozart is unique, because his music encompasses both. There's a level that even baby geniuses can understand and levels that reveal themselves only to listeners willing to go the extra mile to emotionally bond with them.

I think the thing that sets Mozart apart as one of the absolute greats is the latter more than the former. Offenbach has plenty of direct communication, and I love Offenbach, but he's no Mozart!


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## PetrB

bigshot said:


> Hearing and understanding are two different things. You could recite Shakespere's sonnets to someone and the words would contain great profundity, but to a person that only speaks Chinese, it's nothing more than sound.
> 
> Not everyone is capable of fully feeling what art communicates. I don't know why that is. Maybe they choose not to feel. Maybe it's just the way they're wired. But it's true. Some people hear Beethoven's fifth and just hear four notes. Others feel what Beethoven felt.


Sorry, mate, we have no idea -- nowhere near -- of "What Beethoven felt" when he was composing the fifth symphony. Individuals know what they feel, and not completely, ever, what others feel.

Some people suffer the most horrific trials, losses, and we never see them exhibiting outward signs of their distress, and they do not speak of it. That is _not_ evidence enough to assume they feel anything less than others, where in fact it may have affected them more deeply than the same set of tragic circumstances if they befell another who would react more visibly, speak more volubly. _So it also goes with composers and what audiences perceive as deep emotion in the works those composers produce._

Some get more profound depth of emotions, both high and low, from Mozart than they will ever be able to find in Beethoven. I maintain Beethoven is the most accessible to the greater number of listeners exactly because of its obviousness: Mozart is all restraint and subtlety. To think that because Mozart, for example, is of a very different nature than Beethoven, ergo, there is less emoting in Mozart's music, is a mistaken notion on an epic scale.

But what is this near boast of how much we feel and how great the depth of it and that then held up to what others _may_ feel? One-upsmanship? "I'm more sssssensitive than thou?" "I get it and they don't?" "I have suffered more so can get more out of Beethoven?" (that last reminds me of the guy saying to his friends, "that stripper was really in to me.") Points in some depths of emotions game of prestige? I really don't get it.


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## bigshot

PetrB said:


> Sorry, mate, we have no idea -- nowhere near -- of "What Beethoven felt" when he was composing the fifth symphony. Individuals know what they feel, and not completely, ever, what others feel.


There's more in heaven and earth than is dreamed about in your philosophy.

There has definitely been a shift in society from expression and empathy to black and white logic and objectiveness. This is great for science, and the modern world excels when it comes to that. But when it comes to artistic expression, we are in a sorry state. I work with artists for a living, and I know that they are still asking the same questions and trying to express what's in their emotional core the same way artists always have. But our society isn't set up to receive it. The world is on a totally different wavelength.

Thankfully, for those who still can perceive emotional content and can feel passion have hundreds of years of creation to call upon, thanks to technology. Media makes artistic expression from the past centuries available to us in unprecidented amounts. It's just ironic that in this embarassment of riches, society has become so emotionally crippled, it may just be unable to appreciate it. Whatever caused that, it's a huge change over the function of art in society, and I think today, we are the poorer for it.

I don't think science and technology are to blame. The beginning of the 20th century was a great time for science and technology too, but the arts flourished alongside. I think the problem is either biological (the rise of mental conditions that impair non-verbal communications and emotional empathy) or cultural (society just not valuing the arts enough to train young people in the ways to understand it). Maybe it's a little bit of both.


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## bigshot

PetrB said:


> But what is this near boast of how much we feel and how great the depth of it and that then held up to what others _may_ feel? One-upsmanship? "I'm more sssssensitive than thou?" "I get it and they don't?" "I have suffered more so can get more out of Beethoven?" (that last reminds me of the guy saying to his friends, "that stripper was really in to me.") Points in some depths of emotions game of prestige? I really don't get it.


Maybe I can explain... When I perceive profound emotional content in a work of art, I'm not impressed with my ability to perceive. Passive viewing of art and feeling what it has to say isn't any great achievement. The greatness lies in the ability of an artist to speak on a meaningful level to people across the centuries. That is the spark of immortality, and that is extremely rare.

When I hear Beethoven or Mozart's music, or see paintings or sculptures by Michaelangelo, the object itself isn't what's important. It's the ideas and emotions that the works convey that matter. I stand in front of that and receive it, just like every other human being and am in awe of the super human greatness of its expression.

Perceiving greatness in art doesn't require any special abilities, just simple, straightforward humanity. That's why it's so strange that so many people seem incapable of perceiving it. In the past, humanity was something we assumed was inborn in us. Maybe that isn't the case. Perhaps it needs to be taught. I dunno.


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## millionrainbows

Like they say in bluegrass music,* "We are listening to the man as well as the music." *Maybe there's some unsavory aspect to Mozart's character that we intuit through the music. Superficial, lacking emotion, playful, unserious, maudlin, sell-out, pandering to kings, effete, effeminate, dainty, emotionally immature...? Your guess is as good as mine, but Mozart was only human. Does he get a free escape from judgement?


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## Blake

We don't know that he was only human. He very well could've been an incarnation of an extra-dimensional being. I'm not saying this with sarcasm… I'm seriously opening these possibilities up. I mean, how do we ever know that someone is only human? What is simply human? All we're judging from is the surface play, but what's powering that?


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## bigshot

millionrainbows said:


> Like they say in bluegrass music,* "We are listening to the man as well as the music." *Maybe there's some unsavory aspect to Mozart's character that we intuit through the music. Superficial, lacking emotion, playful, unserious, maudlin, sell-out, pandering to kings, effete, effeminate, dainty, emotionally immature...? Your guess is as good as mine, but Mozart was only human. Does he get a free escape from judgement?


When we hear Mozart's music, we are definitely hearing the man through the music. But Mozart as a man was definitely not as you describe him. There is tremendous power, humanity and emotion in his music. When you look at a spider web, you might say "nature is very delicate". But that doesn't describe a hurricane. Mozart is like that. There isn't just one side to his genius.

One purely practical comment... I don't think you can fully appreciate who Mozart was as an artist without considering the operas. That is half of who he was. I know a lot of young folks think operatic singing "sounds weird". Perhaps that's why younger listeners don't fully understand Mozart.


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## Petwhac

Vesuvius said:


> We don't know that he was only human. He very well could've been an incarnation of an extra-dimensional being. I'm not saying this with sarcasm… I'm seriously opening these possibilities up. I mean, how do we ever know that someone is only human? What is simply human? All we're judging from is the surface play, but what's powering that?


