# Mozart is the Van Gogh of CM



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Both men just created the most beautiful art IMHO. Absolutely breathtaking. I've seen works by both live too, and it was amazing!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Both also have stuff I don't like. I don't enjoy Gogh's early period as much, and I don't enjoy vocal CM so Mozart's famous operas don't do it for me either.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Both also have stuff I don't like. I don't enjoy Gogh's early period as much, and I don't enjoy vocal CM so Mozart's famous operas don't do it for me either.


I know folks who won't listen to any music without vocals. You could have interesting conversations with them.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Bulldog said:


> I know folks who won't listen to any music without vocals. You could have interesting conversations with them.


Is that a jab at the mainstream crowd outside of CM?


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Is that a jab at the mainstream crowd outside of CM?


No, it was just an observation; certainly not a jab at anything mainstream.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

About the only works by Mozart that I listen to anymore are the operas.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Both men just created the most beautiful art IMHO. Absolutely breathtaking. I've seen works by both live too, and it was amazing!


How about Schumann as the Van Gogh of music? Initial earnestness, high hopes, periods of happiness alternating with gloom, a person (Clara/Theo) who supported him, great works, final descent into madness, leaving a wonderful legacy.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Strange Magic said:


> How about Schumann as the Van Gogh of music? Initial earnestness, high hopes, periods of happiness alternating with gloom, a person (Clara/Theo) who supported him, great works, final descent into madness, leaving a wonderful legacy.


When I compare Artists like this, I am comparing the works not the lives of the Artists in question.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Van Gogh was truly tormented person who produced very tormented expressionist art, without caring for what considered a beautiful drawing by classical painters. Completely different kind of artists in my opinion.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> When I compare Artists like this, I am comparing the works not the lives of the Artists in question.


Yes but the thing about van Gough is that it is very colourful and slightly disturbing, and replete with humanity, so Schumann sounds a good idea to me. But my choice would be Fausto Romitelli.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Yes but the thing about van Gough is that it is very colourful and slightly disturbing, and replete with humanity, so Schumann sounds a good idea to me. But my choice would be Fausto Romitelli.


I don't find his work disturbing at all. I find it utterly beautiful, perhaps his disturbing life is effecting your opinion?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> When I compare Artists like this, I am comparing the works not the lives of the Artists in question.


It still could work. And, if one considers Van Gogh as a kind of Impressionist with a really coarse brush stroke, maybe Debussy would fit (I'm struggling here...)


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I don't find his work disturbing at all. I find it utterly beautiful, perhaps his disturbing life is affecting your opinion?


i's a commonly accepted thing actually, I mean










there's already the deformation and the anguish of later painters like Munch, Soutine, Ludwig Meidner and the expressionists


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Both also have stuff I don't like. I don't enjoy Gogh's early period as much, and I don't enjoy vocal CM so Mozart's famous operas don't do it for me either.


and the Requiem?


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

norman bates said:


> i's a commonly accepted thing actually, I mean
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I still see that as pretty. A dark beauty perhaps, but still lots of vibrant colors!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> and the Requiem?


I just don't like choral music. If the melodies of the Requiem were played on instruments, I'd really enjoy it. It's a great composition, as are his operas.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I just don't like choral music. If the melodies of the Requiem were played on instruments, I'd really enjoy it. It's a great composition, as are his operas.


Try this


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I still see that as pretty. A dark beauty perhaps, but still lots of vibrant colors!


well sure, vibrant colors but still I think that Mozart and Van Gogh were extremely different kind of artists.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

norman bates said:


> well sure, vibrant colors but still I think that Mozart and Van Gogh were extremely different kind of artists.


Can you admit there is a beauty in both artists? That is the connection I'm making. A profound beauty at that!


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Can you admit there is a beauty in both artists? That is the connection I'm making. A profound beauty at that!


well I'm a huge fan of Van Gogh, while I really struggle with a lot of Mozart (my problem), so I'm not the best person to ask this, but generally speaking they are both extremely beloved (altough for Van Gogh it was only after he died that he started to be appreciated)


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

I didn’t know that Mozart had only one ear!:lol:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

norman bates said:


> well I'm a huge fan of Van Gogh, while I really struggle with a lot of Mozart (my problem), so I'm not the best person to ask this, but generally speaking they are both extremely beloved (altough for Van Gogh it was only after he died that he started to be appreciated)


I can understand your predicament! .


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Barbebleu said:


> I didn't know that Mozart had only one ear!:lol:


hahahahahaha!


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Both men just created the most beautiful art IMHO. Absolutely breathtaking. I've seen works by both live too, and it was amazing!


Interesting comparison. It reminds me of Tchaikovsky comparing Beethoven to Michelangelo, and Mozart to Raphael (Mozart was his favorite composer by the way):

"...This is, in fact, conceived and executed by the genius of the first class. They say there are some irregularities in it! This reminds me of old Fetis, who looked for irregularities in Beethoven and triumphantly announces that he found in the Heroic Symphony an inversion of the chord, which le bon goût does not allow.

Isn't it true that Beethoven and Michelangelo are very related natures?

(...)

You are one of the few people who have the courage to express in all your sincerity exactly what you think, and not what is customary to think.... Vous avez le courage de vos opinions, and that is why I will never be offended by your disapproval of Mozart or by Raphael, whom I love so much." - Source here (translated from Russian with Google Translator).


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

Barbebleu said:


> I didn't know that Mozart had only one ear!:lol:


He had a deformed ear though.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

norman bates said:


> Van Gogh was truly tormented person who produced very tormented expressionist art, without caring for what considered a beautiful drawing by classical painters. Completely different kind of artists in my opinion.


"But the theorists told Mozart during his lifetime what a dissonance chaser he was, and how all too often he gave in to the passion to write something ugly, and how with his talent such writing really wasn't necessary."
(Theory of Harmony, by Arnold Schoenberg)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

norman bates said:


> well sure, vibrant colors but still I think that Mozart and Van Gogh were extremely different kind of artists.


