Im sick of the Mozart bashing

[gruffalo]

i think i may have the answer to the whole maturity issue.

I think the appreciation of Mozart comes with maturity, but that does not mean you have to like listening to it all the time.

I think the ones who say "Mozart sucks balls" and stuff like that are immature. But i can honestly say that i dont really listen to Mozart for enjoyment, but i appreciate his music because at his time it was genius music and no-one had begun music like him, and in effect i guess he created a turning point that has kept general classical music (not referring to classical period) expanding in ideas and sound.

a question for bearzinthewood:

You may not like Mozart much but do you appreciate it in terms of what i just wrote paragrah before?

I have nothing to believe that you are immature, because your posts seem pretty mature to me (except the poo stuff). if you do appreciate Mozart but dont necessarily take much interest or liking, then i think this proves my point on the maturity issue.

[arch0wl]

Well, you're taking it in the wrong direction, I think. By making Mozart synonymous with maturity, and making an ultimatum out of it - "you will appreciate this music when you're mature" - seems not only condescending but closed minded. Music is subjective, after all.

[tompilk]

Mozart is boring compared to the romantics, but Mozart is probably one of the mos important composers ever becuase of the amount of repertoire he produces and the genious quality... but not interesting really...
The violin concertos are better than the rest of his stuff.... and i hate violins...

[gruffalo]

thats what i think tompilk. you dont necessarily have to like or love Mozart, but its important to understand where his music comes from. after all it was part of a, then, new age of music which is continuosly expanding.

[arensky]

thats what i think tompilk. you dont necessarily have to like or love Mozart, but its important to understand where his music comes from. after all it was part of a, then, new age of music which is continuosly expanding.

That's right.

[maxy]

Mozart ''owns'' all of us.   

Possibly the greatest musical genius of all.

[musik_man]

Mozart is boring compared to the romantics, but Mozart is probably one of the mos important composers ever becuase of the amount of repertoire he produces and the genious quality... but not interesting really...
The violin concertos are better than the rest of his stuff.... and i hate violins...

Mozart boring?  The problem here is that you compare Mozart to the Romantics.  If you listen to Mozart and look for the things that make Romantic music interesting, you won't find anything good.  You have to enjoy Mozart's music for what it is.  I had the same problem when I first listened to Jazz.  I was expecting each track to be a coherent whole and structured in a Classical sense(not classical period but classical music in general), but that's not what Jazz is like, so I was disappointed.  Jazz is more a stream of consciousness thing, and needs to be listened to as such.  If you're expecting the music to build up to some emotional climax, it ain't gonna happen.  You're probably lstening to Mozart with the same mindset that you listen to Romantic era stuff.

[contrapunctus]

Base 10 numberline: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,etc.

Base 3 numberline:   0,1,2,10,11,12,20,21,22,100,101,102,110,111,112,120,121,etc.

Therefore 2x2=11 in base 3.

Gould is the greatest pianist of all time.

I hereby announce the creation of a Glenn Gould cult. You must worship Bach and his son Glenn, who are one in the same. Conceived by the holy virgin Beethoven. One must pray from the holy WTC every evening and listen to Gould play the Art of the fugue on Sundays. For punishment of blasphemy towards Glenn one must sight read all of the Mozart sonatas which are the wopk of the Devil, Liszt, and his antigould, Chopin.

[pita bread]

Right, and I am high priest of Scriabinism.

[leahcim]

Therefore 2x2=11 in base 3.

Yeah, you said. It's true, it doesn't negate what anyone else has said though.

I hereby announce the creation of a Glenn Gould cult.

Cult? Was that a typo?

[musicsdarkangel]

Ahmedito,
I completely agree.



People are generally immature when they discuss Mozart.  The reason is because they just don't understand his music.

Sometimes, it really does take an excellent teacher to really show the real Mozart.  I hated Mozart up until my freshman year of college, because I learned his K 284 D major sonata, with the Theme and Variations in the third movement.

To start off, I used to strongly dislike most works in a major key.  Studying this piece with my teacher made me realize how incredibly difficult Mozart is and how expressive it really is.  This sonata alone opened up the world of works in major key to me.  Thank you Mozart.

To be honest, I think that Mozart is a genius, and a wonderful composer, but I feel that some of his works just do not match up to others (I don't know if it's because sometimes he wrote for money, or just for the sake of composing rather than inspiration), but I have finally started to love Mozart, which is something I never thought would happen a couple of years ago.

His D minor concerto (K 466) which he wrote when his mother died - inspiration doesn't come in bigger forms.  It's incredible.  I also think the same of the K 284 sonata I learned;  it can cheer me up on almost any terrible day.

However, I DO think that it takes a really good interpretation to hear the real Mozart.  I just can't STAND to listen to someone like Uchida play through a sonata at lightning pace with no expression.  Interpreters like La Roccha or Maria Jaoa Pirez is what people should be introduced to Mozart through.