Are you serious? Seriously??


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## Blake

Petwhac said:


> Are you serious? Seriously??


No one knows anything… is what I'm saying.


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## Petwhac

Vesuvius said:


> No one knows anything… is what I'm saying.


Not only do we know, but we know that we know.


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## violadude

Vesuvius said:


> No one knows anything… is what I'm saying.


This might be true in some existential sense but taking this position has no practical application whatsoever.


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## Blake

Jeez, no fun with you guys. Lighten up… open up. We are but a wink of the cosmic eye.


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## PetrB

Petwhac said:


> Are you serious? Seriously??


He _is_ being Sirius.


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## Richannes Wrahms

In some philosophical sense we all are incarnations of extra-dimensional beings, that is part of the "tragedy" inherent to the human condition, our bodies can hear our own voices from inside. This is of course one of those kinds of poetic ********.


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## Petwhac

Richannes Wrahms said:


> In some philosophical sense we all are incarnations of extra-dimensional beings, that is part of the "tragedy" inherent to the human condition, our bodies can hear our own voices from inside. This is of course one of those kinds of poetic ********.


Is that just a fancy way of saying we humans think?

PS. Whats with the invisible writing?


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## Blake

That does sound tragic, eh. I'm trapped in this meat-suit. Let me out!


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## KenOC

Vesuvius said:


> I'm trapped in this meat-suit. Let me out!


No problem at all, sir. If you'll just step into the kitchen...


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## Richannes Wrahms

Petwhac said:


> Is that just a fancy way of saying we humans think?
> 
> PS. Whats with the invisible writing?


Alban Berg, now seriously, the point is that you can read it if you want and many people probably don't...


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## Guest

I'm pleased for Bigshot that he can get whatever it is that there is to be heard in Mozart. Obviously, so have many people over time. All I can say is that thus far, I haven't reached the same pitch or intensity of experience with Mozart that I have with Beethoven or Debussy, Shostakovich or Prokofiev. I object to any suggestion that this could mean I no longer have the apparatus to feel emotional content and passion, and I certainly don't think it is true that the 20th Century saw a rise in logic (though there was and is a rise in secularism) and a decline in receptivity to emotion.

Plenty of people 'get' Mozart. Isn't that enough?


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## bigshot

Give it time. That's all it takes.


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## PetrB

bigshot said:


> Give it time. That's all it takes.


Mozart was done a bit before his 35th birthday. What kind of _time_ do you think it takes?


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## violadude

My contention wasn't even about whether or not I "felt" Mozart. I find myself connected to Mozart (and Beethoven) on an emotional level pretty well (more or less, depending on the work). But my problem was the idea that whether music made someone feel a great deal of emotion or not was the sole criteria of determining its greatness. It can't be, people feel a great deal of emotion over all kinds of art (good or bad).


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> Give it time. That's all it takes.


No, it isn't _all _it takes. I would agree that repeated listenings can reap greater rewards (though I'm sure a TC member will come along and report that they were blown away by something on first hearing and never again enjoyed the same pitch of experience), but it is not an inevitability that if I keep persevering, I'm bound to get it, unless I'm in some way, a defective listener. "It" (whatever we take 'it' to be) is not there 'in' the music, but may be created by the interaction between the music and the listener.


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> No, it isn't _all _it takes. I would agree that repeated listenings can reap greater rewards (though I'm sure a TC member will come along and report that they were blown away by something on first hearing and never again enjoyed the same pitch of experience), but it is not an inevitability that if I keep persevering, I'm bound to get it, unless I'm in some way, a defective listener. "It" (whatever we take 'it' to be) is not there 'in' the music, but may be created by the interaction between the music and the listener.


...and I should have added, "and then again, it may not be created." This is not a fault or problem with either the music or the listener, since listening to music should not be problematic, or a source for attribution of blame.


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## Nereffid

MacLeod said:


> "It" (whatever we take 'it' to be) is not there 'in' the music, but may be created by the interaction between the music and the listener.


Yes, but the "it" that the listener finds in the music may well be the same "it" that the composer intended the listener to find.

Not to the specificity of "if I put in _this_ modulation _here_ they'll know I'm talking about the soul's neverending search for ineffable truth", of course, but if composer and listener speak the same musical language the composer will know which buttons to push for general emotional/intellectual responses. So if you don't respond well to Mozart, it would mean the "language gap" is a little too wide.


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## PetrB

violadude said:


> My contention wasn't even about whether or not I "felt" Mozart. I find myself connected to Mozart (and Beethoven) on an emotional level pretty well (more or less, depending on the work). But my problem was the idea that whether music made someone feel a great deal of emotion or not was the sole criteria of determining its greatness. It can't be, people feel a great deal of emotion over all kinds of art (good or bad).


BINGO. Because, 'emotion and emotional' are a good way to rate soap-operas, too. It is NOT a fundamental criterion for rating art, greater or lesser


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## Guest

Nereffid said:


> Yes, but the "it" that the listener finds in the music may well be the same "it" that the composer intended the listener to find.


Absolutely, and a very happy coincidence for all concerned, especially if the composer is still alive to be gratified by the connection made.



Nereffid said:


> Not to the specificity of "if I put in _this_ modulation _here_ they'll know I'm talking about the soul's neverending search for ineffable truth", of course, but if composer and listener speak the same musical language the composer will know which buttons to push for general emotional/intellectual responses. So if you don't respond well to Mozart, it would mean the "language gap" is a little too wide.


I'm not so sure. As was argued ad nauseam in another thread recently, improving technical understanding (including the 'language') can enhance enjoyment, but it's not a prerequisite, and in any case, as everyone seems to accept most of the time, it's invidious to compare one person's depth/height of enjoyment with another's. I cannot say that what Bigshot finds in Mozart is qualitatively superior to what I find in Beethoven, but I can accept that if his technical understanding of what Mozart does is superior to mine, he gets something out of the music that I don't.

Setting the language aside, I know that I like the company of some composers and not of others. This is very important to me, though I wouldn't want to get drawn into the debate about hearing 'the man' in the music.


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## PetrB

MacLeod said:


> Absolutely, and a very happy coincidence for all concerned, especially if the composer is still alive to be gratified by the connection made.
> 
> ... in any case, as everyone seems to accept most of the time, it's invidious to compare one person's depth/height of enjoyment with another's.
> 
> Setting the language aside, I know that I like the company of some composers and not of others. This is very important to me, though I wouldn't want to get drawn into the debate about hearing 'the man' in the music.