"Many years after Mozart's death, his wife Constanze mentioned her late husband's favorite works. What she said will surprise many people:
"He was fond of Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, but perhaps most of all Idomeneo. He had wonderful memories of the time and circumstances of its composition." ...
... In Mozart's time, the symphonic tone poem did not yet exist, but passages in Idomeneo show that Mozart was a born master of the genre, painting with iridescent orchestral color. The circumstances of this opera inspired Mozart to enter a musical world that he never again had an opportunity to revisit.
Mozart was only 24 years old when he wrote Idomeneo. He knew this was a chance to do something really sensational, and he did it." https://packhum.org/idomeneo.html


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> "But the theorists told Mozart during his lifetime what a dissonance chaser he was, and how all too often he gave in to the passion to write something ugly, and how with his talent such writing really wasn't necessary."
> (Theory of Harmony, by Arnold Schoenberg)


I'm not sure why you're putting this here, because just putting dissonances in music doesn't make of Mozart an expressionist composer, he was still a classical composer who looked for form, grace and the ideals of classical art.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

"Instead of the four long arias that, say, Handel would have given us, we hear, simultaneously, four voices blended, four characters in four different moods singing simultaneously: Idomeneo in despair over his rash vow; Idamante resolved to prove his manhood; Ilia comforting them both; and Elettra tormented by jealousy. Though there are similarly complex pages in Scarlatti and a few earlier composers, Mozart's is by common consent the first great ensemble in opera, a forerunner of the trio in Der Rosenkavalier, the quartet in Rigoletto, the quintet in Die Meistersinger.
The other advances Mozart made in Idomeneo, over a century of earlier opere sere, are-I should say-three. First there is a new musical continuity. Previous operas had been rigidly sectioned off into arias in which the soloists were given ample opportunity for vocal display and even more ample opportunity to acknowledge applause. In Idomeneo, the first aria melts into the following recitative, even as the overture had melted easily into it. This is an anticipation of the techniques of Wagner, but that apostle of musical continuity was well into his forties when he decided that this was the right way to write overture and aria. Mozart knew as much early in his twenties. 
The most famous of the Wagnerian methods of continuity is the leitmotif: the short recurrent theme that carries reminiscences and new implications with every new appearance. But a hundred years before Wagner's Tristan, Mozart, in Idomeneo, experimented with something quite similar, our second new advance over earlier operatic writing: the brief, recurrent phrase pervading the score, changing its form, instrumentation, harmonization, and rhythm as it develops its ever new-associations. On the first page of the overture we hear of these. It is a five-note descending figure:






It soon comes to dominate the overture, depicting the Sturm und Drang, the storm and stress of the sea-music. A few pages later, it reappears in the recitative, as Ilia remembers the fall of Troy, and it appears again in the accompaniment to the aria that follows. Then when Ilia's beloved, Idamante, tells her that he will make her forget her past sufferings, it appears again, much brighter in color. It recurs quietly when King Idomeneo comes safely to land, and a moment later it accompanies his realization that now he will have to keep his vow to the sea god, and sacrifice to him the first living thing he finds on shore. It recurs once again when he looks fatefully on that victim, his own son, and the son doesn't understand why his father tears himself away from his embrace. 
The English critic David Cairns has suggested that by this time the theme has come to bear associations both of nature's cruelty and of our own inner sufferings. In Act II it forms part of the musical line of the powerful aria "Fuor del mar," where Idomeneo sings of both the storm at sea and the storm within himself. It then hovers over the little duet of the two lovers in Act III. And it reappears when Idomeneo finally tells his subjects that he must sacrifice his own son. There it leads to a passage of more chromatic intensity than anyone had ever heard in an opera house before.
And finally, our melodic fragment leads gently into the last recitative, when Idomeneo turns over the kingdom to his son. There it is stated four times over, canonically, by the four separate string sections of the orchestra.
A third new element in Idomeneo is the wholly unprecedented attention to orchestral color. The young Mozart was excited that the finest orchestra in the world, the Mannheim ensemble, was following the elector to Munich for the premiere. It was a virtuoso ensemble. According to a description of the day, "Its piano was a vernal breath, its forte was thunder, its crescendo a cataract, its diminuendo a crystal stream murmuring as it evanesced into the distance." All of those effects Mozart wrote into Idomeneo, using muted tympani, muted trumpets, and massed trombones. The sea that surges and foams around the island of Crete is suggested, in the overture and the storm music, by swirling strings. The color conjured up in those passages is, for me, a kind of grayish green. But many more colors are suggested throughout the opera, especially by the woodwind writing. This was virtuoso music for its day, and music of a wholly new loveliness."
< First Intermissions: Twenty-One Great Operas Explored, Explained, and Brought to Life from the Met / M. Owen Lee / P. 8~10 >

[ 8:00 ~ 12:00 ]
[ 26:00 ~ 32:30 ]
[ 1:23:30 ~ 1:28:30 ]
[ 1:44:30 ~ 1:50:00 ]
[ 2:01:00 ~ 2:06:00 ]
[ 2:21:30 ~ 2:27:30 ]


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

I've asked for your opinion, not for the umpteenth quote about Mozart. But if that means that you're starting to a see the merits of the "horror music" that you didn't even consider part of classical music tradition, cool


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> "But the theorists told Mozart during his lifetime what a dissonance chaser he was, and how all too often he gave in to the passion to write something ugly, and how with his talent such writing really wasn't necessary."
> (Theory of Harmony, by Arnold Schoenberg)


Yes. I am reading "Composer and Critic: Two Hundred Years of Musical Criticism" by Max Graf who reports the articles wrote by critics back in Mozart's times and he says exactly that. In his times his late works like the 6 Haydn quartets, Don Giovanni, etc were seen as "incomprehensible", "too intellectual", even ugly because of the chromatism and use of dissonancies which was more advanced than his contemporaries. I like to think he'd love jazz.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

"the relevance of this quote to the discussion is left as an exercise to the reader"


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Did Mozart use any percussion in his music?


