# All Mozart is Good Listening



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Prolific and great is an accurate description of this composer.

:tiphat:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Some the very late music I don't like so much, k 526 for example.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Prolific and great is an accurate description of this composer.
> 
> :tiphat:


Also supreme melodist. Soren Kirkegaard would add the most sinful composer of all. At least that is how Charles Rosen put it:

"Perhaps no composer used the seductive physical power of music with the intensity and range of Mozart. The flesh is corrupt and corrupting. Behind Kierkegaard's essay on Don Giovanni stands the idea that music is a sin: it seems fundamentally sound that he should have chosen Mozart as the most sinful composer of all. What is most extraordinary about Mozart's style is the combination of physical delight - a sensuous play of sonority, an indulgence in the most luscious harmonic sequences - with a purity and economy of line and form that render the seduction all the more efficient."


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

And I never want to see La Clemenza Di Tito again,


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> And I never want to see La Clemenza Di Tito again,


I'm sure this is going to be a lengthy list. Isn't it easier to just list what you like?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm sure this is going to be a lengthy list. Isn't it easier to just list what you like?


No it isn't going to be easier to list what I like, there's not many things by Mozart that I really struggle with - at least of the small part of his work that I've heard.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> No it isn't going to be easier to list what I like, there's not many things by Mozart that I really struggle with - at least of *the small part of his work that I've heard*.


So despite that bit above, there's currently two you don't like including an entire opera and a complete sonata. Interesting. How small is _small_ exactly?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

And some is more good than others.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

MarkW said:


> And some is more good than others.


That's probably true.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

...but who is playing?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

eugeneonagain said:


> So despite that bit above, there's currently two you don't like including an entire opera and a complete sonata. Interesting. How small is _small_ exactly?


I've never spent time getting to know the earlier music. So, for example, I can't remember any quartets before the six for Haydn.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> And I never want to see La Clemenza Di Tito again,


Your loss I would say.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

My Mozart listening is mostly concentrated on the following:

The late Piano Concertos
The late Symphonies (including #25)
The Operas (most of the later ones k366 and up)
The Piano Sonatas
String Quintet in G minor
The Requiem

There is more that I like, but for the moment I am mostly interested in those pieces.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Pugg said:


> Your loss I would say.


agreed - re tito - we are told Mozart heart was not in this opera. Stunning numbers and music though.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Some the very late music I don't like so much, k 526 for example.


just some? well that leaves 200+ pieces


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## Owllistening (Sep 29, 2017)

Almost everything, except ...

... I just can't be doing with _The Marriage of Figaro_. There is some great music in there - it is Mozart, after all - but I always find my mind wandering as I wait for the good bits to come along. Even watching it doesn't seem to help.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Wow. That's the first time in my (increasingly lengthy) musical life that I've ever heard of another Mozart fan who feels that way about "Figaro". For me it's the pinnacle not only of music but of human artistic endeavour of any kind. Go figure.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> And I never want to see La Clemenza Di Tito again,


I know it's wrong, but La Clemenza is my favorite opera.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Animal the Drummer said:


> Wow. That's the first time in my (increasingly lengthy) musical life that I've ever heard of another Mozart fan who feels that way about "Figaro". For me it's the pinnacle not only of music but of human artistic endeavour of any kind. Go figure.


Well I felt like that about Figaro for a long time, the first time I saw it I thought I would die of boredom and frustration. I hated the way the action stops for a good song, and I disliked the way so much of the action happens in the same place: inside Almaviva's palace. It's only at the end that we finally get a breath of air.

I've got the patience to tolerate its weaknesses now, really because because of its strengths, musical and dramatic and at the level of ideas.

I'll just add that in my experience, Figaro and Don Giovanni are very performance sensitive. Sometimes they just flop. And yet when they work you wonder why you ever do anything else with your life other than watch them. I suppose like a lot of Mozart, they're not easy to get off the page. Cosi and The Magic Flute less so in my experience, the other operas I hardly know apart from Entfuhrung (which I love.)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Blancrocher said:


> I know it's wrong, but La Clemenza is my favorite opera.


Impossible.

