Will the real Mozart please rise? :-0 s d reply…

@Michael Schaffer said,”Except that it so happened that he wasn’t Austrian. During his lifetime, Salzburg was not a part of Austria. I know you couldn’t have known that because that wasn’t mentioned in “Amadeus” from where it seems you guys got all you know about Mozart.”

If by “you guys” you mean Americans, in this case I hope I can demonstrate that you are mistaken. One of my objectives is to correct the misconceptions of “Amadeus”. That happened to be a US movie, of course, with a MO connection, in that the then conductor SNM, directed the soundtrack of that tasteless movie and was very upset when he couldn’t get an Oscar for it.

You also said, “Like with any other successful artist, obviously there were people who were envious of his abilities or who disliked him personally. But on the whole, he was highly successful in Vienna. He earned a lot more money than most other musicians and lived a very comfortable lifestyle.”

That seems a somewhat simplistic statement. He was not ‘highly successful’. He was very much in debt when he died. And, although he worked harder than most other composers, if you look at the number of pieces performed in the length of time he lived, many of which are still considered masterpieces, he didn’t really live very long and certainly did not get to enjoy any financial independence.

And you just had to add, “Unfortunately, it seems that he wasn’t good at handling money and that he also had a little gambling problem. ” Excuse me? That is straight from Amadeus, and it isn’t the whole truth. He had a wife whom he was doing his best to care for and was intent on keeping the rights to his music. He was very controversial and unpopular, in terms of people stepping up to pave the way for his financial success. He did not seem to schmooze well on that level, and did not have the resources available today to superstars to maximize all of their intellectual properties.

If you really want to do some homework on Mozart, why not open up his last major opera and find a character with a name similar to Minnesota, and then ask if there could be any connection between that and what is happening at the MO.

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2013/08/vienna-principal-flute-speaks-out-about-her-dismissal.html#comment-167587

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The Mozart Difference…sd reply…

Thank you, I think you have made your case clear, but have misunderstood my point. It is that my position in regards to Mozart  is that he had a different energy from other composers, and as a result, created differently. He seemed to do effortlessly what they struggled with. He held multiple pieces of music in his head at one time and just needed to find a quiet spot — or not– to jot them down.  There was nothing Mozart could do about his being different, and everybody just hated him as a result.  He could do no right.  Even if he had been better at schmoozing and sucking up to people, they still would have detested him.  In Mozart’s case, it is this difference in energy, still left in his music, that is called the “Mozart Effect”.  It was a perfect gift  — perfect in the way a perfect fourth or fifth is perfect, whereas a minor or major sixth is not.  It didn’t matter what his nationality was.  It so happened he was Austrian.

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2013/08/vienna-principal-flute-speaks-out-about-her-dismissal.html#comment-165706

Mozart ‘persecuted’? sd reply…

It seems to me Mozart was demonized even during his lifetime because he was different and presented a threat.  In person, he was considered obnoxious because he didn’t ‘fit in’, even though he had a better understanding of music than others and was simply doing his best.  So I don’t know if Mozart’s experience fits the logic of your argument…

http://www.artsjournal.com/slippeddisc/2013/08/vienna-principal-flute-speaks-out-about-her-dismissal.html#comment-165233