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

fbjim said:


> "the relevance of this quote to the discussion is left as an exercise to the reader"


actually I suspect the point was that Mozart was not just a classical musician with classical ideals (like grace, balance, lightness, form, proportion) but also a forerunner of modernity. That means, the supreme composer who did everything. What I don't get is the fact that Hammeredklavier is not exactly a fan of modern music, and expressionist art in general (for composers, like Schoenberg, Berg, certain things of Bartok, early Hindemith etc) was exactly that kind of stuff he has often labeled (with a good reason) as "music for horror movies" or something like that. Which to me is completely fine since I consider darkness and negative art having their value in art and music, but I don't think he means it as a compliment, so... I'm a bit confused.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

I relate Ravel and Debussy much more to Van Gogh, than Mozart.

Mozart's music to me, has very well defined lines, and obeys much more strict rules, where Ravel and Debussy have fuzzier edges, broader strokes to their music.

For me, Debussy and Ravel are much less representational of their sonic depictions, as Van Gogh is much less representational of the scenes he is painting.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

norman bates said:


> actually I suspect the point was that Mozart was not just a classical musician with classical ideals (like grace, balance, lightness, form, proportion) but also a forerunner of modernity. That means, the supreme composer who did everything. What I don't get is the fact that Hammeredklavier is not exactly a fan of modern music, and expressionist art in general (for composers, like Schoenberg, Berg, certain things of Bartok, early Hindemith etc) was exactly that kind of stuff he has often labeled (with a good reason) as "music for horror movies" or something like that. Which to me is completely fine since I consider darkness and negative art having their value in art and music, but I don't think he means it as a compliment, so... I'm a bit confused.


I'll speak for myself and say, while it could work in the background in a horror movie, perhaps I wouldn't want to hear it live as the main event.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Simon Moon said:


> I relate Ravel (and Debussy to a lesser extent) much more to Van Gogh, than Mozart.
> 
> Mozart's music to me, has very well defined lines, and obeys much more strict rules, where Ravel has fuzzier edges, broader strokes.
> 
> For me, Debussy and Ravel are much less representational of their sonic depictions, as Van Gogh is much less representational of the scenes he is painting.


A fair assessment IMO.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'll speak for myself and say, while it could work in the background in a horror movie, perhaps I wouldn't want to hear it live as the main event.


And Mozart added just the right amount.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> And Mozart added just the right amount.


we have a different idea about the right amount, but that's exactly why he wasn't an expressionist artist, expressionists who cared much more to express their interior torment (that in artistic terms, meant often huge deformations/harsh and unresolved dissonances) than form or balance.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

norman bates said:


> we have a different idea about the right amount, but that's exactly why he wasn't an expressionist artist, expressionists who cared much more to express their interior torment (that in artistic terms, meant often huge deformations/harsh and unresolved dissonances) than form or balance.


I think you've taken the opposite extreme. Tourment isn't the only legitimate emotion to express.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I think you've taken the opposite extreme. Tourment isn't the only legitimate emotion to express.


I would never said that torment is the only legitimate emotion to express 
And to be fair, even Van Gogh wasn't just a full-on expressionist (well, he certainly was much more an expressionist than an impressionist, that's for sure) making just dark and anguished stuff, he had also more serene paintings, but still his path was clearly oriented in that direction. Even about his use of colors... I think he had that kind of acid, livid palette of exaggerated tones that was part of the tricks used by expressionist artists


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

norman bates said:


> actually I suspect the point was that Mozart was not just a classical musician with classical ideals (like grace, balance, lightness, form, proportion) but also a forerunner of modernity. That means, the supreme composer who did everything. What I don't get is the fact that Hammeredklavier is not exactly a fan of modern music, and expressionist art in general (for composers, like Schoenberg, Berg, certain things of Bartok, early Hindemith etc) was exactly that kind of stuff he has often labeled (with a good reason) as "music for horror movies" or something like that. Which to me is completely fine since I consider darkness and negative art having their value in art and music, but I don't think he means it as a compliment, so... I'm a bit confused.


No, the point was: Van Gogh was not appreciated in his times. In a way that happened to Mozart as well many times in his last years. In his times his late works like the 6 Haydn quartets, Don Giovanni, etc were seen as "incomprehensible", "too intellectual", even ugly because of the chromatism and use of dissonancies which was more advanced than his contemporaries. You can read the critics' reviews in the book by Max Graf I quoted earlier. Nobody meant he was the supreme composer who did everything, nobody was like that. Even if he certainly, like Beethoven, was a genius who predicted the future in some ways. He predicted Shostakovich in his string quartet n.19 nicknamed "dissonance": 



Schonberg himself in an interview said: "Mozart taught me how to write quartets". His influence is that big.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Mozart (and Bach, and Beethoven) not being respected in their times is a bit overrated, I think. They were all well respected and dealt with the kinds of frustrations that we associate with artists, but none of them languished in obscurity. I think there's a sort of reverse survivor bias about them where it's more fun to publish contemporary reviews calling the Eroica a pile of garbage, rather than a glowing review of Die Zauberflote. 

Schubert, perhaps, if we only consider "obscure during their lifetime", though he isn't really comparable to Van Gogh otherwise. Bizet, maybe?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I just don't like choral music. If the melodies of the Requiem were played on instruments, I'd really enjoy it. It's a great composition, as are his operas.


You are relatively new to classical music, very new, compared to a number of us. When I was about 11 or 12 my piano-teacher grandmother gave me her set of the Toscanini Beethoven symphonies. I gobbled up all of them except for the 9th and told my grandmother I just didn't like the choral part. She simply responded, 'You will one day, dear.'

IMO, choral and operatic works often take longer to appreciate. I came much later to Mozart's operas than to his non-operatic works. What also happens (IMO), is that, after years of listening, one starts to run out of major works to listen to and choral/opera works open up a whole new experience.