I've just thought of another one I don't want to ever see again: Idomineo.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Owllistening said:


> Almost everything, except ...
> 
> ... I just can't be doing with _The Marriage of Figaro_. There is some great music in there - it is Mozart, after all - but I always find my mind wandering as I wait for the good bits to come along. Even watching it doesn't seem to help.


I suspect the lengthy recitative puts you off

but with subtitles - actually - it does come to life if you understand the dialogue - I find sussanah and figraro's dialogue delightful for example


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Impossible.
> 
> I've just thought of another one I don't want to ever see again: Idomineo.


Idomeno is one for the connoisseurs and intelligentsia of opera, this is one opera even I (as a Mozart maniac) cant quite get into.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

stomanek said:


> agreed - re tito - we are told Mozart heart was not in this opera. Stunning numbers and music though.


Mozart was a man with his mind only half on the job I would say


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Well I felt like that about Figaro for a long time, the first time I saw it I thought I would die of boredom and frustration. I hated the way the action stops for a good song, and I disliked the way so much of the action happens in the same place: inside Almaviva's palace. It's only at the end that we finally get a breath of air.
> 
> * I've got the patience to tolerate its weaknesses now, r*eally because because of its strengths, musical and dramatic and at the level of ideas.
> 
> I'll just add that in my experience, Figaro and Don Giovanni are very performance sensitive. Sometimes they just flop. And yet when they work you wonder why you ever do anything else with your life other than watch them. I suppose like a lot of Mozart, they're not easy to get off the page. Cosi and The Magic Flute less so in my experience, the other operas I hardly know apart from Entfuhrung (which I love.)


What weaknesses? :lol:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

stomanek said:


> Idomeno is one for the connoisseurs and intelligentsia of opera, this is one opera even I (as a Mozart maniac) cant quite get into.


Because Mozart was incredibly prolific we don't realise that it was only when he wrote Figaro that his full genius as an opera composer began to flourish in its full capacity. He was still a young man when he died. From Figaro on he wrote four of the greatest operas.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

Mandryka said:


> I've just thought of another one I don't want to ever see again:* Idomineo*.





stomanek said:


> *Idomeno* is one for the connoisseurs and intelligentsia of opera, this is one opera even I (as a Mozart maniac) cant quite get into.


Apparently it's an opera people don't want to spell again either. _Idomeneo_ is actually my favorite Mozart opera and I'm not sure what would make it difficult for people to like that only "connoisseurs and intelligentsia" could appreciate it, there are as many beautiful arias,ensembles, and dramatic moments as the later, more popular operas.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

trazom said:


> _Idomeneo_ is actually my favorite Mozart opera.


I like it for the transparent revelation of Wolfgang's father issues.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

trazom said:


> Apparently it's an opera people don't want to spell again either. _Idomeneo_ is actually my favorite Mozart opera and I'm not sure what would make it difficult for people to like that only "connoisseurs and intelligentsia" could appreciate it, there are as many beautiful arias,ensembles, and dramatic moments as the later, more popular operas.


I don't know whether you read David Cairns great book, Mozart and His Operas, but he says something similar, suggesting that Idomeneo is a gigantic work. I agree. It's remarkable that he composed this, and maybe it won't be fully appreciated as being on a par with the great da Ponte operas for a long time yet.

As for the opening argument - that _All Mozart is good listening_ - I bet there's a science somewhere that proves this. The Golden ratio, stuff like this. It's not just that the music is always perfectly calibrated and ideally proportioned, even the infant works, and not only that his music is edifying, as if this matters - it's that Mozart always had what Haydn rightly defined as _taste_. Not for Wolfie the garish vein-bleeding of the Romantic egotists. Why would he, when he could present tragedy as both specific and universal, within a single phrase, then allow light to break in and return - but altered now by that resigned state. Someone once wrote of Mozart as the most psychological of composers. I kind of agree with that. His insight into the fickle and ever-changing human condition was priceless, but also, his ability to express literally everything, within an abundance of ideas, and through every form, was _awesome_...


