Einstein and Mozart

[contrapunctus]

Did Einstein give any reasons why he deified Mozart? I think Mozart is good, just not as good as any other composer who wrote for piano. 

(Hides from Mozart freaks)

[leahcim]

Did Einstein give any reasons why he deified Mozart? I think Mozart is good, just not as good as any other composer who wrote for piano. 

Not as good as Herbert Trinklebottom? You sure?

He liked Bach and Handel too aiui [according to Einstein a life], I guess he liked the music - there's not a lot in that book, that I can recall, about him talking about it, just anecdotes about him playing.

He complained once about some women wanting to play "fast and flawless" - which might suggest he couldn't [although he was around 16-18]- OTOH, there are comments from others suggesting his playing had "fire"

Perhaps he foresaw the baby mozart / baby einstein products? 

[pianistimo]

maybe he recognized genius.  i'm not saying bach wasn't a genius, but there's less melody there.  mozart was very fruitful with the melodic line and carried it farther into his works.  the works of bach seem shorter to me.  also, mozart was into the fine print (much like bach) and had a sense of humor.  when you study him, he ends up being quite interesting in his experimentation process in composing.  js bach seems more 'traditional' whereas mozart more 'revealing.'  he sort of reveals himself within the standards given to him for composition.  also, he takes the given standards and does what bach did (adds more and more chromaticism) yet stays within tonality.  i read somewhere that he was always thinking of each note (including chromatically altered notes) being rooted in the tonality - and not visa-versa - trying to escape the tonality.  this was rather revolutionary, in my understanding, in as far as he took it.  the c minor fantasy is quite rooted yet unrooted.  it is almost like unravelling a mystery (mystery of how he thought to compose it) yet we know he did borrow ideas from bach. 

what i think is probably the most amazing thing about mozart is that he didn't love music for profit.  neither did bach, but i believe bach made a better living.  you know mozart must have sufferred a lot for his work.  he basically died young because of the pressures that were placed upon him.  and, being unappreciated must have been kinda rough.  i admire his courage, humor, and not lastly his genius (oh, and his beautiful handwriting).

ps i forgot another thing.  he extended the range of playing of the piano.  the sonata that is paired with the fantasy explores a much wider range of keyboard use than previous sonatas.  especially in the bass of the last movement of the c minor sonata (rondo).  of course, beethoven even went beyond this - but mozart sort of showed him how.

[pianistimo]

a more succinct answer came to me (i love your question, being a mozart 'freak').
i looked in einstein's book 'music in the romantic era' and realized that for him, romanticism started with beethoven.  he would call mozart a romantic classicist.  that is, he put his artistic self into his music, even though it was commissioned and he had to follow certain rules and forms.  he ultimately broke all the rules anyway.  maybe didn't go as far as haydn and beethoven, but surely would have if he had lived long enough.

he did see 'the leveling of the classes.'  and, "mozart lived to see this development without really taking part in it.  his piano concertos are still highly elegant for aristocratic society, and even his last three or four great symphonies stand just between the chamber and the concert hall - significantly enough, one of them, that in G minor, renounces trumpet and timpani; it is still chamber-art. "

but, i personally believe that, in his own way, mozart started that 'revolution' in music.  remember he was kicked out of his role with the archbishop of salzburg and in effect became 'his own man' at the end in vienna.  i suppose that einstein really venerates beethoven much more than mozart because on page 346 he says:

"by a thoroughly logical development, it was the land of the revolution in particular that assigned to music, and above all to the music of beethoven, the role of world-improvement - a moral-political-social role.  as the revolution had torn the musician, the composer, the performer, the virtuoso - out of his old connections and set him over against the masses as a free individual...to gauge how much conditions had changed since 1800, one need only imagine how bach, haydn, or mozart would have been received in this new order of things."