If the composers whose music we react to because of the emotions their works _evoke in us as the listener_ were anywhere near to being in those actual emotional states much of the time at all, the likelihood they would be too much of an emotional train-wreck to be able to sit down and compose anything cohesive is more than high.

It is truly a vain self-conceit that one perceives the composer and the depths of that composer's emotional experience in the composer's works. Sitting down and composing is so far from that for most composers that what most people think is involved (a highly romanticized notion) is quite off the mark.

To tout it about that in listening to a work one 'feels' something more deeply and more truly than the next person is only slightly invidious because it smacks of a rank sense of smug superiority; at the same time it is so patently infantile and absurd that it should not cause a reaction anywhere in the realms of 'invidious.'

There is nothing which can be said to anyone who feels the need to be smug about the unknowable and unprovable... claims of superiority in the unknowable and unprovable are always a safe bet, and are the surest card to play when one has nothing more real to come up with _(no tangible goods_

Because there is nothing real to make a counter argument against, it is like claiming 
"I see and talk to the spirits of the dead."

Well, good for you


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## science

I get my own smug sense of superiority in part from smugly sensing my superiority to people who prize the emotional experience of music. 

It's not my only way - I smugly sense my superiority in many ways - but that's one.


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## Petwhac

Celloman said:


> People like to criticize whatever they know nothing about. It makes them feel more intelligent than they really are.
> And it just isn't "cool" to listen to Mozart anymore.


In my life I have never once considered that listening to any classical music was 'cool'.

We all know classical music is nerdy!


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## PetrB

Petwhac said:


> In my life I have never once considered that listening to any classical music was 'cool'.
> 
> We all know classical music is nerdy!


Please, anyone in any niche pool of alternative whatevers can readily, if prone, go directly into _the tragically hip_ mode


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## Nereffid

MacLeod said:


> I'm not so sure. As was argued ad nauseam in another thread recently, improving technical understanding (including the 'language') can enhance enjoyment, but it's not a prerequisite, and in any case, as everyone seems to accept most of the time, it's invidious to compare one person's depth/height of enjoyment with another's. I cannot say that what Bigshot finds in Mozart is qualitatively superior to what I find in Beethoven, but I can accept that if his technical understanding of what Mozart does is superior to mine, he gets something out of the music that I don't.
> 
> Setting the language aside, I know that I like the company of some composers and not of others. This is very important to me, though I wouldn't want to get drawn into the debate about hearing 'the man' in the music.


I should clarify here, when I talk about language I don't mean there's "a" language and Mozart was very good at it. More that each composer has his or her own language. Dialect I suppose might be a better word; the metaphor gets more tentative the more I think about it!


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## millionrainbows

KenOC said:


> Where does that leave Bach's WTC? Or AoF?


I sense emotion from the WTC and Art of Fugue. You don't? Hmmmm...


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## millionrainbows

science said:


> I get my own smug sense of superiority in part from smugly sensing my superiority to people who prize the emotional experience of music.
> 
> It's not my only way - I smugly sense my superiority in many ways - but that's one.


Can I sense it with you? I'll lick your shoe. For me, the experience of submission is the only way I can rid myself of this pesky ego.


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## millionrainbows

Richannes Wrahms said:


> In some philosophical sense we all are incarnations of extra-dimensional beings, that is part of the "tragedy" inherent to the human condition, our bodies can hear our own voices from inside. This is of course one of those kinds of poetic ********.


Yes, we are Thetans.


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## millionrainbows

Listen, we all "channel" Mozart's being every time we listen to him. We know he's one of the biggies, a definite genius. And perhaps we should listen to his operas more. I'm getting mine out now.


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## Blancrocher

millionrainbows said:


> I sense emotion from the WTC and Art of Fugue. You don't? Hmmmm...


I was surprised by that myself, though irony is always possible with him. The WTC seems downright sentimental at times--and the Art of Fugue! The hero dies at the end, his own name just escaping his lips, before he can tell us his greatest idea!

Not long ago, I attended an all-Bach organ recital with a friend, and we both agreed that JSB got a little too carried away with excitement at times, such as in the Passacaglia & Fugue in C minor, but we of course forgave him on account of his nearly incomparable technical facility.


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## science

millionrainbows said:


> Can I sense it with you? I'll lick your shoe. For me, the experience of submission is the only way I can rid myself of this pesky ego.


Nothing feels better than the knowledge that one has overcome the ego.

_I_ should know.


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## Blake

Moohoohahahaa
……………………….


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## bigshot

MacLeod said:


> No, it isn't _all _it takes.


No, I think time does help, as long as you continue to listen to new music and think about what you hear. There is a level to Mozart that is instantly appreciated, and there is a deeper level that reveals itself with experience. Time and experience will reveal that.

Beethoven and Mozart have the same thing, just in different ways. Beethoven is up front and monumental. You see the power and beauty all up there on the top out in the open. Mozart is layered. There is a layer of beauty and perfection on top, and the power moves below. As a listener becomes familiar with Mozart and his works, and gets experienced in receiving the messages music has for a listener, he'll be better equipped for discerning all of the layers. Does that make sense?


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## bigshot

millionrainbows said:


> Listen, we all "channel" Mozart's being every time we listen to him. We know he's one of the biggies, a definite genius. And perhaps we should listen to his operas more. I'm getting mine out now.


Hooray! Something good came out of all this!


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## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> No, I think time does help, as long as you continue to listen to new music and think about what you hear. There is a level to Mozart that is instantly appreciated, and there is a deeper level that reveals itself with experience. Time and experience will reveal that.
> 
> Beethoven and Mozart have the same thing, just in different ways. Beethoven is up front and monumental. You see the power and beauty all up there on the top out in the open. Mozart is layered. There is a layer of beauty and perfection on top, and the power moves below. As a listener becomes familiar with Mozart and his works, and gets experienced in receiving the messages music has for a listener, he'll be better equipped for discerning all of the layers. Does that make sense?


you keep saying Mozart's music is perfect. How is it perfect.


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## bigshot

perfectly balanced. perfect proportions. perfect degree of main themes to ornamentation. everything fits perfectly with no roughness around the edges.


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## Guest

bigshot said:


> No, I think time does help, as long as you continue to listen to new music and think about what you hear.


Oh well, why didn't you say in the first place??? "_Think_"...that's where I've been going wrong all these years. Me and Wolfie could have been getting along _soooo_ much better if only I'd engaged my thinking apparatus....

Of course, that's still no guarantee that I would reach the same heights of experience of such an elevated listener as yourself.