I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on the magical moments in Mozart's and other operas. The first video is from one of the most poignant moments in Amadeus and depicts one of the most poignant moments in all opera. The 2nd from Cosi fan Tutte is one of the most moving trios:


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Both men just created the most beautiful art IMHO. Absolutely breathtaking. I've seen works by both live too, and it was amazing!


Both great artists. But I don't link the two other than their use of striking colors in their respective works.


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

fbjim said:


> Mozart (and Bach, and Beethoven) not being respected in their times is a bit overrated, I think. They were all well respected and dealt with the kinds of frustrations that we associate with artists, but none of them languished in obscurity. I think there's a sort of reverse survivor bias about them where it's more fun to publish contemporary reviews calling the Eroica a pile of garbage, rather than a glowing review of Die Zauberflote.
> 
> Schubert, perhaps, if we only consider "obscure during their lifetime", though he isn't really comparable to Van Gogh otherwise. Bizet, maybe?


Ok yes, I expressed myself badly, I didn't mean he was like Van Gogh meaning he was obscure, I meant: even Mozart's works were not considered "beautiful" canonically and were ununderstood, that was the assertion hammeredclavier was commenting on. The assertion that Mozart wrote works which were considered beautiful while Van Gogh's paintings were not considered beautiful. Today we consider Mozart's works beautiful, they weren't so much for his contemporaries (the late works). He was in fact not as known as Haydn and respected as Salieri, he was more famous as performer. His fame grew after his death.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Amadea said:


> No, the point was: Van Gogh was not appreciated in his times. That happened to Mozart as well many times in his last years. In his times his late works like the 6 Haydn quartets, Don Giovanni, etc were seen as "incomprehensible", "too intellectual", even ugly because of the chromatism and use of dissonancies which was more advanced than his contemporaries. You can read the critics' reviews in the book by Max Graf I quoted earlier. Nobody meant he was the supreme composer who did everything, nobody was like that.


well you can speak for yourself, I suspect that Hammeredklavier could have a different idea 



Amadea said:


> Even if he certainly, like Beethoven, was a genius who predicted the future in some ways. He predicted Shostakovich in his string quartet n.19 nicknamed "dissonance":
> 
> 
> 
> Schonberg himself in an interview said: "Mozart taught me how to write quartets". His influence is that big.


yes, but that's besides what we are talking here, which is a comparison between Mozart and Van Gogh. Even if Mozart sometimes used a lot of dissonances like in the beginning of that quartet, even if his contemporaries saw him as too intellectual that many listeners didn't understand (which is funny because a lot of people here who are always saying that modern composers should care about their audience like the great masters of the past... like Mozart for instance) he still represents the quintessential classical composer, maybe with Haydn. Am I wrong saying this? And classical art had certain ideals (perfectly expressed by Captain above saying about "the right amount" of dissonance) that were extremely different from what Van Gogh was going for. That said: of course categories tell just a part of the story, also Mozart died very young and who knows, maybe in his late sixties or seventies he could have been a composer writing not just the dissonant beginning of a quartet or some small piece with all tonalities, but something that would have been compared to Schoenberg before Schoenberg. Who knows. Time and ideals where changing. But that's just speculation.

By the way: for what I know Mozart was still extremely appreciated, while Van Gogh in his whole life sold just ONE painting. One. I don't think that even for the consideration of their contemporaries they could be compared.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

I remember a quote from a classical review site (and it's probably been expressed other ways) that "Mozart would have made a better Romantic composer, and Mendelssohn the better Classical one"). which kind of gets into unfortunate stereotypes about their work, but for whatever reason Mozart absolutely attracted that post-classical Romantic view of the artist that became more prominent after his death, which never was really applied to the likes of Haydn.


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

norman bates said:


> well you can speak for yourself, I suspect that Hammeredklavier could have a different idea
> 
> yes, but that's besides what we are talking here, which is a comparison between Mozart and Van Gogh. Even if Mozart sometimes used a lot of dissonances like in the beginning of that quartet, even if his contemporaries saw him as too intellectual that many listeners didn't understand (which is funny because a lot of people here who are always saying that modern composers should care about their audience like the great masters of the past... like Mozart for instance) he still represents the quintessential classical composer, maybe with Haydn. Am I wrong saying this? And classical art had certain ideals (perfectly expressed by Captain above saying about "the right amount" of dissonance) that were extremely different from what Van Gogh was going for. That said: of course categories tell just a part of the story, also Mozart died very young and who knows, maybe in his late sixties or seventies he could have been a composer writing not just the dissonant beginning of a quartet or some small piece with all tonalities, but something that would have been compared to Schoenberg before Schoenberg. Who knows. Time and ideals where changing. But that's just speculation.


Yeah well I wouldn't really compare him to Van Gogh either in style but there were some similarities in the way the were trying to defy the standards of their times. You might say "well no Van Gogh was so ahead and so ununderstood compared to Mozart", but in real he was not THAT much. Some in fact suspect Van Gogh's biggest problem in selling his paintings were his mental problems and not his art itself.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

I'd call Mozart the Fragonard of classical music, if others hadn't beaten me to it:


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Is there anyone in visual art similar to Berlioz, eg someone who's innovations are widely thought of to be a product of their talent combined with a lack of formal training?


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

fbjim said:


> I remember a quote from a classical review site (and it's probably been expressed other ways) that "Mozart would have made a better Romantic composer, and Mendelssohn the better Classical one"). which kind of gets into unfortunate stereotypes about their work, but for whatever reason Mozart absolutely attracted that post-classical Romantic view of the artist that became more prominent after his death, which never was really applied to the likes of Haydn.