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kieran said:


> As for the opening argument - that _All Mozart is good listening_ - I bet there's a science somewhere that proves this. The Golden ratio, stuff like this. It's not just that the music is always perfectly calibrated and ideally proportioned, even the infant works, and not only that his music is edifying, as if this matters - it's that Mozart always had what Haydn rightly defined as _taste_. Not for Wolfie the garish vein-bleeding of the Romantic egotists. Why would he, when he could present tragedy as both specific and universal, within a single phrase, then allow light to break in and return - but altered now by that resigned state. Someone once wrote of Mozart as the most psychological of composers. I kind of agree with that. His insight into the fickle and ever-changing human condition was priceless, but also, his ability to express literally everything, within an abundance of ideas, and through every form, was _awesome_...


Where does Haydn say that mozart had taste? I wonder what he meant.

Do you think Don Giovanni is a tasteful opera? Or Cosi Fan Tutte? De gustibus etc.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

_Idomeneo _bowled me over the first time I heard it, more so than most Mozart works do. Stunning masterpiece is a phrase that comes to mind. I consider it along with _Le Nozze Di Figaro_ as Mozart's best opera. (My 3rd favorite is _Cosi Fan Tutte_).

Not sure what makes it more difficult to appreciate to some, for me it was easier to appreciate than _The Magic Flute_ or _Don Giovanni_. (Both of which I also like).

I can see how the use of recitative could make_ La Clemenza Di Tito _a little more difficult for some, but I found the music simply beautiful and it is also an opera I enjoyed right away.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Where does Haydn say that mozart had taste? I wonder what he meant.
> 
> Do you think Don Giovanni is a tasteful opera? Or Cosi Fan Tutte? De gustibus etc.


Here. It's quite a famous quote.

"_Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name; he has taste, and, furthermore, the most profound knowledge of composition."

_And yes, Mozart's musical taste found its highest expression in his glorious operas, including the greatest of them all, Don Giovanni, and Cosi...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

That's Leopold quoting Haydn in a 1785 letter to Maria Anna Mozart.


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## Brahmsian Colors (Sep 16, 2016)

These are the Mozart pieces that constitute the most enjoyable, good listening for me in the present:

Violin Concerto 3, K216
Violin Concerto 4, K218
Piano Concerto 15, K450
Piano Concerto 16, K451
Piano Concerto 17, K453
Piano Concerto 19, K459
Piano Concerto 21, K467
Piano Concerto 23, K488
Piano Concerto 24, K491
Piano Concerto 27, K595
Clarinet Concerto, K622
Sinfonia Concertante, K364
Trio in E Flat for Clarinet,Viola,Piano-"Kegelstatt"- K498
Piano Trio 3, K502
Divertimento 2 K131
Divertimento 11 K251
Divertimento 17 K334
Divertimento for Violin,Viola,Cello, K563
Serenade 9 "Posthorn" K320
Serenade 10 "Gran Partita" K361
Piano Quartet 2, K493
String Quartet 20-"Hoffmeister"-K499
Clarinet Quintet-"Stadler"-K581
Quintet For Piano and Winds, K452
String Quintet 3, K515


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Where does Haydn say that mozart had taste?* I wonder what he meant. *
> 
> Do you think Don Giovanni is a tasteful opera? Or Cosi Fan Tutte? De gustibus etc.


I think he was talking about the quality of the music - not the subject matter of his operas.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Beethoven certainly rated the quality of Mozart's music very highly. Less so the content of some of his operas, aside from the Magic Flute.

"I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart, and shall do so till the day of my death."

" 'Die Zauberflote' will always remain Mozart's greatest work, for in it he for the first time showed himself to be a German musician. 'Don Juan' still has the complete Italian cut; besides our sacred art ought never permit itself to be degraded to the level of a foil for so scandalous a subject."


