# Very Interesting Mozart Item



## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Dear TC Colleagues,

In case no one has drawn peoples attention to this already...

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170126-can-listening-to-mozart-drive-you-mad

Enjoy


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

KRoad said:


> Dear TC Colleagues,
> 
> In case no one has drawn peoples attention to this already...
> 
> ...


Interesting reading, thanks for posting.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Well, it does bother me that after all these years of being in love with classical music, I have NOT heard the complete works of Mozart. I would say, I'm around 85%. But I am satisfied that I have listened to 100% of his masterpieces; just a lot of juvenilia that I haven't yet heard, and he did write a lot of that.


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

If you listen all the works of a certain composer in one sitting it would drive you crazy, not just Mozart.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

pcnog11 said:


> If you listen all the works of a certain composer in one sitting it would drive you crazy, not just Mozart.


I do agree with you, the thought alone makes one crazy.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

KRoad said:


> http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170126-can-listening-to-mozart-drive-you-mad












Didn't read the article, because the blasted page insisted on starting to play an embedded video, with no way to turn it off. Not only is that a huge distraction from reading, but some of us have a limit on our internet data, something that many websites are either unaware of or cheerfully ignore.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

brianvds said:


> Didn't read the article, because the blasted page insisted on starting to play an embedded video, with no way to turn it off. Not only is that a huge distraction from reading, but some of us have a limit on our internet data, something that many websites are either unaware of or cheerfully ignore.


the text doesnt say much - as it does not reveal what happened to this person who listened to all Mozart's works.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

A point of clarification - this item is a ca. 6 minute long video doco/news item intended for viewing rather than reading, Just saying...


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## Razumovskymas (Sep 20, 2016)

Couldn't you just replace Mozart in this item with any given composer X?

The journalist said 3 things:

-Mozart wrote a lot of music
-his music is relaxing
-Mozart is'nt particularly good at sad music.

not really interesting or new views on Mozart


The "expert" the journalist interviewed said 1 semi interesting thing:
Mozart refuses to take a black or white option when expressing human feeling.


All in all not really interesting, but it only lasted 6 minutes and I learned that Mozarts' complete works is 240 hours of music so no harm done


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Razumovskymas said:


> -Mozart is'nt particularly good at sad music.


I would beg to differ: it seems to me Mozart was exquisitely good at writing sad music, but see the point below.



> not really interesting or new views on Mozart
> The "expert" the journalist interviewed said 1 semi interesting thing:
> Mozart refuses to take a black or white option when expressing human feeling.


I don't know if it is a new thing, but I have long noticed this in Mozart: even his most relaxed and upbeat music often seems to me tinged with grief or wistfulness. In his late works there is almost always a sad smile hovering over it all. But I would think this is precisely what makes his work so immortal, and what makes it stand out so much from that of almost all his contemporaries. "I'm a vulgar man, your majesty, but I assure you, my music is not." 

Mozart can write sad music. He just doesn't rend his clothes and pour ashes over his head like Tchaikovsky. Instead he sits at the window, looking outside, seemingly relaxed. And when you get closer you see a single tear running down his cheek. All of this subtlety is apparently lost on even very musically literate folks, as we saw in that thread about Frank Zappa ( http://www.talkclassical.com/showthread.php?t=47308 ).



> All in all not really interesting, but it only lasted 6 minutes and I learned that Mozarts' complete works is 240 hours of music so no harm done


Assuming that a modern pop album is about an hour long, it means Mozart released 240 albums in a thirty year career, i.e. about eight per year. One's gast cannot help but be a bit flabbered.


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## Alydon (May 16, 2012)

Thanks for post and very interesting seeing that giant box of CDs. Had a similar experience with a massive Vivaldi box which had been sitting on the shelf for ages and though not as long as the Mozart took some time to work through. I wouldn't say it drives you mad but either gives you a greater understanding of the composer or you will never listen to another note they wrote. I ended up loving Vivaldi and rate him far higher than if I hadn't binged on him.


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## Classical Gas (Jan 31, 2017)

Thanks for that link. I wished to take this opportunity to "piggyback" on this thread (perhaps I will post a thread specifically on it in the future) concerning one particular Mozart piece that seems to have a device at the end which I thought was only something modern pop musicians did: the fadeout.

The piece is the famous "sleigh ride" (_Schlittenfahrt_), K. 605. I've listened to a few concerts of this, and some chamber orchestras sort of wimp out at the end, playing it only very lightly. The recording I have, by the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, sounds definitely like it is fading out. My question is, is this not rare or even unique for classical pieces, to fade out at the end?


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Classical Gas said:


> Thanks for that link. I wished to take this opportunity to "piggyback" on this thread (perhaps I will post a thread specifically on it in the future) concerning one particular Mozart piece that seems to have a device at the end which I thought was only something modern pop musicians did: the fadeout.
> 
> The piece is the famous "sleigh ride" (_Schlittenfahrt_), K. 605. I've listened to a few concerts of this, and some chamber orchestras sort of wimp out at the end, playing it only very lightly. The recording I have, by the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, sounds definitely like it is fading out. My question is, is this not rare or even unique for classical pieces, to fade out at the end?


The fade-out ending might be somewhat unusual in orchestral works, but it's extremely common in classical piano pieces. Every piano piece that concludes with sustained notes has a fade-out ending. That's an inherent property of the instrument itself: when a note is sustained on the piano, its sound decays over time, creating a decrease in volume.


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## Classical Gas (Jan 31, 2017)

Thanks Bettina. The particular Mozart piece I referred to seems to fade out with only two instruments -- sleigh bells and post-horn.


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