Just as many notes as necessary

[truehobbit]

This is what W.A. Mozart replied to the Emperor in one of the most famous anecdotes about his life, when the Emperor had suggested there might be too many notes in "The Abduction from the Seraglio".

On January 27, it will be Mozart's 250th birthday.

I thought I'd start a thread for the occasion, because it seems I always come back to Mozart - I normally don't have favourites, I tend to get very absorbed with whatever I listen most to at a time, which then is just "the best" for the time being - but Mozart seems to be above and beyond everything.

I used to listen to Mozart's music a lot - almost exclusively - about 15 - 20 years ago. Then I started to discover other composers, and when CDs replaced LPs, this somewhat added to a move away from listening to his music. I think, it's been over a year that I've seriously listened to any longer piece in full.

On January 1st this year, to initiate the "Mozart Year", a culture TV-channel here had "Mozart Day" - the whole programme that day was music, operas, and movies. Too much to watch all, of course, but I watched a concert recording, Barenboim playing a piano concerto and - for the first time again in years - Ingmar Bergman's film version of The Magic Flute.
Maybe I was just a bit more sensitive on that day, but it hit me full force how powerful that music is, and I wondered how I could ever have got away from it as much as I did.

Having got my new turntable into working order, I've been listening to some piano concertos, too, and one choir (not the one I usually sing in) at our Uni is rehearsing the Requiem and mass in c-minor, which I'd meant to join in all along, and never got round to, but I've joined now and am trying to catch up with some months of rehearsal they've already had, so I'm practicing at home, and I keep being amazed how these apparently simple notes (no where near as many notes as your average Bach-piece) manage to make such sublime music!

I don't really know what I think this thread should be about - just a tribute to the man and the music - maybe I'll try if I can post some sound samples sometime. So, if there's anything connected to Mozart that you'd like to share, I hope you'll post it here!

[yovargas]

I've gotten the impression for a while that the members of these boards are in general more into classical music than the average person. I always find these sorts of demographic anomolies interesting, particularly trying to find a "why".

Anyways, just an observation. Don't mean to osgilliate your thread right from the start!


(Sorry, I find classical music generally uninteresting, Mozart particularly so, so nothing for me to contribute here).

[Primula Baggins]

Great thread, Hobby!

I think his music was touched by God. His melodies, often so simple, can be impossibly beautiful. Though in my opinion Bach was a greater composer, Mozart's music has more immediate emotional power through its beauty and perfection of melody. There is not a note in it that doesn't need to be there (pooh, Emperor) and not a note missing that should be there.

I've posted this before, but I've never forgotten a cartoon I saw in the New Yorker as a teenager: a dull wasteland of junk, bottles, and old tires stretching to the horizon under a heavy sky, with the caption "Life Without Mozart."

Edit: Yov, have you ever seen the film "Amadeus"?

[yovargas]

Edit: Yov, have you ever seen the film "Amadeus"?

Um, I think I saw it when I was really young, probably over a decade ago or so. Why?

[Primula Baggins]

Oh, a lot of people who were uninterested in Mozart changed their minds after watching that film, that's all. But they were older than you were (I'm guessing).

Classical music is interesting because it's complicated. A lot of the people I know here who love it are also musicians themselves, like Hobby. That training helps you be able to hear and enjoy the complexities of the music. (I studied viola and piano for many years and played in symphony orchestras in high school and college.)

I enjoy rock as well, and other kinds of popular music, but they just don't draw my mind in or involve me so completely. I appreciate the talent and artistry that goes into them, but still for me most such music is like candy, whereas classical music is a feast of wonderful, nourishing food.

[Whistler]

The phrase "too many notes" is now an in-joke among artistic types, used to refer to anything that's simply too sublime for some people.

Yov, you horrify me! First Pogo, and now this!

Even so, I'll name somebody else who doesn't care for Mozart...F. Murray Abraham, who played Salieri in Amadeus!

[Jnyusa]

I too love Mozart and Bach, though I have to say that my favorite composer remains Beethoven.