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

There are a couple of Mozart pieces where the one version I've heard, I've disliked. They are Violin Sonata No. 11 and Apollo et Hyacinthus. I still have a lot of his music to listen to for the first time, but I'm confident that there are also better versions of the pieces I've discarded. His success percentage with me is something in the high 90's.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Some of the minor pieces can be a bit dull - like the canons (I have a disc of them - probably was a mistake to listen to the whole lot)


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## mathisdermaler (Mar 29, 2017)

Everything is good but the late operas are :angel: just thinking about them makes me swoon


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## Owllistening (Sep 29, 2017)

Owllistening said:


> Almost everything, except ...
> 
> ... I just can't be doing with _The Marriage of Figaro_. There is some great music in there - it is Mozart, after all - but I always find my mind wandering as I wait for the good bits to come along. Even watching it doesn't seem to help.


I'm now feeling insecure about having posted that. I really need to see and hear it again. I'm pretty sure I have a DVD somewhere, but I can't think, offhand, of the performers. And now I'm remembering a rather glorious Magic Flute, How many Mozart DVDs do I have - haven't watched any for years? I shall mount a search and rescue mission to the wildest reaches of the spare room ...


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Of course it depends on what you mean by 'good listening' 

If you mean 'profound' then no. Mozart didn't write the works he penned for background music to be profound. He wrote them for easy listening. There are other works which are among the sublimest musical utterances of mankind


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I think it's definitely come to truth, I love everything I've heard from Mozart. I may cave on a full collection of all his works and spend my time working through it all!


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Even a Mozart fanatic like me cant listen to every note Mozart composed. He wasn't always on top form and of course a lot of the juvenelia is not the best music. I think he himself would be baffled that so much of his lesser music has been recorded and played.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

I'm actually inclined to agree. I've been listening to a box of Mozart piano sonatas played by Brendel, and no matter which one I listen to, perfection is there in every nook and cranny, even turn of melody and harmony. A metaphysical perfection seemed to infect almost everything he touched, if you will permit me to be so Romantic.


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

Brendel was a keyboard magician, if he were to play 3 Blind Mice I am sure it would be magical.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Leonard Bernstein heard Cosi fan Tutte at Saltzberg and afterwards was heard to remark, "I would give my b*lls if I could write four bars of that!"


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## Senator Padme 09 (Dec 1, 2017)

Here are some of the music I enjoy the most from mozart: 

1. Rondo alla turca (Turkish march)
2. Symphony no. 25
3. Lacrimosa 
4. Eine Kleine Nachtmusic
5. Requiem
6. The marriage of figaro


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## bharbeke (Mar 4, 2013)

I only show Lacrimosa dies illa as part of the Requiem on a cursory search of my Mozart list. Is there another Lacrimosa somewhere in Mozart's works?


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

Owllistening said:


> I'm now feeling insecure about having posted that. I really need to see and hear it again. I'm pretty sure I have a DVD somewhere, but I can't think, offhand, of the performers. And now I'm remembering a rather glorious Magic Flute, How many Mozart DVDs do I have - haven't watched any for years? I shall mount a search and rescue mission to the wildest reaches of the spare room ...


It often happens, doesn't it, that we grow in our appreciation after many failed attempts. And of course, often things can age badly, and where we loved them once, much later on we're struggling to understand why.

The Figaro version I've always loved the most is the one conducted by Karl Bohm, from 1968, Hermann Prey et al. It's been nothing less than an erasable source of magic and light since I first heard it. What is it about this opera? It's been said that every single note in it is the perfect note for that piece. It's actually quite a hilarious play/libretto, and the music gives us enough shade and ambiguity that we can hear great pompous tunes sung by pure buffo muppets. So without knowing what's happening, we can admire the powerful music, but it really comes alive in context, where the comedy happens, and where it's often laugh out loud funny.

It has a gorgeous (and still comic) trio in the first act, Cosa sento!. It has famous tunes, and of course arias to kill for. It's inspired, far as I'm concerned, and as music goes, it's as inspired as music can be. The ending, with its choral hymn of forgiveness, will bring lumps to my throat every time. But there's a lot of silliness and buffoonery and old classy comedy in the show before that. I hope you come to enjoy it as much as I have - I never ever tire of it...

:tiphat:


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Senator Padme 09 said:


> Here are some of the music I enjoy the most from mozart:
> 
> 1. Rondo alla turca (Turkish march)
> 2. Symphony no. 25
> ...


am I the only one to chuckle?


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