Happy 250th Birthday Mozart!!!!!

[Fat Albert]

250 years ago today, a boy was born in Salzburg. He was baptized Johannes
Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. His father, Leopold, was a violinist and teacher. This boy lived from 1756 to 1791. During his lifetime, he changed the common practice of music in a way that only one has done before (J.S. Bach), and in a way that few have done since (Beethoven, Stravinsky, Schoenberg).

Mozart's music is in a class unto itself. NEVER has there been such music that is so EFFORTLESS to listen to. In fact, when I listen to Mozart, his musical ideas make PERFECT SENSE. As in, why didn't I think of that? Of course! The Classical era of music is marked by the notions of "pleasing variety" and "the natural." And when you listen to Mozart, the flow and mood of his music is simply unmatched!

Some recommended listening:

Clarinet Concerto in A-major K. 622 The greatest concerto ever written for any wind instrument. (I play the clarinet)
Symphony No. 41 in C-major "Jupiter" K. 541
Symphony No. 35 in D-major "Haffner"
Piano Concerto No. 22 in Eb-major K. 482
Piano Concerto No. 20 in D-minor K. 466
Piano Concerto No. 23 in A-major K. 488
Grand Partita in Bb-major for 13 winds and Double Bass K. 361
Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro)(that's not the "Figaro Figaro Figaro"....that's Rossini's Barber of Seville)
**Don Giovanni
**Cosi fan Tutte (All women are like that)

The ** operas are without a doubt the most BEAUTIFUL, GORGEOUS, POWERFUL, SERENE pieces of music I've ever heard. They are simply over-the-top!

The music of Mozart changed my life, and I listen to him every day. True greatness survives the test of time, and 250 years after his birth, Mozart is still going strong. I know that 250 years from today, the celebration will be just as grand!

Happy Birthday Wolfie!!!!!


Fat A

P.S. "Amadeus" is a WONDERFUL movie, despite being fraught with NUMEROUS historical inaccuracies. For one, Mozart and Salieri were NOT enemies. In fact, they respected each other's work a great deal. But the sense that Salieri had that God had chosen Mozart to do His work, and not Salieri, is one of the most powerful, riveting moments in all of cinema. Watch it! The only problem is resisting the urge to see Wolfie (Tom Hulce) ask Salieri if he can buy some pot from him, ala Animal House LOL

 

[redbone]

Check out "The Impressario" It's a chamber Opera based on his wife and her sister's fighting over who's the Prima Donna with the Impressario (Mozart) in the middle.
You would also enjoy his "Requiem" it's interesting and a tear jerker because he died as he was writing it. The "Lacrymosa" is incredible and will stay in your head. The last movement was finished by an asistant.

 

[Fat Albert]

Check out "The Impressario" It's a chamber Opera based on his wife and her sister's fighting over who's the Prima Donna with the Impressario (Mozart) in the middle.
You would also enjoy his "Requiem" it's interesting and a tear jerker because he died as he was writing it. The "Lacrymosa" is incredible and will stay in your head. The last movement was finished by an asistant.

This is true, Redbone. The Requiem Mass was in progress when Mozart died. One of his companions, a fellow named Sussmayer, finished the Requiem for him. Others have written their own endings to the Requiem. Whether what anybody wrote sounds like what Mozart would've wanted is anybody's guess.

Any of Mozart's operas are worth listening to. (Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail, Idomeneo, Die Zauberflote, Mitridate, etc.) His ability to create melodic lines of such intense lyricism and beauty is simply unmatched.

Happy Mozart Day!
Fat A

P.S. I am a classical music nerd; I eat and breathe this stuff. I smoke something else, however....

 

[Calyxander]

Excellent and outstanding thread! Mr. Mozart has provided me with true auditory pleasure for many years.
All I would add to the works mentioned above would be a sampling of his magnificent quartets....esp K. 428, 421 and 465.
IMHO

 

[Fat Albert]

Excellent and outstanding thread! Mr. Mozart has provided me with true auditory pleasure for many years.
All I would add to the works mentioned above would be a sampling of his magnificent quartets....esp K. 428, 421 and 465.
IMHO

I love K. 428! String Quartet in Eb-major. I saw the Ives Quartet perform this piece last year. The textures Mozart writes, especially in the 3rd movement, are sublime! Also, his set of "Haydn Quartets" (dedicated to Franz Josef Haydn) are a tour de force. These quartets are so difficult (and strange-sounding for the time, like the "Dissonant" quartet) that when they were first published by Breitkopf & Hartel, angry customers demanded refunds. These pieces were well beyond the technical capabilities of the average Viennese citizen/chamber musician (most quartets and pieces of chamber music during that era were written with the express purpose of having them published for home performance. No recording devices in 1785....duh!)

Fat A

 

[Calyxander]

Yes FA, I find these pieces to be truly transcendental in nature......hypnotically fascinating, after a couple of bowls I am transported to a separate reality!!

 

[redbone]

Yeah, Fat A, Calyx: I'm a bit of a classical music nerd myself. I was a professional for many years and have performed quite a few of his pieces. At the Requiem, the entire ensemble and the audience is wiping tears. I've done performances that just end where he stopped writing. Interesting.