Well that's a big big speculation... Anyway, for the reason of the post-classical romanti view, I think it was for the melodism. He was probably one if not the greatest (my humble opinion) melodist, that meant for romantic composers such as Tchaikovsky who relied a lot on melody he was obviously Jesus. He was also, in my opinion, better than Haydn at a certain way of expressing that great sensitivity he had which would have evolved in romanticism. But I do agree Haydn is criminally underrated. I'll say a blasphemy: I resized my idea of Beethoven's genius after hearing Haydn's London symphonies.


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

fbjim said:


> Is there anyone in visual art similar to Berlioz, eg someone who's innovations are widely thought of to be a product of their talent combined with a lack of formal training?


Mmm, impressionists or expressionists. Well some have been to art school to be fair, they just rejected it all :lol:


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Amadea said:


> Yeah well I wouldn't really compare him to Van Gogh either in style but there were some similarities in the way the were trying to defy the standards of their times. You might say "well no Van Gogh was so ahead and so ununderstood compared to Mozart", but in real he was not THAT much. Some in fact suspect Van Gogh's biggest problem in selling his paintings were his mental problems and not his art itself.


actually I'm not sure I would say Van Gogh was so ahead of his time. I mean, he foreshadowed the expressionist movement, but there were much earlier artists doing that too. I think he was an artist of his time. Quite modern, but not not incredibly ahead of his contemporaries.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Amadea said:


> Ok yes, I expressed myself badly, I didn't mean he was like Van Gogh meaning he was obscure, I meant: even Mozart's works were not considered "beautiful" canonically and were ununderstood...Today we consider Mozart's works beautiful, they weren't so much for his contemporaries (the late works). He was in fact not as known as Haydn and respected as Salieri, he was more famous as performer. His fame grew after his death.


I don't know what your sources are, but Mozart was famous during his lifetime for his concert performances _and_ his own works. His operas became more and more popular towards the end of his life, The Magic Flute being immediately successful. The comparisons with Haydn and Salieri as his not being as well known are obscure and need some context. As for Mozart's music not being appreciated as beautiful until later is, well, unconvincing given how the beauty of his melodies are inseparable from most of his music, particularly the operas.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

amfortas said:


> I'd call Mozart the Fragonard of classical music, if others hadn't beaten me to it:


altough Fragonard is considered a rococò artist, I can definitely see a lot more similarities, very good call (and I actually have the same problem with both artists, but that's another story)


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

DaveM said:


> I don't know what your sources are, but Mozart was famous during his lifetime for his concert performances _and_ his own works. His operas became more and more popular towards the end of his life, The Magic Flute being immediately successful. The comparisons with Haydn and Salieri as his not being as well known are obscure and need some context. As for Mozart's music not being appreciated as beautiful until later is, well, unconvincing given how the beauty of his melodies are inseparable from most of his music, particularly the operas.


I have never said ALL his works, some of his late works (and I never mentioned the Magic Flute amongst those). Anyway, this is one of my sources, which reports the critics of the times: https://www.amazon.com/Composer-Critic-Hundred-Musical-Criticism/dp/0313231109
For the comparison Haydn/Salieri/Mozart I think I read it in Solomon or Hermann Abert, I don't remember exactly, I'll look tomorrow.


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

norman bates said:


> altough Fragonard is considered a rococò artist, I can definitely see a lot more similarities, very good call (and I actually have the same problem with both artists, but that's another story)


That's mostly stereotypes though, I thought that too. Mozart made dramatic music as well. Some people, like Harnoncourt, even believe Mozart is performed badly as, I quote, "he has always been dramatic". Therefore because of how he is performed he can give that impression of "superficiality" which he doesn't really have. You should ask yourself though: why did Beethoven say he was his greatest fan? Also, his most famous works are not his best and give the wrong impression (eine kleine nacht music....). I can suggest you some pieces if you want. I don't know how much you know him.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Amadea said:


> That's mostly stereotypes though, I thought that too. Mozart made dramatic music as well. Some people, like Harnoncourt, even believe Mozart is performed badly as, I quote, "he has always been dramatic". Therefore because of how he is performed he can give that impression of "superficiality" which he doesn't really have. Also, his most famous works are not his best and give the wrong impression (eine kleine nacht music....). I can suggest you some pieces if you want. I don't know how much you know him.


Are you calling Fragonard superficial? How dare you!


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

amfortas said:


> Are you calling Fragonard superficial? How dare you!


I apologize. I should have realized the depth behind the figure of a woman showing her panties to an ecstatic man. :lol:


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Amadea said:


> That's mostly stereotypes though, I thought that too. Mozart made dramatic music as well. Some people, like Harnoncourt, even believe Mozart is performed badly as, I quote, "he has always been dramatic". Therefore because of how he is performed he can give that impression of "superficiality" which he doesn't really have. Also, his most famous works are not his best and give the wrong impression (eine kleine nacht music....). I can suggest you some pieces if you want. I don't know how much you know him.


well I've heard a number of his most celebrated works, and (piano concertos, string quartets, clarinet quintet, late symphonies, the operas, the requiem). It's not that I dislike everything, and I'm not sure I would even talk about superficiality (I mean I get he was a master of his craft). Sometimes it's hard to point out what one doesn't like. In my case I have often the impression listening to his music that I'm i world of face powder, wigs, bows, confetti, lace curtains, pink and light blue satin and and I'm completely out of place. Sort of living inside Marie Antoinette, that terrible movie of Sofia Coppola.
It's not a real criticism I know, that's just the effect a lot of his music has on me.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I guess all I'm really saying is that they are both my favorites in their fields.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Amadea said:


> I apologize. I should have realized the depth behind the figure of a woman showing her panties to an ecstatic man. :lol:


Oh God, the memories! Don't get me started!


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

Bulldog said:


> I know folks who won't listen to any music without vocals. You could have interesting conversations with them.


Some weirdos out there


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet (Aug 31, 2011)

It's hard for me to map the two art forms. I like both but I don't see a connection between them nor, in general, a connection between music and visual art. They are two very different worlds.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Mozart is more the Raphael of classical music. A classical music van Gogh would be somebody like Beethoven. On second thought, maybe Tchaikovsky or Chopin.