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## KenOC

bigshot said:


> perfectly balanced. perfect proportions. perfect degree of main themes to ornamentation. everything fits perfectly with no roughness around the edges.


Another and simpler definition is, "without imperfections." That seems to me to describe a lot of Mozart's music.


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## BurningDesire

bigshot said:


> perfectly balanced. perfect proportions. perfect degree of main themes to ornamentation. everything fits perfectly with no roughness around the edges.


How can you call it perfect when he's basically just plugging elements into a generic form though? How is that inventive? Whats appealing about music without roughness. That's music without character, without personality. Whats admirable about a composer who takes almost no creative risks?


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## KenOC

BurningDesire said:


> How can you call it perfect when he's basically just plugging elements into a generic form though? How is that inventive? Whats appealing about music without roughness. That's music without character, without personality. Whats admirable about a composer who takes almost no creative risks?


We're talking about perfection, not inventiveness. An online course I recently took analyzed a Mozart piano sonata. It was oh-so-very simple, nothing very inventive at all. But...it was perfect in a way nobody else could have approached by a parsec.


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> We're talking about perfection, not inventiveness. An online course I recently took analyzed a Mozart piano sonata. It was oh-so-very simple, nothing very inventive at all. But...it was perfect in a way nobody else could have approached by a parsec.


If we think of something as plain as a table, it's clear that you could create one that is well-made, fulfils its function in terms of capacity, stability, durability...But most people buy tables that offer something more - style, attractiveness, suited to its environment...

If 'perfection' can't be reached in something as mundane as a piece of furniture, is it valid to say that it has been reached in a sonata?


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## KenOC

MacLeod said:


> If we think of something as plain as a table, it's clear that you could create one that is well-made, fulfils its function in terms of capacity, stability, durability...But most people buy tables that offer something more - style, attractiveness, suited to its environment...
> 
> If 'perfection' can't be reached in something as mundane as a piece of furniture, is it valid to say that it has been reached in a sonata?


We're getting into Plato's territory here -- which might be interesting.


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## Ingélou

In absolute terms, nothing is perfect in this world - but that's not how we use the term. We mean that something perfect has no flaws and not a thing out of place. 'Perfect' in its root form only means 'thoroughly finished', as in my old school motto, 'Quod potui perfeci' - 'what I have been able to do, I have seen through'. A table can be 'perfect' in the worldly, artistic sense, as seen by a connoisseur. Tables can be works of art. So a Mozart sonata can be 'perfect' to someone who appreciates it; which is not to say that someone else might not disagree.


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## Guest

KenOC said:


> We're getting into Plato's territory here -- which might be interesting.


Plato??? Huh! Overrated!!


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## violadude

BurningDesire said:


> How can you call it perfect when he's basically just plugging elements into a generic form though? How is that inventive? Whats appealing about music without roughness. That's music without character, without personality. Whats admirable about a composer who takes almost no creative risks?


I feel this misses some of the things that makes Mozart's music really great. I used to share your exact opinion (I said some of the exact same sentences you have said here in fact). But it's not that Mozart doesn't take artistic risks, he does. But he does so in a way that is so subtle, it hardly sounds like a risk or a daring experiment. It just sounds like an integral part of the music.

One of my favorite examples, that I have used before on this forum, is a passage from his 27th piano concerto. Starting around 1:56 Mozart makes a totally unexpected turn to what sounds like C-flat Major for only a couple measures, and then turns it back toward B-flat so naturally that you would think C-flat were the dominant key of B-flat. It takes a considerable amount of skill to make something that should stick out so much sound like such an integral part of the music.






EDIT: I should clarify, he doesn't actually establish C-flat as a key in that passage, it's a passing chord. But nevertheless, Mozart took great care to make sure that the C-flat sonority sounds like it belongs to the passage in an integral way, even though it appears suddenly and out of nowhere at the same time.


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## Guest

The 'problem' with perfection is this: it implies that once a composer has decided on his chosen form, and set off in his chosen key, his choices are limited by prescription. He must go this way or that, but not a third way - that way imperfection lies.

Whereas we know from the evolution of musical forms, composers frequently sought to go in more directions than before - (sometimes simultaneously?) - taking them away from the inevitable, the prescribed, the anticipated.

Thanks to violadude for the link to the Piano Concerto, which I'm currently enjoying as I type, though I wish he wouldn't turn round and wink at me every so often as if to say, "See what I did there?"


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## violadude

MacLeod said:


> The 'problem' with perfection is this: it implies that once a composer has decided on his chosen form, and set off in his chosen key, his choices are limited by prescription. He must go this way or that, but not a third way - that way imperfection lies.
> 
> Whereas we know from the evolution of musical forms, composers frequently sought to go in more directions than before - (sometimes simultaneously?) - taking them away from the inevitable, the prescribed, the anticipated.
> 
> Thanks to violadude for the link to the Piano Concerto, which I'm currently enjoying as I type, though I wish he wouldn't turn round and wink at me every so often as if to say, "See what I did there?"


I understand how the idea of "musical perfection" might clash with someone's aesthetic values.

I think with most of the best composers, there is a sense that not a note is wasted. Everything that's there is there for a reason and has a purpose. I think that's what is meant when people refer to perfection. I think the idea that the music is always purposeful might have more value to some like yourself (and myself) than the idea that it is always "perfect".


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## Guest

violadude said:


> I think the idea that the music is always purposeful might have more value to some like yourself (and myself) than the idea that it is always "perfect".


"Purposeful." I think that's a much better term for what I look for. Perfect! Thank you.


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## science

MacLeod said:


> Plato??? Huh! Overrated!!


Very much so!

And poor Hume, a true genius whose insights are sometimes still meaningful over 200 years after his death, treated like a dime-a-dozen has-been.

Not to mention Ockham. There was a guy't could think.


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## mmsbls

It's difficult to know what is meant by perfection in music. Over the past several years I have read some descriptions of Mozart's works that referred to perfection of some sort, but I was never sure exactly what they meant.

From Dubal's The Essential Canon of Classical Music,

Brahms: "Every number if Figaro is for me a marvel; I simply cannot understand how anyone could create anything so perfect."

From Goulding's book Classical Music:

Schumann: "There are things in the world about which nothing can be said, as Mozart's C Major Symphony (No. 41), much of Shakespeare, and pages of Beethoven."

"Half a century ago, the music gurus wrote that there are things in Beethoven, in Brahms, and in Wagner that some might wish had been written differently, but not in Mozart."