[rc]

Interpreters like La Roccha or Maria Jaoa Pirez is what people should be introduced to Mozart through.

I set my alarm to the radio in the morning (doesn't actually seem to be doing a good job of waking me up ), and one day I woke up in the middle of La Roccha playing some Mozart... Didn't know what it was until afterwards, I thought it might've been Chopin while listening. It floored me. I'll have to check out some Pirez sometime.

[musicsdarkangel]

I set my alarm to the radio in the morning (doesn't actually seem to be doing a good job of waking me up ), and one day I woke up in the middle of La Roccha playing some Mozart... Didn't know what it was until afterwards, I thought it might've been Chopin while listening. It floored me. I'll have to check out some Pirez sometime.

Oh yeah,

They are THE perfect interpreters of Mozart.

Laroccha's lyricism is unreal.  Pirez is the same.  Both so finess.

[Etude]

12 tone music creates music that doesn't correspond to how our brain interprets sound(consonance versus dissonance.)  That's why I bash it, because I know I can never like it.  It's unlikable.  It's not my fault Schoenberg held faulty views on the subject.

 

Thanks, I needed cheering up!  Know any other ones?

[I Love Xenakis]

o.o

This is a really long topic and I'm sure it degenerated to complete chaos but I don't feel like reading all of it so I'm just gonna respond to the original post.


You're an idiot.  If someone doesn't like Mozart, then they just don't like Mozart.  They're not saying it because it's the cool thing to do or something; they're saying it because it's their own personal preference.  Your entire argument is that EVERYONE SHOULD LIKE MOZART CAUSE HE WAS A GENIUS.  Well screw that.

Let's look at an example here, shall we?  Iannis Xenakis: probably the most intelligent composers ever to have lived.  He was a professional mathematician and has written some of the most complicated and in-depth essays and novels (a LOT of them by the way) that people with PhD's in music theory would be lucky to understand.  If you think the music Mozart made was complicated, try Xenakis.  His "Herma"- Musique Symbolique was written using boolean algebra and tone sets.  He used other stochastic methematical techniques like game theory, group theory, probability through formulas like the Kinetic Theory of Gases and aleatory distribution of points on a plane, Gaussian distributions, minimal constraints and Markovian Chains.

But 9999/10000 people you ask will say Xenakis sounds like crap and should have stuck to architecture.  SO WHAT?  Am I going to try to force everyone to love Xenakis just because he was a genious?  No.


Just let people like what they want to.  How would you like it if I told you you HAD to love Evryali and if you didn't you're an idiot?

[pita bread]

concurred

[tompilk]

concurred

Needed to be...

[princessdecadence]

To be honest, I've never heard anyone bash Mozart.  Beethoven's music (e.g fur elise, moonlight) yes but not Mozart - his music nor himself as a composer.  Except his Turkish March but even that, I was the one bashing it (the usual - it being overplayed)

[pianoamit]

It seems always to be those who don't play much Mozart that say they don't like it. I used to be one of them. My claim was always that it was too cheerful and I needed the suffering of the Romantic lyricism. Then I played the A minor sonata K310 for my auditions, and I still thought it was an exceptional case of Mozart (like the Requiem). A month ago I started playing the G major concerto, and my views took a 180 degree turn. I now find that playing Mozart is as challenging at least as playing Liszt or Chopin, and that the music is often even MORE intellectually interesting.

[panic]

Let's look at an example here, shall we?  Iannis Xenakis: probably the most intelligent composers ever to have lived.  He was a professional mathematician and has written some of the most complicated and in-depth essays and novels (a LOT of them by the way) that people with PhD's in music theory would be lucky to understand.  If you think the music Mozart made was complicated, try Xenakis.  His "Herma"- Musique Symbolique was written using boolean algebra and tone sets.  He used other stochastic methematical techniques like game theory, group theory, probability through formulas like the Kinetic Theory of Gases and aleatory distribution of points on a plane, Gaussian distributions, minimal constraints and Markovian Chains.

The question is though, is there any advantage in translating those concepts into music? I believe that music is at its core a means to convey something auditorially. Xenakis may have been a brilliant guy, but if his music is such that it sounds like a bunch of fascinating weirdness and it's only after you're TOLD what it represents then you think "Hmm, cool," then that's a failure of the music, because the person writing the music had to resort to another means to carry it across to others. All of us are used to seeing math and physics formulas in mathematical and scientific form, and in English. When you try to translate that into music, it becomes such that you have to translate it back into its original form, into English and mathematics, for people to understand it (when you tell them afterwards what it means), and objectively, on its own, the music is meaningless without outside references. Not because of any fault of the composer, but because music is simply an inadequate means of conveying such concepts.