einstein is funny because he denies mozart a real role in the revolution in this book, yet he forgets 'the marriage of figaro' was the real start of it all (making fun of the aristocracy right to their face) .  mozart had guts to bring so many details of common life into the higher order, and so many aristocratic ideas to suzanna and figaro.  they are smarter, and keener figures - and seem to have a better grasp of reality.  mozart was well aware of the dire circumstances that surrounded him, and i think he did as much as he possibly could within his means to change them.  and, to me, the last piano concerto k595 was written to express himself (simple, not affected by aristocratic stuff anymore, and content that his works had brought about a revolution in his own time from old instruments and sounds to very new sounds).

what einstein seems to say is that mozart didn't alienate himself soon enough.  he wouldn't have physically survived if he did that.  oh well.  einsteins books are well written, and very detailed.  he is truly a great musicologist, but favored the romantic era over the classical very much it seems.

[contrapunctus]

I like some of Mozart's Concertos and symphonies, but I find that his piano works seem to have much less thematic material than Beethoven or Haydn. They seem 'dryer' to me.
I don't know about you but after listening to some of his sonatas, they all tend to start sounding the same. Thanks for the comments Pianistimo.

[pianistimo]

mozart sonatas are like a light dessert.  they don't have as much thematic manipulation and wander off quite so quickly into other keys as beethoven's.  they are predictable and therefore maybe kind 'boring' to the average listener.  i'd much rather play one than listen to one.  what i find good is that you can concentrate on your tone - on your dexterity (evenness), and on minimal pedalling.  it's like the feeling you have when you're barefoot.

with beethoven, it's more mental work.  there's more effort.  less of that sparkling clean note sound (as a crystal chandalier) and you start hearing the elements of the earth.  wind, fire...

apparently mozart was into nature's sounds, too, though - in that he went and bought a starling and used it for ideas in his music.  haydn seems less on the passionate side than mozart and beethoven, and more on the spiritual side.  his music seems clean mentally.  you don't really start fantasizing in his music.  more, just enjoying it.  did he ever write a fantasy?  i don't think it was his purpose in life to impress or be 'virtuosic.'  maybe he was a true successor to bach more than mozart.  yet, mozart is also simple even in his virtuosic music. 

i don't think it's unusual for artists, such as yourself, to find some music way more appealing than others at an early age.  what i've learned over time, is not to exclude any  composer, but maybe just play less of them.  if you exclude them, you miss out on understanding a little bit more about them.  for instance, i used to hate chopin - now, i feel that i know very little about him and wish i knew more now.  instead of two or more  etudes in a semester, at least i could try one.  i realize now, that i missed out on time i could have spent enlarging my repertoire in as many directions as possible.

i guess there are artist that specialize and pretty much only practice one or two composer's music.  maybe this makes them better at that music - but it doesn't have the appeal to me that it used to (specializing).  i would rather get the whole experience.  like a panoramic view.  and, an understanding of how one thing led to another.  without mozart, we'd not have gotten into the idea of the concert pianist as fast.  beethoven really wasn't inclined to show off his pianistic skills as much as his compositional skills (i think).  to me, the next real lovers of the virtuoso piano school was chopin/liszt.  but, you can't jump over beethoven, either, to get to them.  he showed how you can modify slightly the repeats and end up somewhere totally different.  then by the time you get to liszt and chopin- you're completely wandering off - and returning by vicarious means.

[contrapunctus]

After some consederation, I agree with you on the fact that we should try to expand our repertoire so that we can get a feel on how music has evolved and determine what music actually was to each individual composer.