Since I don't have a very good understanding of music composition, this last quote is somewhat mysterious to me. I always thought that "the gurus" believed there were parts in the others' music that didn't quite work. Maybe they looked slightly kludged, maybe inelegant or awkward, perhaps they stuck out a bit too much. Maybe this idea goes along with violadude's suggestion - a good way to look at musical perfection is with the idea that no notes are wasted and everything has a purpose.


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## BurningDesire

KenOC said:


> We're talking about perfection, not inventiveness. An online course I recently took analyzed a Mozart piano sonata. It was oh-so-very simple, nothing very inventive at all. But...it was perfect in a way nobody else could have approached by a parsec.


There is no such thing as perfection, especially in art. To treat Mozart's music as great because it conforms to tightly constraining forms... when he's basically just plugging material into a formula, you might as well be singing the praises of the "perfection" of radio pop music. And nobody else could have approached? How about Haydn, and pretty much every other Classical composer of note? Mozart did push use of harmony and chromaticism forward a little, but what he did with phrasing and form is not really impressive.


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## merlinus

I have played, and listened to, a variety of his works over decades, and other than the Requiem it has all left me cold. I find it to be glib, shallow, and like Dresden china -- perhaps to be admired at a distance, but with little substance and meaning.

Everything I have read about his life indicates he was basically a trained seal, made to perform for royalty by his greedy father, and never maturing beyond the need for constant adulation.

So for me it is not whether he is over or under-rated, but that he does not rate at all! 

My $.05 worth...

-merlin


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## BurningDesire

MacLeod said:


> The 'problem' with perfection is this: it implies that once a composer has decided on his chosen form, and set off in his chosen key, his choices are limited by prescription. He must go this way or that, but not a third way - that way imperfection lies.
> 
> Whereas we know from the evolution of musical forms, composers frequently sought to go in more directions than before - (sometimes simultaneously?) - taking them away from the inevitable, the prescribed, the anticipated.
> 
> Thanks to violadude for the link to the Piano Concerto, which I'm currently enjoying as I type, though I wish he wouldn't turn round and wink at me every so often as if to say, "See what I did there?"


Now see, thats what I really don't like. I don't like that I can anticipate what will happen. And I don't believe that that is out of some sort of ingenious, expressive inevitability of the writing. Its because of the obviousness and formulaic quality of the writing. Once you've heard one Classical period piece, you've practically heard them all. There are some nice moments in Mozart, where he does something surprising with the harmonic progression of the piece, but I've found those tend to be few and far between. By contrast a later composer like Wagner, or Tchaikovsky, or Schumann, and you'll have an entire piece that is full of those gorgeous, imaginative moments, because they're not being stifled by adhering to those extremely limiting rules that result in "perfection".


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## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> Now see, thats what I really don't like. I don't like that I can anticipate what will happen. And I don't believe that that is out of some sort of ingenious, expressive inevitability of the writing. Its because of the obviousness and formulaic quality of the writing. *Once you've heard one Classical period piece, you've practically heard them all.* There are some nice moments in Mozart, where he does something surprising with the harmonic progression of the piece, but I've found those tend to be few and far between. By contrast a later composer like Wagner, or Tchaikovsky, or Schumann, and you'll have an entire piece that is full of those gorgeous, imaginative moments, because they're not being stifled by adhering to those extremely limiting rules that result in "perfection".


It's all in the _detail_.


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## BurningDesire

merlinus said:


> I have played, and listened to, a variety of his works over decades, and other than the Requiem it has all left me cold. I find it to be glib, shallow, and like Dresden china -- perhaps to be admired at a distance, but with little substance and meaning.
> 
> Everything I have read about his life indicates he was basically a trained seal, made to perform for royalty by his greedy father, and never maturing beyond the need for constant adulation.
> 
> So for me it is not whether he is over or under-rated, but that he does not rate at all!
> 
> My $.05 worth...
> 
> -merlin


That goes a bit further than I would go. I still think he wrote great music, besides just the Requiem. I think he was a great composer, but I do definitely agree on the shallowness of much of his output.


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## BurningDesire

Petwhac said:


> It's all in the _detail_.


The details are boring too in much of Mozart! XD

Haydn on the other hand offers great material in the details, so even writing on those constrained forms, you get music with alot of personality.


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## Bulldog

I find it hard to understand why folks love to bash composers they don't care much for, whether it's a Mozart or a modernist composer. In a huge world of music, isn't it better to applaud and listen to the composers you do greatly enjoy?


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## Petwhac

BurningDesire said:


> The details are boring too in much of Mozart! XD
> 
> Haydn on the other hand offers great material in the details, so even writing on those constrained forms, you get music with alot of personality.


Huh? I thought you said "Once you've heard one classical period piece..." Haydn is classical period too.


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## Blake

Bulldog said:


> I find it hard to understand why folks love to bash composers they don't care much for, whether it's a Mozart or a modernist composer. In a huge world of music, isn't it better to applaud and listen to the composers you do greatly enjoy?


That would require a certain level of kindness that many don't have.


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## Guest

Bulldog said:


> I find it hard to understand why folks love to bash composers they don't care much for, whether it's a Mozart or a modernist composer. In a huge world of music, isn't it better to applaud and listen to the composers you do greatly enjoy?


I've not seen anyone 'bash' Mozart in this thread, though I have seen folk express their views about Mozart in relation to the OP. If you think Mozart is overrated, and you think that you have a comment to offer on the significance of the overrating of Mozart, you're likely to offer a critical opinion, which can be legitimately either positive or negative...aren't you?


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## BurningDesire

Bulldog said:


> I find it hard to understand why folks love to bash composers they don't care much for, whether it's a Mozart or a modernist composer. In a huge world of music, isn't it better to applaud and listen to the composers you do greatly enjoy?


Well since this forum has turned into the Mozart and Modern Music forum, there isn't much else to talk about of late  Besides, that is kinda the topic of this thread. And I do listen to and applaud music that I love.


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## Bulldog

BurningDesire said:


> Well since this forum has turned into the Mozart and Modern Music forum, there isn't much else to talk about of late  Besides, that is kinda the topic of this thread. And I do listen to and applaud music that I love.


Concerning this thread, you're not the person I had in mind. I found your comments, although on the negative side, respectful.


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## millionrainbows

BurningDesire said:


> How can you call it perfect when he's basically just plugging elements into a generic form though? How is that inventive? Whats appealing about music without roughness. That's music without character, without personality. Whats admirable about a composer who takes almost no creative risks?