I think of Mozart as one of those cats who just took the artform all the way out to the max and after him the it had to move in another direction. The boy was slingin' Concertoes and Symphonies from the age of 6 so by the time he was in his thirties he'd gone off into another edge. Become transcendental.

Coltrane took Bee-Bop as far as it could go. You wonder what Hendrix would have done if he'd lived. Mozart is the same kind of thing. He took the harmonic structure of the classical period as far as it could go. After him, all you could do was bring in Beethoven. Then Strauss. Then Schoenberg/Berg.

The abduction. Funny as Hell. Haven't heard that one in years!

 

[Fat Albert]

redbone,

You're right about Mozart pushing the limits. But I think that too many people lump Beethoven firmly in the Romantic era, and it just isn't so. Sure, the Ninth was unparalleled, but he had written the Choral Fantasia op.80 some years before.

Now if you want to talk about a guy who was a firm Romantic, provided the listener with some astonishing modulations, and died WAY too young (31)......Franz Schubert, anyone? Didn't he also write like 600 lieder?

Fat A

 

[redbone]

A: Yeah, I think of Beethoven as more of a bridge figure rather than someone who was firmly in the Romantic period. He was a contemporary of Mozart's if I remember correctly and they borrowed from each other. Beethoven had that Heroic, testoterone charged sensibility that had not been present in classical music earlier. Some of his stuff is just crazy big. For some reason I've never gotten around to listening to much Beethoven. I'll check that Choral Fantasia.

Franz Schubert certainly did get into some far fetched modulations and tonalities. I'm too familiar with many of his Leider and I gotta tell you that some are a lot better than others. I read once that Schubert is credited with taking music out of the concert halls and bringing it home to the middle classes. A lot of his Leider and some of his easier piano peices were written to be performed by amateurs at home. I would hope that "Heiden Roselien" and "Die Forrielle" stayed at home for the most part.

Didn't Schubert go nuts? Or was that Schumann?

 

[Fat Albert]

Schubert died of the tertiary effects of syphillis. Schumann went NUTS and died in an asylum. Evidently he had used some sort of device to stretch his fingers apart for better piano playing, and it destroyed his hands. Is "Die Forrielle" the "Trout" quintet? Or is that "Die Forelle"? Anyhow, Trout is beautiful!

Recommended Beethoven: Piano sonatas, emperor piano concerto no. 5 in eb-major op. 73, symphonies 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8. Notice the absence of 5 and 9. I should throw no. 3 "eroica" in there.....that is a revolutionary piece of music!

 

[redbone]

Thanks Albert: I have the entire Beethoven catalougue somewhere up in here so I'll be getting down to it! No problem about the 9. That piece is like "Proud Mary" or "Stairway to Heaven" for me. I think I've done at least 1 a year for the past 20. When the score says " O mein Gott, nicht deise tone!" they ain't lyin'.

You have excellent taste. True, "The Trout" is beautifull in the quintet. As a leider...not so much.

 

[Calyxander]

I don't think that this is the correct forum to bring this up?....But I find it sorta sad that there are not more people devoted to Cannabis and Classical Music.
Amazingly enough, the same seems (to me) to be true of Jazz as well.

Anyway, The Trout is beautiful....the piano enhances the strings....ahhhhhh!
I also enjoy Schubert's 8th and 9th symphonies, I think the 8th was unfinished?
His piano sonatas #s 10, 19, 21 I love....which brings me to Chopin....

I think a thread dealing with Classical music and the sacred Herb could be started......alas there appears to be only three of us....oh well......

peace

 

[redbone]

C: I betcha there are others here who dig Jazz and listen to classical music. Maybe they'll come out of the woodwork as time goes by. Yes, the piano part of "The Trout" is sublime. I once had a teacher who used to be Strauss' rehearsal painist and she could play the shit out of that thang!

Chopin is my favorite composer as well. I've buchered just about all of his piano pieces over the years. I like R. Strauss and Les Six just about as well.

What do you think of this new Jazz out of California and Europe they call "Cool Jazz"? I heard someone say it evolved out of the fusion movement I don't know where you live but I think Khandi Dolpher (forgive the spelling) is part of that movement.

 

[Calyxander]

Redbone, you're really gonna get me goin', because I LOVE Chopin, and I LOVE piano Jazz. I urge you to check out some Bill Evans piano work.....Waltz for Debby, Everybody Digs Bill Evans, Portrait in Jazz, The complete Village Vanguard Recordings.....these are some of my favorite pianoalbums....Art Tatum is another one of my favorite Jazz pianists...simply amazing.

