# Beethoven was Nerdier, Mozart was the Entertainer



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Discuss.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

So you're trying to say, "Beethoven was a true artist, whereas Mozart was merely an entertainer". Ok..


Captainnumber36 said:


> Yes. Good catches.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> So you're trying to say, "Beethoven was a true artist, whereas Mozart was merely an entertainer". Ok..


Different kind of artists. I think everyone is an artist in that, all and everything express an idea or emotion.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

If anything, I was praising Mozart for his appeal to the masses. There is genius and beauty in that sort of craft I think. But there is something to be said about getting experimental, and offering something unique for the nerdier fans too, which Beethoven does nicely.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Both were geniuses, both wrote immortal masterpieces, both have music that _may_ appeal to some nerds, and both created _some_ light, entertaining music (Wellington Victory and the Septet op. 20 come to mind now as examples in Beethoven's case).


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Xisten267 said:


> Both were geniuses, both wrote immortal masterpieces, both have music that may appeal to nerds, and both created _some_ light, entertaining music (Wellington Victory and the Septet op. 20 come to mind now as examples in Beethoven's case).



I like judging from the whole, and what each composer was MOSTLY about.


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## KevinW (Nov 21, 2021)

Nerdiness or entertainment have nothing to do with artistic values.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Mozart was an Aquarius, Beethoven a Sagittarius. That has as much relevance as your OP.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

"nerdy" is hardly applicable to 1780s-1820s. Beethoven was as much an entertainer as Mozart when he was younger and mostly famous as a pianist. Of course he had to reduce this after becoming deaf and he supposedly was a bit socially awkward even before that. But I think this has been exaggerated in popular biography. Both the teenaged Beethoven and the young man in his 20s and early 30s got along pretty well in courtly/nobility circles in Bonn and Vienna, so he cannot have been half as boorish as made by some biopics. Once he was a famous virtuoso they cut him some slack and of course the mood and mores were a bit different around 1800 than in the ancien regime of Mozart's day.

Even as (nearly) deaf middle-aged person Beethoven had a comparably active social life (the probable affair with the "immortal beloved" would have been when he was around 40), so his legendary grumpiness and lack of personal care were either exaggerated (he looks well groomed and smartly dressed on the portraits from the early 1800s) or only restricted to some phases of the even older Beethoven in his last 10 years.


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## Waehnen (Oct 31, 2021)

I do not agree with the OP statement and the dichotomy NERD — ENTERTAINER doesn’t really give me anything of use, especially in this context.


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## HansZimmer (11 mo ago)

Why? In an other forum someone wrote that Beethoven, according to him, would have had a greater care for the aesthetic than Mozart and Bach. I agree that Beethoven in general was trying to produce pleasant music, but I don't agree at all with the idea that Mozart didn't care about aesthetic.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I suppose that Beethoven has more complicated music which appeals to nerds more. Mozart has more light listening, which makes him easier to get to the mainstream and thus my claim that he is more the entertainer.

I'm NOT saying one is better than the other, simply providing a fun way to look at it to us music nerds.


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## Philidor (11 mo ago)

I am wondering why I am reading biographies by several authors with their diverging perspectives, if the difference between Mozart and Beethoven can be expressed so easily.

Maybe KV 465 was nerdier than op. 20 and op. 20 was more entertaining than KV 465.


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## HansZimmer (11 mo ago)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I suppose that Beethoven has more complicated music which appeals to nerds more.


Can you support the two statements?

1) "The music of Beethoven is more elaborated"

2) "Mozart is loved by a popular audience while Beethoven has a niche audience"


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

HansZimmer said:


> Can you support the two statements?
> 
> 1) "The music of Beethoven is more elaborated"
> 
> 2) "Mozart is loved by a popular audience while Beethoven has a niche audience"


Just my observations, I don't know the stats.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I suppose that Beethoven has more complicated music which appeals to nerds more. Mozart has more light listening, which makes him easier to get to the mainstream and thus my claim that he is more the entertainer.


There's something about Mozart general modern listeners find _archaic_ and thus, intrinsically alien to their tastes. Beethoven, albeit complex, intricate, subtle in expressions, can at the same time come across as emotionally satisfying in a way similar to rock is, today, for example. In this respect, Mozart could be seen as less aesthetically appealing, from the general perspective of modern listeners.

"For modern listeners, one of the hardest things to grasp about the Classical style is its unabashed reliance on predictability. Before Beethoven at least, Classical composers simply didn't put much of a premium on innovation for its own sake. Unlike artists today, they weren't usually out to shock, or provoke, or to challenge their audiences. Their aim was to create music that was easily accessible and which honored what they thought of as the rules of good taste and propriety. This led to a heavy reliance on the conventional, and, thus, on the predictable. And one of the most predictable aspects of the style is its use of cadences. Simply put, if you know the classical style, it's often possible to anticipate when a cadence is coming."


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

HansZimmer said:


> Can you support the two statements?
> 
> 1) "The music of Beethoven is more elaborated"
> 
> 2) "Mozart is loved by a popular audience while Beethoven has a niche audience"


The claim that Beethoven has a niche adience is weird. If you look at stats he’s just as popular if not more than Mozart. I also don’t think Mozart’s music is just light


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> There's something about Mozart general modern listeners find _archaic_ and thus, intrinsically alien to their tastes. Beethoven, albeit complex, intricate, subtle in expressions, can at the same time come across as emotionally satisfying in a way similar to rock is, today, for example. In this respect, Mozart could be seen as less aesthetically appealing, from the general perspective of modern listeners.
> 
> "For modern listeners, one of the hardest things to grasp about the Classical style is its unabashed reliance on predictability. Before Beethoven at least, Classical composers simply didn't put much of a premium on innovation for its own sake. Unlike artists today, they weren't usually out to shock, or provoke, or to challenge their audiences. Their aim was to create music that was easily accessible and which honored what they thought of as the rules of good taste and propriety. This led to a heavy reliance on the conventional, and, thus, on the predictable. And one of the most predictable aspects of the style is its use of cadences. Simply put, if you know the classical style, it's often possible to anticipate when a cadence is coming."


My favorite post in this thread so far. I agree with a lot of it, but I still think Mozart is more listened to by modern listeners when compared to Beethoven, at least when it comes to older audiences.

I'd say the modern teen that is into classical could perhaps lean more towards Beethoven for that shock value.

Not that this takes away from Beethoven, I think he's great too and actually prefer him to Mozart. Not for the Shock, I just enjoy the emotional appeal of his music more.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I like judging from the whole, and what each composer was MOSTLY about.


Mozart was mostly about entertaining? Na - you got that wrong! So much of his music encompasses the full range of emotions and scales heights that composers rarely even attempt. Oh, and it is also sometimes very entertaining.


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