Well, compared to Handel, or Vivaldi, Mozart is staying within form, but he does not sound generic, compared to those two. And at his best, he is sublime.

Absolutely, posolutely, gotta get the Piano Sonatas.


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## millionrainbows

BurningDesire said:


> There is no such thing as perfection, especially in art.


I think it might be better to borrow a term from mathematics: 'elegant.'



BurningDesire said:


> ...To treat Mozart's music as great because it conforms to tightly constraining forms... when he's basically just plugging material into a formula, you might as well be singing the praises of the "perfection" of radio pop music.


That strikes me as simplistic, but it does bring up a good point: As in pop music, what is sought-after are new combinations of existing elements, just like DNA. The Beatles were "just pop," but what pop it was! So with Mozart, and his era, we are dealing more with nuance, with style, with gesture; and not so much harmonic innovation or new syntax.



BurningDesire said:


> ...And nobody else could have approached? How about Haydn, and pretty much every other Classical composer of note? Mozart did push use of harmony and chromaticism forward a little, but what he did with phrasing and form is not really impressive.


So? Likewise, John Lennon was not the guitarist Eric Clapton is, but that misses the point. Phrasing? How about those extra half-measures in the Piano Sonatas? He didn't have to do that, but he did.


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## bigshot

When I say perfection, of course I mean on Mozart's own terms. He is unfailingly perfect within his own chosen range. Functional perfection in Mozart is no different than functional perfection in current pop music. But Mozart is doing it the hard way and operating on a much more sophiticated level expressively.


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## Petwhac

merlinus said:


> I have played, and listened to, a variety of his works over decades, and other than the Requiem it has all left me cold. I find it to be glib, shallow, and like Dresden china -- perhaps to be admired at a distance, but with little substance and meaning.
> 
> Everything I have read about his life indicates he was basically a trained seal, made to perform for royalty by his greedy father, and never maturing beyond the need for constant adulation.
> 
> So for me it is not whether he is over or under-rated, but that he does not rate at all!
> 
> My $.05 worth...
> 
> -merlin


Have you read his letters?

Do you know Figaro, Cosi, Giovanni and The Flute?
The String Quintets and the Clarinet Quintet?

Just curious. What for you, constitutes _meaning_ and _substance_ in music?


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## trazom

BurningDesire said:


> Mozart did push use of harmony and chromaticism forward a little, but what he did with phrasing and form is not really impressive.


Actually, his phrasing is frequently irregular and one of the things Schoenberg adored about his music.


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## bigshot

The phrasing in even the most popular and well known works are amazing. The piano concertos alone allow for a huge range of interpretation and expression. Anything but cut and dried.


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## DavidA

It was Brahms, I believe, who looked at Figaro and exclaimed that he just didn't know how Mozart produced one masterpiece after another, all n such a high level of inspiration. 
Every time I listen to Figaro I reckon it's the greatest opera ever written. But then I think of the Don, Cosi and the Flute and wonder!
To me, anyone who says Mozart is overrated needs a new set of ears.


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## science

DavidA said:


> It was Brahms, I believe, who looked at Figaro and exclaimed that he just didn't know how Mozart produced one masterpiece after another, all n such a high level of inspiration.
> Every time I listen to Figaro I reckon it's the greatest opera ever written. But then I think of the Don, Cosi and the Flute and wonder!


How would you know if one of them were the greatest? Is that something you can just feel?


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## merlinus

Petwhac said:


> Have you read his letters?
> 
> Do you know Figaro, Cosi, Giovanni and The Flute?
> The String Quintets and the Clarinet Quintet?
> 
> Just curious. What for you, constitutes _meaning_ and _substance_ in music?


Opera continues to be a total turn-off for me. I did, however, view Ingmar Bergman's film based on The Magic Flute. I adored the cinematography and the enraptured look on the face of the girl watching, but that was it.

String quartets, for me, seem mostly intellectual exercises. But no, I am not familiar with the Clarinet Quintet.

If music does not speak to me on an emotional and deep feeling level, and even whilst playing it transport me to a different dimension (as does much of LvB), I have lots of other wonderful things to do, e.g. creating abstract expressionist paintings.


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## DavidA

merlinus said:


> Opera continues to be a total turn-off for me. I did, however, view Ingmar Bergman's film based on The Magic Flute. I adored the cinematography and the enraptured look on the face of the girl watching, but that was it.
> 
> String quartets, for me, seem mostly intellectual exercises. But no, I am not familiar with the Clarinet Quintet.
> 
> If music does not speak to me on an emotional and deep feeling level, and even whilst playing it transport me to a different dimension (as does much of LvB), I have lots of other wonderful things to do, e.g. creating abstract expressionist paintings.


I must confess that abstract, impressionist paintings do as much for me as opera does for you!

But it takes all sorts......


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## bigshot

merlinus said:


> Opera continues to be a total turn-off for me. I did, however, view Ingmar Bergman's film based on The Magic Flute. I adored the cinematography and the enraptured look on the face of the girl watching, but that was it.


Magic Flute is a bit abstract as drama. You might try Don Giovanni. It's considerably clearer and deals on a much more human level when it comes to the emotional content of the story.

And chamber music is hardly an "intellectual excercise". It's direct interaction between specific "voices". There's a lot of highly engaging communication going on there. Tons of emotion if you have the ability to hear it.

I think you might just need a little more experience under your belt so you know what to listen for in opera and chamber music. No rush. You can always set it aside and come back to it later.


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## hpowders

Who would you listen to as an authority on the worth of Mozart's music? Haydn or Google.

When presented with Mozart's 6 string quartets that he dedicated to Haydn, the latter proclaimed Mozart the greatest composer known to him.

So who needs Google?


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## Petwhac

merlinus said:


> Opera continues to be a total turn-off for me. I did, however, view Ingmar Bergman's film based on The Magic Flute. I adored the cinematography and the enraptured look on the face of the girl watching, but that was it.
> 
> String quartets, for me, seem mostly intellectual exercises. But no, I am not familiar with the Clarinet Quintet.
> 
> If music does not speak to me on an emotional and deep feeling level, and even whilst playing it transport me to a different dimension (as does much of LvB), I have lots of other wonderful things to do, e.g. creating abstract expressionist paintings.


If you had said Mozart just doesn't 'do it' for you, that would be perfectly understandable. But I think it is a large leap to make from that to "he was a trained seal", "shallow" and "with little substance and meaning".