I don't think one can say that one of them is better than the other, but their strengths are certainly different. Mozart was the most prolific, iirc, and it stuns me how he managed to physically write so much music and have all of it be so good. I've got the scores for four piano concertos here, in a beautiful big bound book, and I've sort of worked away at them over the years ... many years! ... even though I don't have the musical skill to play them properly. The music is so thoughful and fluid and meandering, it's like meditating to sit and play for half an hour.

These composers are people who almost don't belong to themselves, I think. Somehow the universe has grabbed hold of them and used them and taken away their will in the matter. Mozart could NOT have chosen to not write music. I don't think so anyway.

The reason I like Beethoven the best is because his music is so structured. Voronwë and I have talked about this before because it is the thing I prize most in all the arts - perfect structure. When you reach the end, each part reveals itself to have been necessary, inevitable, and even parsimonious, which is why "too many notes" seems so funny, I guess, to people who understand how all the parts of the music fit together.

Yes, of course it is the complexity that appeals in classical music, and except for the relatively simpler pieces that appeal emotionally to nearly everyone (like ... Finlandia) I think that trying to gain an appreciation of classical music by listening to all of Mozart in Köchel order would be like trying to read War and Peace in Russian without knowing any Russian. And people are naturally daunted by the idea that they have to learn another language to really get into this stuff.

And, as oft repeated by economists, one must have leisure to do this, so there is a class component and a generational component and a question of social access to the music and so on.

Jn

edited to add a critical "not" left out in the first draft!

[yovargas]

Classical music is interesting because it's complicated.

Not to make an argument about this (this being an appreciation thread and all) but complexity in and of itself isn't of much interest to me. In any medium, very simple art can be just as moving and valuable as the most complex and detailed. This is specially true in music, IMO.

A lot of the people I know here who love it are also musicians themselves, like Hobby.

That kinda reminds me of the criticism of much modern art, where to "get" the art you practically have to be an art history major.

To leave on a more positive note, I always enjoyed it when my dad would put on his Tchacovsky (sp?) albums.


(Sorry to disappoint, Whistler! )

[Primula Baggins]

yov, I certainly make no claim to being a "real" musician. I just have experience playing in ensembles, the same kind of experience anyone who played an instrument or sang in a choir in school would have. That's all it takes—you don't have to be a high-level professional or a music major. People can also learn to appreciate classical music without any performing experience of their own, if they study a bit and listen to it a lot.

As for complexity versus simplicity, of course they both have their place and can both be effective as art. I just prefer music with several things going on at once. That doesn't mean I think it's the "only" kind of music worth a listen.

[Jnyusa]

In any medium, very simple art can be just as moving and valuable as the most complex and detailed.

This is true! And in some ways it is more difficult to make something simple and elegant. Brahms had a technique of using these droning impressionistic intervals between viola and cello to fill out the background in his symphonies. It is a very simple technique but he gets this huge sound out of it. And when you tear his music apart to study it, the thing that is most striking is how terribly simple it is. Simple can be great depending on what it reveals, what you manage to squeeze out of it. But I don't think something is necessarily better just because it's simple, any more than it is necessarily better because it is complex.

If you listen to a lot of classical music you realize that there is a universe of compositions written and performed that are complex and technical, and they provide a showcase for the composers and great fun actually for the musicians who perform them ... but they will not be lasting works or ever seep into the public consciousness. These are 'studies' in a sense, and the complexity for its own sake probably only appeals to professional musicians.

But even in Rock music, which I also enjoy (some of it), you look at the musicians that have been around for decades and see that their works become longer and more complex over time. They too are looking for new challenges, and that usually means addition of new instruments and new techniques rather than subtraction.

jn

[Whistler]

The great caricaturist Al Hirschfeld said something I've always remembered.

He said that, when he was in a hurry, he'd draw a complicated picture.

But when he had plenty of time, he'd draw a simple one. Those were harder.

[Sassafras]

Mozart runs a very close second to Bach for me.

Food for the soul. I feel lighter, more buoyant somehow when listening to oh, say, the Domine Deus from the B minor Mass ( I have the Von Karajan recording with Ferrier and Schwartzkopf <sw00n>) or Mozart's Exsultate Jubilate.