Can you name some Mozart piano sonatas or fantasies that seem to best represent Mozart's style? (please not K. 331 or K. 545)

[pianistimo]

it seems that his 'style' was always changing.  sometimes to suit what was commissioned, and other times to suit what was on his mind or to the dedicatee with something in mind.  i've thought of all the sonatas - each mirrors a trend - and as he got older you put certain music that he was composing at the time into the barrel with it. 

his early concertos had non-measure eingange's (lead-ins) and cadenzas.  very free spirited and jazzy.  imagine k 279 k 280 and k281 played this way, and i think you've got it.

k 282 seems to sing - as he was constantly singing to himself, probably, and hummed along or imagined a violin taking the part.  k283 seems like a violin solo too.

k 284 is a study of how to make the hands play together cleanly.  mozart believed starting the study of piano with the basics.  of learning to play cleanly and clearly. 

so many things to say, but i feel tired now.  anyway, there's really no one sonata that represents mozart.  they all represent a growth and outpouring of what was in his spirit at the time.  if we take the last concerto (C major) and compare it with the sonata k545 in C major - that's probably what he would have picked himself.  something simple - elegant - timeless - and virtuosic not for the sake of virtuosity - but for the love of music.

k 576 is virtuosic, too.  and you can see the development of much more rhythmic imagination.  6/8 wasn't a time signature in any of the others as a first movement (except for k 331).  it's as though he's trying to relive some youthful vigor and remembering good times.  it's virtuosic to be on a program with a piano concerto.  it's very improvisatory in the adagio movement.  maybe it warmed up his fingers?

do you think the culmination of bach's composition was the goldberg variations or was it something else.  (possibly not piano related - but organ or choir and organ?)  what was the biggest compositional contribution that bach made? (just wondering)  to me, not being as into bach as you, it would be a simple observation of being able to be so mathmatically inclined as to make more and more complicated fugues with more and more voices and have them all come out in 'the wash.'  how did he do that?

[contrapunctus]

Bach wrote different types of music. I divide it into four groups: Fugal type pieces, pieces that have basic Bach counterpoint but are not fuges, non-secular music, and my own favorite (what might in his day been considered 'cheap') stately court music to entertain the royals and the rich. The culmination of his fugal style is The Art of the Fugue; the culmination of the next category could be his Partitas, or his english suites. the culmination for his non-secular music is his Saint Matthew's Passion; and the culmination of of the court music is the Brandenburg concertos. (note: the aforementioned pieces are just my opinions)

I believe that all these types of music are embodied in the Klavierubung--the group of works which includes the six partitas, the italian concerto, the french overture, some organ music, and the goldburg variations.

Bach was not a mathematician, he just wrote music for whatever was commisioned. This resulted in many types of works that were not fuges. Counterpoint (which literally means 'note against note') was just a music structure that Bach liked to use, just like Haydn and his sonata form. Fuges are made up of counterpoint which is simply intertwined melodies, just like a sonata movement is made up of a single melody and a harmony and variations built on it.

[contrapunctus]

Can somebody help me with this?

I have Nathan Broder's edition for Theodore Presser which I always thought was excellent. However, my edition contains Sonatas K. 494, K. 547a, and K. 570 which are not in other editions I looked at and are not here at piano street. Also, my edition does not contain K. 627 which I found here at piano street.

[superstition2]

Some of Bach's music is beyond critique, like his A minor concerto for 4 harpsichords and the D minor concerto for one harpsichord.

Mozart's best work (aside from opera which isn't my area of interest) is the Requiem. It's truly tragic that it wasn't completed (by him).

[pianistimo]

thanks for the replies and agreed about bach being beyond critique and mozart's requiem, although it doesn't show the optomistic side of him which was always there until the end.  perhaps someone wanted to rob him of his happiness by asking for it.  poisoning and salieri sounds kinda suspicious - and the fact salieri admitted to it after so long.  mozart was generally happy despite his circumstances.

[Mozartian]

Did Einstein give any reasons why he deified Mozart? I think Mozart is good, just not as good as any other composer who wrote for piano. 

(Hides from Mozart freaks)

Why do people make such a big deal about continually putting down Mozart?!
I mean, besides from the fact that seemingly everyone has a fetish with being depressed all the time, and that Mozart (for the most part) is the antithesis of morbidity.
I think that these Mozart-bashing threads are absolutely ridiculous.