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

norman bates said:


> well I've heard a number of his most celebrated works, and (piano concertos, string quartets, clarinet quintet, late symphonies, the operas, the requiem). It's not that I dislike everything, and I'm not sure I would even talk about superficiality (I mean I get he was a master of his craft). Sometimes it's hard to point out what one doesn't like. In my case I have often the impression listening to his music that I'm i world of face powder, wigs, bows, confetti, lace curtains, pink and light blue satin and and I'm completely out of place. Sort of living inside Marie Antoinette, that terrible movie of Sofia Coppola.
> It's not a real criticism I know, that's just the effect a lot of his music has on me.


Ok. I think I get it. Think about this: some, like Mark Rothko for example, said that late mozart (meaning when he moved to Vienna until his death) seems to "smile through tears". I had never understood it. Until I started to listen to some works like these, included Beethoven's favourites, maybe you know them already, but I don't know, it might be useful for others...

- Piano Concerto n.23, II. Adagio: 



- Fantasia in D minor: 



- Fantasia in C minor: 



- Piano Concerto n.20: 



 (Beethoven's fav)
- Piano Concerto n. 24: 



- Symphony n.25: 



- Adagio and Fuga in C for strings: 



- String Quartet n.15: 



 (the 3rd mov expecially)
- String Quartet n.19: 



 (the 1st mov is very interesting)
- String Quintet n. 4: 



 (interesting shakesperean combination of tragic and comic)
- Rondo n.3: 



 (if you like Chopin)

I apologize I do not know enough of his quartets. If I can think of something else I'll put it.
There are also choral works etc. My knowledge is not massive, I am still discovering his "not so happy works". Maybe someone can help.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

DaveM said:


> You are relatively new to classical music, very new, compared to a number of us. When I was about 11 or 12 my piano-teacher grandmother gave me her set of the Toscanini Beethoven symphonies. I gobbled up all of them except for the 9th and told my grandmother I just didn't like the choral part. She simply responded, 'You will one day, dear.'
> 
> IMO, choral and operatic works often take longer to appreciate. I came much later to Mozart's operas than to his non-operatic works. What also happens (IMO), is that, after years of listening, one starts to run out of major works to listen to and choral/opera works open up a whole new experience.
> 
> I wouldn't have wanted to miss out on the magical moments in Mozart's and other operas. The first video is from one of the most poignant moments in Amadeus and depicts one of the most poignant moments in all opera. The 2nd from Cosi fan Tutte is one of the most moving trios:


The truth is, listening to choral music through headphones causes lots of ringing and distortion sounds on the high notes which is annoying, so I wrote it off. 
I enjoy it live, and done well. (No over vibrato).


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Amadea said:


> There are also choral works etc. My knowledge is not massive, I am still discovering his "not so happy works". Maybe someone can help.


Well, there are also the piano sonatas nos. 8 and 14, the _Maurerische Trauermusik_, the violin sonata no. 27, the _Qui Tollis_ of the _Great_ mass, the fifth movement of the _Posthorn_ serenade (it has some small resemblance to the slow movement of the _Eroica_ I think) and some moments in the last symphonies, including the slow movements and introductions of the first of symphonies Nos. 38 and 39, the first movement of symphony No. 40 and the slow movement of symphony No. 41. But no list of "dark" Mozart would be complete without the "commendatore scene" of _Don Giovanni_ and the Requiem in my opinion.

I'm sure that there must be more examples.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

norman bates said:


> the umpteenth quote about Mozart.


It's because you don't listen, even when I've told you these facts umpteen times.



> But if that means that you're starting to a see the merits of the "horror music"


When? Where did I deride it by simply calling it "horror music"? I did say that it was instrumental in the development certain popular modern genres, such as "horror film music".



> that you didn't even consider part of classical music tradition


I may have exaggerated some things to prove my point regarding that issue. But I still think that having separate forums (one for "classical music" and another for "contemporary music") will help us ("classical music enthusiasts" and "contemporary music enthusiasts") avoid "unnecessary conflicts" and "fruitless discussions" (ie. discussions of topics like "the artistic value of avant-garde"). I still think contemporary music is too different from classical music to be judged by the standards of classical music. Just like the way "classical literature" and "contemporary literature" are different. Does the fact that jazz is not classical music make it objectively worse than classical music in terms of artistic value?



hammeredklavier said:


> We got to admit; Stockhausen had some influence on modern culture, in areas such as horror film music
> 
> 
> 
> ...





hammeredklavier said:


> We can't really say he's objectively a bad composer if there are people who appreciate his music, (regardless how many there are). "Classical music" is only regularly appreciated by about less than 1% of the total population. That doesn't make it bad music. The same logic applies to "avant-garde music".
> But I still doubt how much of his musical philosophy overlaps with that of "classical music". I don't think general "avant-garde music" is "classical music". *But, I would not say it's objectively worse than "classical music" in terms of artistic value. I know there are people who are into "modern art philosophy" stuff, I respect their preference.*
> 
> 'If you listen to Mozart and Beethoven, it's always the same,' he claimed. 'But if you listen to the traffic here on Sixth Avenue, it's always different.' https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/john-cage-manhattan-music
> ...


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Life would be less interesting if we separated the forum like that imo. But, I prefer traditional CM.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

norman bates said:


> Mozart died very young and who knows, maybe in his late sixties or seventies he could have been a composer writing not just the dissonant beginning of a quartet


I've told you umpteen times, it's not just the dissonant beginning that's interesting about that quartet. 