Most of my collection is cd replacements of the original LP's of Bach and Mozart. I don't listen to Beethoven as much as I did when younger although I still adore the Piano concerti, Missa Solemnis and the Violin Concerto ... and the Archduke Trio ... and the piano sonatas ... and ... and ....

I think if I could only have one or two works to listen to for the rest of my life I would choose Bach's St. Mathew Passion (or the B minor Mass) and either Mozart's Requim or one of the great piano concertos (only I can't choose between them )

yov, my daughter was 14 when she saw Amadeus. She started listening my Mozart records and replaced all of the Duran-Duran posters in her bedroom with pictures of Mozart.

I was so proud.

[sauronsfinger]

Whistler

thats a great story about Hirschfeld ... had not heard that before.

[Whistler]

My wife and I own a Hirschfeld.

Unfortunately it's rather complicated.

[JewelSong]

Great thread, Hobby!

I love the movie "Amadeus." I used bits and pieces of it last year, when I was teaching in a very urban district and the kids had never heard of Mozart. We did a 2-month unit on him - made a time line, played some of his music, watched parts of the movie, had a quiz game and so on.

The other music teacher didn't think he could make it work; how could he ever get urban 4th graders to sit for even one piece of classical music. He taught jazz instead. (MUCH more complicated than classical, BTW!) He didn't really believe that my kids liked it; he thought I was just being an old fashioned music teacher.

At the end of the quarter, we combined classes for a little recital - he played trumpet and I played clarinet and we did some duets. Some jazz, a couple of folk tunes and a little piece by Mozart. When I introduced the Mozart, I said, "And now, here's a selection by our friend, Mr. Mozart!" My entire class shouted, "HOORAY! MOZART!" My colleague looked stunned and then sheepish. He said, "You need to tell me how you did that!"

Now I am teaching HS Music History and they love him, too. Somehow, they respect his genius and his oddities....even 250 years later, the guy still rocks.

[truehobbit]

He sure does! - Thanks for the replies all, I hope I can manage to say all I want to say in one post!

Being such a Mozart-fan myself I of course love to hear when others come to love him, too, like your daughter, Sassy, or the kids in your class, Jewel!

Yes, the movie Amadeus brought a lot of people to love Mozart and his music. It's commonly considered, I think, that this is because it paints him as a very likeable little punk, rather than the stuffy wigged image, that (it is said) puts people off. But I don't think that's the main reason, really. I think the reason is more because he is portrayed as very sure of himself and yet possessing a great love of fun - and I think this portrayal is basically true (from what we can tell 200 years later).
He isn't shown fighting an inner struggle for weeks about how to write this or that - he knows what's needed and which notes are right! He is enthusiastic about what he does, he is his music all the time and he knows that this is what he is meant to do and to be.
I think that it's this that appeals to young people. The movies leaves no doubt he is the best, and as this doesn't make him a killjoy but rather the opposite, he definitely rocks!

Simplicity and Bach and Mozart - lovely, complex subject!

Whistler, I completely agree with this Hirschfeld guy!

Not that anything simple is always better, like Jny said, but if you get the same result with simpler means, I tend to think that that's the greater art.

It's one thing that I've always "criticised" about Bach, although nowadays I'd say that his style is too different from Mozarts to be compared.
But, yes, if someone can pierce my soul with a single note, that seems the highest achievement to me.
Unfortunately, I don't know much about harmony and all the rules, but I've sometimes picked up the music to something by Mozart which has touched me particularly, and only found the simplest chord. It's possible I got something wrong, because, as I said, I don't know much about it, but I will usually just look at those few notes and wonder what it is that touches me to the quick! It must be more than just "what" there is - it must be the instrumentation or the whole development (what came before and what follows a certain sound) or the loudness or phrasing or something...probably all of them together!