Far removed from the intellectually light-weight and frivolous image that has somehow attached itself to Mozart lies the truth. A very serious and thoughtful artist who through no fault of his own, was able to produce music of great depth and insight (especially in the operas but also in every genre that he attempted) with what seems like superhuman ease.


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## bigshot

I think people put too much stock in biodramas at the movies.


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## merlinus

Since none of us actually knew Wolfie, everything but the music itself is conjecture and hearsay -- and perhaps even that is only available in forms edited by others. 

The music either stands on its own, or does not. For me, with the exception of the Requiem (even though completed by others), it does not.

So much music.....and so little time. Not worth arguing about.


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## merlinus

DavidA said:


> I must confess that abstract, impressionist paintings do as much for me as opera does for you!
> 
> But it takes all sorts......


Abstract expressionist, not impressionist, which is entirely different.

I am creating the paintings, however, and the process of doing so is an incredible experience for me. I can certainly understand your antipathy, but like composing music, it is quite different from listening to it.


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## bigshot

merlinus said:


> For me, with the exception of the Requiem (even though completed by others), it does not.


Are you under 30? Just curious.


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## merlinus

Way, way past 30, but still going strong. I played through the entire LvB 21 this afternoon, after a few years away from it. Definitely surprised myself! Incredible music, even with my limitations. 


Wondering what being under 30 might have to do with disliking Mozart???


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## Petwhac

Can anyone really hear this as conventional, formulaic, shallow, lacking in substance, the work of a trained seal?

I'd argue it's about as original, deep and substantial as you could ask. Quite extraordinary.


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## mtmailey

SAYING SOMETHING IS OVERRATED IS JUST ONES OPINION,it shows how certain people are envious/jealous of certain mortals.


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## merlinus

Interesting, but not my cup of tea.


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## Petwhac

merlinus said:


> Interesting, but not my cup of tea.


That's fair enough.


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## Woodduck

Petwhac said:


> Can anyone really hear this as conventional, formulaic, shallow, lacking in substance, the work of a trained seal?
> 
> I'd argue it's about as original, deep and substantial as you could ask. Quite extraordinary.


Seven of the most perfect and touching minutes in all music. If Mozart were always this good, who could be accused of overrating him? Of course he isn't - but he is frequently enough this good that the extravagant claims of his absolute supremacy among composers may at least be heard politely before they are ignored.

Anyone for whom such a claim is made is overrated. Fortunately for Mozart and for us, he's survived veneration, canonization, deification, Tom Hulce, and being played to embryos and potted plants.


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## Blancrocher

Woodduck said:


> Anyone for whom such a claim is made is overrated. Fortunately for Mozart and for us, he's survived veneration, canonization, deification, Tom Hulce, and being played to embryos and potted plants.


Still, I hope I'm never stuck in an elevator with him.


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## bigshot

The horn concertos are just as amazing as the clarinet concertos... particularly the legendary recordings by Dennis Brain and Karajan.


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## KenOC




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## StlukesguildOhio

I have played, and listened to, a variety of his works over decades, and other than the Requiem it has all left me cold. I find it to be glib, shallow, and like Dresden china -- perhaps to be admired at a distance, but with little substance and meaning.

The fact that a work of art/artist leaves you cold or indifferent... especially one that is beloved by subsequent generations of artists, art lovers, critics, etc... would seem to say more about the audience in question, than about the merits of the work of art/artist. As for terms like "shallow" or lacking in "substance" and "meaning". Please do inform me, just what are these elements? What "substance" or "meaning" is lacking from Mozart? Or as usual... do you simply mean: "Mozart isn't like Beethoven and I like Beethoven so Mozart is shallow?"


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## StlukesguildOhio

I have lots of other wonderful things to do, e.g. creating abstract expressionist paintings.

That explains a lot. I share studio space with an older artist who also carries on creating paintings in a style that has been dead some 50+ years now. He also dislikes Mozart. As a tied-in-the-wool Romantic he needs the minor key and the bombast of Beethoven, Wagner, and Mahler. If it ain't tragic it's "shallow" and "without meaning."


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## violadude

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I have lots of other wonderful things to do, e.g. creating abstract expressionist paintings.
> 
> That explains a lot. I share studio space with an older artist who also carries on creating paintings in a style that has been dead some 50+ years now. He also dislikes Mozart. As a tied-in-the-wool Romantic he needs the minor key and the bombast of Beethoven, Wagner, and Mahler. If it ain't tragic it's "shallow" and "without meaning."


Of course, Beethoven, Wagner and Mahler are much deeper than "minor key bombasticness" too.


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## hpowders

Blancrocher said:


> Still, I hope I'm never stuck in an elevator with him.


Why? He may lift your spirits.


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## trazom

Blancrocher said:


> Still, I hope I'm never stuck in an elevator with him.


I'd rather not be stuck in an elevator period; but if I was, I couldn't ask for better music to be stuck with than Mozart's.


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## tdc

Blancrocher said:


> Not long ago, I attended an all-Bach organ recital with a friend, and we both agreed that JSB got a little too carried away with excitement at times, such as in the Passacaglia & Fugue in C minor, but we of course forgave him on account of his nearly incomparable technical facility.


Well as the saying goes "there is a fine line between genius and insanity" and I think Bach stumbles over that line a few times during that piece before coming back - personally I love it though. I've always thought a good Passacaglia needs a hint of madness.


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## Petwhac

violadude said:


> Of course, Beethoven, Wagner and Mahler are much deeper than "minor key bombasticness" too.


I never thought of minor keys being more suitable for bombast than major keys. More the other way around surely.


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## Marschallin Blair

> StlukesGuildOhio: That explains a lot. I share studio space with an older artist who also carries on creating paintings in a style that has been dead some 50+ years now. He also dislikes Mozart. As a tied-in-the-wool Romantic he needs the minor key and the bombast of Beethoven, Wagner, and Mahler. If it ain't tragic it's "shallow" and "without meaning."


Heisenberg redivivus: the observer affects the results of the observation.


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## millionrainbows

Mozart's motivations may be looked at as a possible explanation for the way his music turned out. Mozart lost his appointment at Salzburg at age 25, and when Luigi Boccherini was appointed as composer to the king of Prussia, Mozart tried to "outdo" Boccherini by writing some better string quintets.


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## violadude

Petwhac said:


> I never thought of minor keys being more suitable for bombast than major keys. More the other way around surely.


I think a piece of music's propensity for bombast is key-independent.


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## Woodduck

tdc said:


> Well as the saying goes "there is a fine line between genius and insanity" and I think Bach stumbles over that line a few times during that piece before coming back - personally I love it though. I've always thought a good Passacaglia needs a hint of madness.