"The second moment is an Andante cantabile in F major, and starts in much simpler vein: with a clear melody in the first violin. But almost immediately, in the second phrase, you'll hear again that winding chromaticism in the inner parts, and also those tell-tale repeated notes in the cello. Soon after that, the moment become obsessively concerned with a small motive that is first passed from violin to cello, and then to the inner parts; and then, *again, you will hear the characteristic build up of instruments, starting (as the slow introduction did) with the cello and moving upwards.* In other words, it soon becomes clear that the slow introduction to this 'dissonance' quartet has actually been a kind a mine from which material for the rest of the movements are to be taken." 
< Roger Parker / Mozart Quartet in C major, K465 (Dissonance) /
View attachment 151298
>



> or some small piece with all tonalities, but something that would have been compared to Schoenberg before Schoenberg.


And I've told you umpteen times:

"The traditional Baroque idiom that is developed in this fugue for two pianos lays great stress on dissonant chromatic semitones and appoggiaturas. The intensity of the fugal writing is startling, foreshadowing the fugal textures in some of Beethoven's later works, such as the first movement of the Piano Sonata in C Minor, op.111, which exploits a variant of the same idiom. Beethoven was so taken by this piece, in fact, that he copied out the entire fugue in score." 
< Mozart's Piano Music / William Kinderman / P.46 >

"the fact remains that the "Great Fugue" is "a controlled violence without parallel in music before the twentieth century and anticipated only by Mozart in the C minor fugue for two pianos (K.426)."
< Opera's Second Death / Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar / P.128>






"Schoenberg now proudly described himself as Mozart's pupil - and the final movement of the Suite, the 'Gigue', comes close to explicit homage to the G major Gigue, KV 574, in which Mozart at his most neo-Baroque and most harmonically chromatic seems almost to anticipate elements of Schoenberg's serial method." < Arnold Schoenberg / Mark Berry / P.135 >








> Who knows. Time and ideals where changing. But that's just speculation.


Why should Mozart have composed like a modern avant-garde composer. He was a talented chef who knew where, and in what context to use, and the right amount of spice and salt to bring out maximum effectiveness and proper sense of contrast. 
Maybe "dumping spice and salt everywhere just for the sake of it just to get everyone hate your food, and then posing as a great artist" is your typical Jackson-Pollock-style mindset.



hammeredklavier said:


> Bernstein (in his lecture on Mozart's symphony in G minor K.550): [ 8:07 ]
> "Do you realize that, that wild, atonal-sounding passage contains every one of the twelve chromatic tones except the tonic note G? ... Take my word for it, that out-burst of chromatic rage is Classically-contained, and so is the climax of this development section, which finds itself in the unlikely key of C-sharp minor, which is as far away as you can get from the home key of G minor."
> missa sancti trinitatis K.167 [ 3:52 ]
> 
> ...


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

norman bates said:


> well I've heard a number of his most celebrated works, and (piano concertos, string quartets, clarinet quintet, late symphonies, the operas, the requiem). It's not that I dislike everything, and I'm not sure I would even talk about superficiality (I mean I get he was a master of his craft). Sometimes it's hard to point out what one doesn't like. In my case I have often the impression listening to his music that I'm i world of face powder, wigs, bows, confetti, lace curtains, pink and light blue satin and and I'm completely out of place. Sort of living inside Marie Antoinette, that terrible movie of Sofia Coppola.
> It's not a real criticism I know, that's just the effect a lot of his music has on me.


Frankly, you are correct in that it is a pretty weak criticism. You understand how in the same way some classical music listeners would not be open to jazz because of certain generalized stereotypes they may have. In my view in both cases it's unfair.

I don't think his music glorifies any of those things you described anyway. The way I hear it Mozart mocks pretensions of grandeur.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Here is a picture of me with a Gogh original: Undergrowth with Two Figures.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/n1nksrvt98nmw3m/IMG_0189.jpg?dl=0


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## Wilhelm Theophilus (Aug 8, 2020)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I just don't like choral music. If the melodies of the Requiem were played on instruments, I'd really enjoy it. It's a great composition, as are his operas.


Your missing out.

Stop saying you don't like it, just be patient with it, you'll get used to it, then you will love it. As long as you keep saying and believing "you just don't like it" you are missing out on some of the greatest music ever made.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Wilhelm Theophilus said:


> Your missing out.
> 
> Stop saying you don't like it, just be patient with it, you'll get used to it, then you will love it. As long as you keep saying and believing "you just don't like it" you are missing out on some of the greatest music ever made.


Read my other post on the subject above where I state it's more about the recordings being hard to listen to through headphones due to distortions and ringings.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> It's because you don't listen, even when I've told you these facts umpteen times.
> 
> When? Where did I deride it by simply calling it "horror music"? I did say that it was instrumental in the development certain popular modern genres, such as "horror film music".


I don't remember the exact words, maybe it was "soundtrack for horror movies", and I don't see it as something negative, because I think actually there's a lot of truth in there, meaning that often modern atonal music was made to express extreme anguish, darkness, alienation, terror etc. The difference is what the listener consider the validity of those emotions in music. I feel they are as valid as the positive ones. I have the impression (I could be wrong about it), that you don't consider that kind of music that tries to convey those extremes as valid as the old music.



hammeredklavier said:


> I've told you umpteen times, it's not just the dissonant beginning that's interesting about that quartet.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think you didn't realize I wasn't making a list of all places where Mozart was using dissonance, I was making a completely different point.



hammeredklavier said:


> And I've told you umpteen times:
> 
> "The traditional Baroque idiom that is developed in this fugue for two pianos lays great stress on dissonant chromatic semitones and appoggiaturas. The intensity of the fugal writing is startling, foreshadowing the fugal textures in some of Beethoven's later works, such as the first movement of the Piano Sonata in C Minor, op.111, which exploits a variant of the same idiom. Beethoven was so taken by this piece, in fact, that he copied out the entire fugue in score."
> < Mozart's Piano Music / William Kinderman / P.46 >
> ...


an influence on a composer or an artist doesn't mean they are doing the same thing or that they have the same aesthetics. I'm not surprised that Schoenberg appreciated Mozart or Brahms and that he was able to point out interesting and innovative aspects of their music. I'm saying that still their aesthetics was very different.



hammeredklavier said:


> Why should Mozart have composed like a modern avant-garde composer. He was a talented chef who knew where, and in what context to use, and the right amount of spice and salt to bring out maximum effectiveness and proper sense of contrast.
> Maybe "dumping spice and salt everywhere just for the sake of it just to get everyone hate your food, and then posing as a great artist" is your typical Jackson-Pollock-style mindset.