So, I'm wondering if anyone here knows that Ingmar Bergman movie of The Magic Flute?
It is sung in Swedish, but that's not a problem, I think.
There are a few deviations from the original, too, but nothing I mind overly much.
On the whole I find both the recording as such - the singing, the tempi, the tension/cohesion, everything - as well as the visuals just perfect! It's done with so much love for the piece, it shows, I think.
You stop caring altogether that the plot doesn't make sense, it's just one heavenly piece of music after another, conveying one admirable idea or exciting moment after another.

On last thing: Sassy - if you had to choose just one, you'd choose this and this and that, and maybe that, too... - that was wonderful!

[Jnyusa]

Hobby, I definitely think it is the progression that makes even the most simply chord perfect in its place.

Someone must have studied the relationship between chordal progressions and emotional response. Just thinking about the very broad difference between major and minor key signatures - what different emotions they evoke! And what is it that is so very pleasing about a Picardy third?* Why does a minor seventh make you sit in the edge of your seat, waiting for the octave? And why does a major seventh, by contrast, set your teeth on edge when the lower diminished tones don't have that effect at all?

I think that these harmonies are wired into our brain somehow, because you can get pretty much the same response to a particular chordal progression from every listener. The great composers just have this ineffable talent for sensing exactly the right direction to take their listeners. And I don't know if that is something that can be taught ... like with art, you can teach all the components, but the gifted individual just seems to be born with a sense of how these things should be used.

Jn

* for non-musicians: a major third interval coming at the end of a minor key piece

[samaranth]

Mozart!

I’ve just bought ‘Mozart’s Letters, Mozart’s Life’, so I’ll share the fun as much as I can.

The work I love best, but can no longer listen to is the Requiem. Already heartwrenching, it has become just about unbearable due to its association with a friend of mine who died in his early 30s. Once upon a time my university choir performed the Requiem, and to this day I can still hear Ray singing the bass line from the Kyrie to me as we ran (late) up to a rehearsal.

However, I have many, many other favourites that I do listen to, and often! Including ‘The Marriage of Figaro’, which has one of the most sublime bars in music Evah!!! (At the end of Act II, when the duet between the Count and the Countess grows and grows and grows until all the characters are on stage. It’s brilliant stuff. (And the best bar has a very low bass line and the lyric ‘Marcellina, Marcellina’ over the top of it. Every time I hear it I have one of those moments). I saw a little of the filmed version of this on TV the other night, with Bryn Terfel as Figaro, Cecilia Bartoli as Susanna and Renee Fleming as the Countess. Left me grinning like this it did!

Jn, you said:

Someone must have studied the relationship between chordal progressions and emotional response.

I'm sure they have, which is why music is used so much in healing and therapy. Sound can cause an emotional response, and also a physical one (or perhaps the two are inextricably linked.) The deep bass line in Figaro gives me that kind of *scrunch up in ecstasy* response - it's definitely physical, and I've always attributed it to the very low pitch of the notes. A friend of mine, who is a church organist, has told me that some of the lower notes on some organs can make people feel physically sick (to the point of vomiting...how charming.) This is probably due to the vibrations of the harmonics.

[Sassafras]

Though Mozart touched on various minor keys in his symphonies, G minor is the only minor key he used as a main key for his numbered symphonies (No. 25, and the famous No. 40).

In the baroque era, G minor was considered the "key of tragic consummation."

Sam, I have lots of those moments in Bach and Mozart (the concerto for glass harmonica comes to mind) and in opera, Swartzkopf, Ludwig and Stich-Randell singing the famous trio Hab' mir gelobt from Der Rosenkavalier (Richard Strauss).

What I find interesting is why some people seem oblivious to/unaffected by the emotional resonances of great music. It's like they're missing an essential gene or something. All I can say is that I'm glad I've got it!

[Jnyusa]

In the baroque era, G minor was considered the "key of tragic consummation."

Interesting! I didn't know this about G minor, but the predominance of jazz music is written in B-flat major. There must be something about these related keys that is especially 'blues-y.'

It is true that the same chordal progression played in a different key will have a different harmonic effect. That must have to do with the properties of the sound wave, as Sam says, but it's an intriguing relationship.

Jn