Walking that fine line, threatening to slip over it a bit, but always coming back for more, is the thing I love about Baroque. Just look at a ceiling of Tiepolo! Or, closer to home, go with JSB as he takes you, in his G Major Fantasia for organ, BWV 572, onward and upward, pushing against gravity, until that tremendous two-octave ascending scale in the pedal precipitates a starburst, the whirling fireballs fall to earth, and we are suspended in space until the very last moment when we're finally brought safely home, exhausted and amazed.

Oh, sorry. This thread is about Mozart. It's just that every time anyone brings up "rating" him, my mind turns instantly to Bach.


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## millionrainbows

On the radio, some music was playing. I thought it might be Haydn. 

"If this is Haydn, then it's really nice Haydn. I'll listen to the end to see what it is, so I can get it."

It turned out to be Mozart's Symphony Nr. 28.

As such, I did not recognize it as Mozart or Haydn. This underscores the homogeneity of the Classical style, and how the composers, Mozart included, did not really put the stamp of their personality on what they wrote. You'd have to be a specialist to detect things like this.


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## Eusebius12

I don't find that to be the case at all. I almost never confuse the two, even if I've never heard the piece in question. Haydn and Mozart are very different composers. There is only a superficial relationship between the two. Early Beethoven, in my view, sounds much more akin to mature Mozart than Haydn at any point in his career.


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## Eclectic Al

Haydn's music is brim full of personality.
By the way, in terms of whether Mozart is overrated, any rating of Mozart which puts him ahead of Haydn either overrates Mozart or underrates Haydn. Take your pick.
However, I don't really think these lists of top composers achieve very much. We probably have our own ideas of who is great, and if a composer is in a lot of people's lists of the great ones, then that might be a fact - but I'm not sure it means much to obsess about ranking them according to that sort of measure.


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## Enthusiast

^ You are entitled to your opinion. Haydn was a great composer, one of the greatest, but recognising that Mozart was a significantly greater one does not involve underrating him. I suspect that one day you will come to see that. There was no composer greater than Mozart (although Beethoven and Bach share his top place).


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## Kjetil Heggelund

I'm sure this has something to do with people thinking their thoughts are important.


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## millionrainbows

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> I'm sure this has something to do with people thinking their thoughts are important.


Not as important as yours, Kjetil.


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## hammeredklavier

Eclectic Al said:


> Haydn's music is brim full of personality.


I find Mozart also has strong individuality from Haydn, (I also find Haydn's monothematicism interesting)
the uniqueness of [Haydn] vs [Mozart] has not been discussed as much as [Haydn/Mozart] vs [Beethoven], but Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven are like apples, oranges, bananas; one just can't replace another, at least to me. In many ways, Mozart doesn't sound like the Gloria of Haydn's Theresienmesse, whereas Haydn doesn't sound like:



hammeredklavier said:


> *3:00 ~ 3:24
> 5:39 ~ 6:41
> 7:30 ~ 7:50
> 13:13 ~ 15:27*





hammeredklavier said:


> *[ 7:18 ~ 10:04 ]*


the chromaticism of 0:22~0:35


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## Eclectic Al

Enthusiast said:


> ^ You are entitled to your opinion. Haydn was a great composer, one of the greatest, but recognising that Mozart was a significantly greater one does not involve underrating him. I suspect that one day you will come to see that. There was no composer greater than Mozart (although Beethoven and Bach share his top place).


It's possible, I suppose that I may see this. However, I'm already reasonably old . I will confess to having spent many years in the "Haydn is boring" camp, and burst out of that to a world of pleasure. It just hasn't happened for me yet with Mozart. Some pieces I really enjoy (Clarinet Quintet, some Piano Concerti, a few symphonies), and I keep dipping my toe in elsewhere. I await the epiphany.


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## DavidA

There is no significance whatever in the 'Mozart overrated' attitude because Mozart is not overrated. You cannot overrate such stupendous genius.


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## larold

_Why does this "Mozart is overrated" idea keep cropping up, in various different places?_

Exchange anyone else's name for Mozart (Karajan, for instance, currently raging elsewhere) and you have your answer: some people don't like him therefore he must be overrated. This is because classical music makes everyone an expert and anyone that's been exposed to it for more than 5 minutes considers her/himself an expert.


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## Enthusiast

Eclectic Al said:


> It's possible, I suppose that I may see this. However, I'm already reasonably old . I will confess to having spent many years in the "Haydn is boring" camp, and burst out of that to a world of pleasure. It just hasn't happened for me yet with Mozart. Some pieces I really enjoy (Clarinet Quintet, some Piano Concerti, a few symphonies), and I keep dipping my toe in elsewhere. I await the epiphany.


I guess you will have tried the later symphonies and the piano concertos? How are you with opera - several of Mozart's were as great as anything done in the genre.


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## Eclectic Al

Enthusiast said:


> I guess you will have tried the later symphonies and the piano concertos? How are you with opera - several of Mozart's were as great as anything done in the genre.


Nail on the head there. I suspect the reason I am not so much of a Mozart fan is that I don't really do opera. The mixing of music and theatre is not something I understand, although I guess that for those who do they reinforce each other into something uniquely special.


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## Allegro Con Brio

Eclectic Al said:


> It's possible, I suppose that I may see this. However, I'm already reasonably old . I will confess to having spent many years in the "Haydn is boring" camp, and burst out of that to a world of pleasure. It just hasn't happened for me yet with Mozart. Some pieces I really enjoy (Clarinet Quintet, some Piano Concerti, a few symphonies), and I keep dipping my toe in elsewhere. I await the epiphany.


Clarinet Quintet was one of the works that converted me. I recommend you try the 4th string quintet and the Sinfonia Concertante. And of course, if you haven't heard the Requiem and Great C Minor Mass, two of the greatest sacred works in the repertoire, you owe it to yourself.


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## millionrainbows

Mozart is from a removed era of time which is alien to us; the Classical era of kings and royalty. This irks many people, as they intuitively sense by the 'richness' and delicate, ornate nature of the music, that this music was not meant for them, but for the distraction and entertainment of royals. Most of what Mozart's appearance and music stands for is irrelevant, and even repellent, to common wage slaves.

I overcome this by playing along with it:_ I am king, I am royalty_ when I listen to Mozart. _It's good to be king.
_
Mozart's appearance and ornate, delicate music convey a sense of privileged elitism and wealth. If I must work for a living, at least I'll be doing it with music fit for kings.


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