It seems we are saying the same now. Mozart didn't have the same aesthetics of expressionist artists. Then why I had the impression that you wanted to prove the opposite?
I was exactly saying that the use of dissonance in Mozart didn't make of him an expressionist, for the reasons you've stated here. Exactly because he had different ideals.



hammeredklavier said:


> I may have exaggerated some things to prove my point regarding that issue. But I still think that having separate forums (one for "classical music" and another for "contemporary music") will help us ("classical music enthusiasts" and "contemporary music enthusiasts") avoid "unnecessary conflicts" and "fruitless discussions" (ie. discussions of topics like "the artistic value of avant-garde"). I still think contemporary music is too different from classical music to be judged by the standards of classical music. Just like the way "classical literature" and "contemporary literature" are different. Does the fact that jazz is not classical music make it objectively worse than classical music in terms of artistic value?


about this: first of all, the division between what should be classical and what contemporary will probably be extremely difficult to made. Contemporary as in the 2000s? Contemporary as Xenakis? Contemporary as Webern? Or The Rite of Springs? Or early Debussy? Or Tristan and Isolde? Or Symphonie fantastique? Or Gesualdo? It doesn't seem easy at all. Also, besides the fact that fortunately most people are into both old and modern classical music and they see it as a evolving tradition instead of completely separated worlds I don't see the point. And I think that discussions about these very things are not just (or at least not necessarily) fruitless, I think I've learned a lot here (and when I arrived I was actually on much more conservative positions, so be prepared that could happen to you too )


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

tdc said:


> Frankly, you are correct in that it is a pretty weak criticism. You understand how in the same way some classical music listeners would not be open to jazz because of certain generalized stereotypes they may have. In my view in both cases it's unfair.
> 
> I don't think his music glorifies any of those things you described anyway. The way I hear it Mozart mocks pretensions of grandeur.


You're absolutely right, in fact I don't even consider it a criticism, it's just the reaction a lot of his music (not everything though) produces on me. I'm sure he was the genius the many say and I'm sad because (even if I could joke saying that a lot of my favorite musicians didn't like Mozart too) I know that I'm probably missing a lot. But what can I do, if even when I hear classical music on the radio and I have a strong dislike for what I'm hearing and for that very reason I know it's Mozart (it happened to me many times). I hope sometimes I will have the moment of revelation. I've had the same experience in the past with music and art that I didn't like at all and then I become a fan, so who knows.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

How do you feel about Beethoven Norman Bates? I think he's much more the expressionist when compared to Mozart. He has the tortured artist concept going for him, and much of his music is filled with a dark intellectual beauty.


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

hammeredklavier said:


> I still think contemporary music is too different from classical music to be judged by the standards of classical music.


That's just like all historians of every art think! I study history of art in college. I can't judge Picasso with the canons I use to judge Leonardo Da Vinci. Different times, different styles, etc. I can make some comparisons to understand the different ways they use their arts, how different times are, but that's really it, I can't really judge them with the criteria I use for one or the other. I wouldn't understand art at at all that way. I'd judge one or the other greater, without understading what makes them important. Let alone appreciate them! It would also be meaningless.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> How do you feel about Beethoven Norman Bates? I think he's much more the expressionist when compared to Mozart. He has the tortured artist concept going for him, and much of his music is filled with a dark intellectual beauty.


well he was definitely closer to a romantic aesthetics, but still we are talking of a master of form, while I don't feel that Van Gogh (while he certainly knew how to draw) was to concerned by perfect form like say, the classical painters of the era (David, Ingres), and his painting were generally much more intimate than the usual romantic vision.

When I think of romantic paintings but still with an attention to "good" form, maybe I would think more of stuff like:


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

norman bates said:


> well he was definitely closer to a romantic aesthetics, but still we are talking of a master of form, while I don't feel that Van Gogh (while he certainly knew how to draw) was to concerned by perfect form like say, the classical painters of the era (David, Ingres), and his painting were generally much more intimate than the usual romantic vision.
> 
> When I think of romantic paintings but still with an attention to "good" form, maybe I would think more of stuff like:


You've captured my interest. Who are some of your favorite composers, and list a single work to listen to if you don't mind. (Try to think of the biggest names you enjoy).


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## Pyotr (Feb 26, 2013)

Van Gogh and Shubert had one thing in common: They created art for art's sake. Neither of them got much (if any) money or recognition for their efforts(while living). One CM expert call Shubert a " compulsive composer." I believe Van Gogh was just as compulsive in his painting.


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## Bellerophon (May 15, 2020)

Mozart and Van Gogh seem an odd paring to me. Both were great of course but their works are so utterly different in emotional tone. I would think of Mozart in conjunction with an Eighteenth century architect like Robert Adam


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I agree, that they seem very different. Van Gogh is more like Hugo Wolf or some other romantic on the brink of madness.


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## jkl (May 4, 2021)

I love Mozart's music and the painting of Van Gough. In fact I have a color print of several VG hanging on my walls and just so happen to listen to Mozart every so often in the same environment.


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## EnescuCvartet (Dec 16, 2016)

I couldn't respectfully disagree more. Mozart was a prodigy, comparing his whole life. Van Gogh self-taught and only painted the last few years of his life. He was a raw talent unappreciated in his time. Mozart was the opposite. Mozart was polished and had technique. Van Gogh was someone who forced their talent onto the canvas, not based on the development of painting up to that point, something outside it rather, whereas Mozart was disciplined and worked within classical structures. I see Mussorgsky closer to a van Gogh.


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