Candy Dulfer is more of a "smooth" or "contemporary" style player, I think. I prefer more traditional style sax players like Wayne Shorter or Scott Hamilton. I enjoy Coltrane and Rollins and Getz...lots more!
I got into Classical music after I became enthralled by Jazz and Frank Zappa.
Zappa got me interested in Jazz (this was around 1972 to 1975), After about 10 years of Jazz listening, I started listening to more and more Classical music, We’ll, it’s been over twenty years now, and I enjoy Classical music more and more as time goes on. I listen to at least as much Classical as I do Jazz...it depends on my mood.
Bach, Beethoven, Ives, Barber, Copland, Gershwin, Brahms, Shostakovich, Bartok...soooooo many more!!!!

 

[Fat Albert]

Nobody wrote better music for a particular instrument that Frederyk Szopen (spelling it the RIGHT way, the Polish way, because he's Polish and so am I) did for the piano.

Some liner notes I was reading from a Szopen album were about a man searching for the saddest music in the world, and settled upon our boy. He likened it to "two lovers dancing in the grand ballroom, knowing that as soon as the song is over, they will be separated." His music runs the gamut from wistful to ecstatic, from pensive to serene. My favorite pieces: Andante spianato and Grand polonaise brillante in Eb-major, variations on "la ci darem la mano" from Mozart's Don Giovanni, Fantasia on a Polish Air, the "heroic" polonaise in Ab-major.

Fat A

 

[Calyxander]

Very Interesting FA, I knew that Szopen was Polish, was unaware of correct spelling,
Can't get enough of his music.....if I had to pick just one.....The nocturnes, but this is a tough choice.
I enjoy different player's interpretations, my recent favorite is Idel Biret on Naxos.
FA who is your preferred Szopen player?

 

[redbone]

C: So I go you started, Dear?
I grew up on Ellington, George Shearing, Erroll Garner and that era. My folks listened to Holiday, Peggy Lee, Fat's Waller Rubenstein and Van Cliburn. Funny, but listening to Zappa is what got me started listening to Rock Music.
Like you, I prefer the more traditional Jazz Artists. Coltrane, Les McCann, Wayne Shorter et al. I have some friends in the Avant guard movement and I have to say that I'm happy it's still on the fringe. I found smooth Jazz irritating at first but it's grown on me and I'm glad that the music has retained it's original Lyricism. I hate that the smaller live venues for Jazz are dying out. I'm old enough to remember the London House in Chicago and The Vanguard and Gate in N.Y. among others.
Fat: For me, nothing lies under the fingers better than Chopin. I have been fucking up the Waltzes, Nocturnes and The Etudes since the age of 7. He uses a lot of folk idioms and I like that. He paints a picture. Like a Male torch.
C: You didn't ask me but I like Artur Rubenstein for Chopin. I've found his recirdings tough to get lately and that's too bad. There's a new kid out there, Russian I think who plays a nice Chopin and I believe his name is Kissin. Andre Watts is also a good Chopin Pianist. Ruth Laredo and Van Cliburn if you can find them offer a different interpretation.

 

[Calyxander]

redbone, thanks for the feedback on pianists, I am familiar with Rubenstein, Van Cliburn and Watts....I have to check out Kissen and Laredo...thanks!

I can't believe I did not mention Thelonious Monk as a favorite jazz pianist and composer....I feel better now! (Too stoned last night)

Are you familiar with Zappa's more classically oriented albums, the best of which is The Yellow Shark by Ensemble Modern??? This album blows me away!

I love this thread!!!!

peace

 

[Fat Albert]

Yevgeny Kissen is a fine Chopin player, but it's hard to argue with Artur Rubinstein. Maurizio Pollini's playing is technically perfect, but lacks a bit of soul. As for my girl Idil Biret, I am currently obsessed with her Brahms box set for solo piano. She does an outstanding job on Chopin as well.

My favorite living pianist is Alfred Brendel. The man plays Mozart and Beethoven like God himself would, and I'm getting chills right now thinking of Brendel playing Beethoven's "emperor." Get this disc! It's on Phillips, with Bernard Haitink and the London Philharmonic, recorded in 1976.

Chopin HATED Paris. He longed for a return to Poland, but never got it. His teacher and mentor gave him an urn of Polish soil before he left Poland forever, telling him "never forget where you came from." The soil used to cover Chopin's coffin in Paris was brought in from Poland. When I think of how strongly Poles identify with his music, tears run down my cheek. There is simply nobody like him, nor shall there ever be. Just like how there will never be another Mozart, or Beethoven.

Fat A

 

[Fat Albert]

My jazz tastes are 'traditional' as well. I'm a big Louie guy (I believe he was the greatest musician in American history). I'll eat up stuff like Lee Morgan's "Gigolo"; my favorite all-around jazz album. Being a clarinetist, Benny and Artie are near and dear to me, though it's said (and I concur) that "For Benny, music was a vehicle for his clarinet, and for Artie, clarinet was a vehicle for his music." Contemporary clarinetists that I go nuts for are Paquito d'Rivera, Eddie Daniels, and the ABSOLUTE MAN himself, Chuck Hedges. Redbone, Chuck lives in the Milwaukee/Minneapolis confluence, and may tour Chicago at times. I'd keep an eye out for him. Simply amazing!

I'm really into New Orleans Jazz a.k.a. Dixieland, the whole brass band scene down there, etc.

Fat A