For example, I could put the Ideal Gas Law, PV = nRT, into music, if I really wanted to. I could use the old system of letters being equal to numbers with regard to their place in the alphabet, A=1, B=2, and so forth, then I could translate those numbers corresponding to the letters in the formula into intervals around a certain note, and have a dominant 7th be the equals, or something. But would there be any advantage in doing so other than for interest's sake? Not really. And while Xenakis undoubtedly used more complex bases for his music, the same sort of conundrum applies. Were his music not extremely difficult to play, it might just be a historical curiosity, an interesting output for sure, but something that has to be explained to be understood due to its own shortcomings.

My personal creed is: staff paper, not graph paper. I forget who it was that said "If it sounds good, it is good," but I believe there's a lot of sense in that statement. I'm pretty surprised that it is the norm in 20th-century music, not the exception, to shun tonality and musical attractiveness and all those things which would seem as if they would be so immediately magnetic to a composer. But I suppose it's just a sign of the times to be weird and different. Just as a sign of the times in the Romantic era was seemingly the desire to prove that you could write a good minor-key concerto as your first.

Evryali's saving grace is that a lot of it actually does sound pretty cool. That's why it's a decent piece in my mind. But whatever mathematical or scientific overtones it has, the music falls short in bringing forth on its own. That's why it doesn't gain any extra brownie points in that department in my mind.

[I Love Xenakis]

Panic, has anyone ever told you that you have a bit of an ego there?  And coming from me, this should mean a lot.


Oh, and you completely missed the point of my post.  But "brownie points" for you for trying to sound smart ^^  Now while I could shoot down all of the huge, gaping holes in your argument and talk about how wrong you are and how you don't seem to understand, I don't want to get so off subject.  It's very rude to get completely off subject, Panic.




Now back to Mozart ^^

[panic]

My apologies, man. I didn't mean to sound pretentious or egotistical or anything. And yes, I realize now that that post missed the point a bit. I suppose I had been wanting to make some post like that about 20th-century music ever since I had been talking about some modern works in another topic, and chose the wrong time and place to post it and the wrong statement to respond with it to. So that was my bad.

[I Love Xenakis]

Holy crap did you just apologize?  This is like unprecedented on this forum.  Massive respect for this ^^

brb


ok here:  https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,14910.0.html




for you ^^

[skeptolotapus]

Mozart made a song about a lost magic flute dident he? Anyone who does that has gotta be cool.  That movie about Mozart was cool too.  His music sounds very hard-like all up and down the piana reel fast making all theese sounds. hyuk hyuk hyuk  forgive me alter ego that gets loose now and ten. hyuk huyk huk

[arensky]

hyuk huyk huk

Missed a note...HAAAHHHH!!!!!!!! BAD PUS !!! BAD!! BAD!!  BAD!!! 
BAD!!! BAD !!! BAD!!! ARENSKY PUNISH!!!!! HHHAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! YOU ARE DISGRACE!!!! 

Running up and down the keyboard indeed...BAH!!! HAH!!!  YOU SHALL BE BEATEN!!! 

"huk" indeed ! (calms down) You shall learn the correct discipline, if it KILLS YOU!!!  HAHHH!!! 

[gruffalo]

Xenaksis, i think you have mis interpreted the topic. Your link to Intelligence and Mozart is wrong. yes that guy didnt like Mozart or whatever, but its the people who dont appreciate Mozart that are immature. I dont like Mozart that much but at least i appreciate what he did to classical music.

[bearzinthehood]

Xenaksis, i think you have mis interpreted the topic. Your link to Intelligence and Mozart is wrong. yes that guy didnt like Mozart or whatever, but its the people who dont appreciate Mozart that are immature. I dont like Mozart that much but at least i appreciate what he did to classical music.

Har har, I'm sure plenty of mature people who have heard less than an hour of Mozart in their lifetime and could care less.  Or is it just too difficult to understand that life exists outside of our insignificant classical music universe.

[ako]

Hmmm...I'm not sure about the maturity factor in appreciating Mozart. People's taste change over time, whether they are young or old so I wouldn't say you learn to appreciate Mozart if you gain "maturity".

I enjoy listening to all forms of Mozart's music.  I find myself enjoy singing his operas, lieders and choral works more than playing his piano sonatas, although some of his other piano variations interest me.

I remember both my voice coach and piano teacher mentioned in recent years that Mozart is harder than it looks. What I've noticed is that (at least in singing) because Mozart is so "simplistic" (as some forum members say it's just C major scales and appergios), you have to get everything exactly right ot else it will not sound good. That's how I come to "rediscover" Mozart and start to appreciate him again after years of thinking Mozart is *boring*. Of course, my taste might change and I might think he's boring in another 5  years....who knows...

[gruffalo]

i dont really enjoy listening to Mozart, but i think its important that i do listen and study him time to time. Before i was like "Mozart sucks" but now even though i dont really listen that much i understand his talents and why he is important.

Then again i used to love singing Mozart, especially the Coronation Mass.