Why Mozart didnet get Tenure

[lisztisforkids]

My teacher sent me this...



Dear Dean:
 This is in response to your suggestion that we appoint Mr. Wolfgang Mozart
 to our music faculty. The  music department appreciates your interest, but
 the  faculty is sensitive about  its prerogatives in the selection of new
 colleagues.
 
While the list of works and performances the candidate has submitted is very
 full, it reflects too much activity outside academia.  Mr. Mozart does not
 have an earned doctorate and has very little formal education and teaching
 experience. There is also significant evidence of personal instability
 evidenced in his resume. Would he really settle down in a large state
 university like ours? Would he really be a team player?
 
I must voice a concern over the incidents with his former, superior, the
 Archbishop of Salzburg. They hardly confirm his abilities to be a good team
 man and show a disturbing lack of respect for authority.
 
 Franz Haydn's letter of recommendation is noted, but Mr. Haydn is writing
 from a very special situation. Esterhazy is a well-funded private
 institution, quite dissimilar from us and abler than we to accommodate
 non-academics, like Mr. Haydn himself. Here we are concerned about
 everybody, not just the most gifted. Furthermore, we suspect cronyism on the
 part of Mr. Haydn.
 
 After Mr. Mozart's interview with the musicology faculty, they found him
 sadly lacking in any real knowledge of music before Bach and Handel. If he
 were to teach only composition, this might not be  a serious impediment. But
 would he be an effective teacher of music history?
 
 The applied faculty were impressed with his pianism, although they thought
 it was somewhat old-fashioned. That he also performed on violin and viola
 seemed to us to be stretching versatility dangerously thin. We suspect a
 large degree of dilettantism on his part.
 
 The composition faculty was skeptical about his vast output. They correctly
 warn us from their own experience that to receive many commissions and
 performances is no guarantee of quality. The senior professor pointed out
 that  Mr. Mozart promotes many of these performances himself. He has never
 won the support of a major  foundation.
 
 One of our faculty members was present a year ago at the premiere of, I
 believe, a violin sonata. He discovered afterwards that Mr. Mozart had not
 written out all the parts for the piano before he played it. This may be
 very well in that world, but it sets a poor example for our students. We
 expect deadlines to be met on time, and this includes all necessary
 paperwork.
 
 It must be admitted that Mr. Mozart is an entertaining man at dinner. He
 spoke enthusiastically about his travels. It was perhaps significant,
 though, that he and the music faculty seem to have few acquaintances in
 common.
 
 One of our female faculty members was deeply offended by his bluntness. She
 even had to leave the room after one of his endless parade of anecdotes.
 This propensity of his to excite the enmity of some is hardly conducive to
 the establishment of the comity which we aspire to maintain on our faculty,
 let alone the image that we wish to project to the community at large.
 
 We are glad as a faculty to have had the chance to  meet this visitor, but
 we cannot recommend  his appointment. Even if he were appointed, this is
 almost no hope of his being granted tenure. The man simply showed no
 interest in going to school to collect his doctorate. This is egotism at its
 zenith.
 
 Please give our regards to Mr. Mozart when you write him. We wish him our
 very best for a successful career. All are agreed, though, that he cannot
 fulfill the needs of this department. We wish to recommend the appointment
 of Antonio Salieri, a musician of the highest ideals and probity that
 accurately reflect the aims and values that we espouse. We would be eager to
 welcome such a musician and person to our faculty.
 
 Sincerely  yours,
 
 The Chair and  Faculty of the Department of Music
 
 P.S. Some good news. Our senior professor of composition tells  me there is
 now a very good chance that a movement of his concerto will have its
 premiere within two years. You will remember that his work was commissioned
 by a foundation and won first prize nine years ago.


Jerome L. Rabinowitz

[pianistimo]

mozart was no slouch either, though.  just that the 'imperial court' was a bit stuffy.

haydn taught mozart a lot of things- and mozart was introduced to many things via his relationship with the master.  he was not completely self taught.

www.schillerinstitute.org/music/m_rasmus_801.html

moral of the story - if you get booted out by some kind of archbishop collorado - just go off on your own and keep composing and performing.

[arensky]

Sad, and all too true...

[Siberian Husky]

ineteresting...i never really viewed mozart in that light..probably because i havnt exposed myself to much composer and music history..took a brief class that went through bios of some composerss..but not much..just basic tid bits..interesting though

[lisztisforkids]

Sad, and all too true...

I think that you and me are the only ones here that understand.