Mozart Fest

[Cavaradossi]

Which I have deleted.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Now I feel mean.

[Cavaradossi]

RW view in 2005

Roger Wright, controller of Radio 3, said the station had talked a lot about playing Mozart's oeuvre back to back, but had decided against it: "Our view is that Mozart end to end, the overall effect would be detrimental to the music. The music could wrongly be seen as slightly more chocolate-boxy than it really is."

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/unhappy-birthday-its-his-250th-anniversary-but-mozart-is-too-chocolateboxy-for-radio-3-520770.html

[subcontrabass]

RW view in 2005



http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...-3-520770.html

According to RW on his current R3 blog the programmes will not consist just of Mozart's music, but will "feature his complete works, including a lot of live music as well as contextual programming, including Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This does sound a much better option.

[maestro267]

They've already done a Mozart immersion. Surely they could choose another composer, such as Liszt (an anniversary composer in 2011), to cite one example, rather than re-hashing an old idea.

[johnb]

I greatly enjoyed the "A Bach Christmas" and the Beethoven-Fest, less so the Tchaik-Strav-Fest but, as much as I love Mozart, the idea of 12 days of his music fills me with horror.

Oh well, it will be a chance to catch up on my back-log of CD listening.

[Bryn]

This is a straightforward example how to cut costs.
At least I know that I don't have to check R3 for programs to listen to .:cool2:

I hope however that they will repeat the complete Stravinsky/Tchaikovsky from february 2007 , as I missed a couple of items (Bach/Stravinsky WTC, some PT-operas as well as PT's 1st symphony in it's 1st version e.g.)

Roehre, I have the DAB mp2s of nearly the whole lot. Just a few recordings I already had are missing. Let me know by PM or email what you are looking for.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Please wake me up on January 13th then. Some Mozart is Ok but 12 days of it? I expect this will start a pattern of 12 days of Bach, 12 days of Handel etc in the next few years. How much worse can R3 get under RW? (is there anyway he can be got rid of?) Well at least I'll already know who will be topping the most broadcast list in my 2011 survey. Mind you it's a close run thing for 2010 and it could be Mozart this year too as the amount of music broadcast by him has increased significantly in 2010!

Anyway better select my CDs for January 1-12 as R3 will remain switched off for that period.

[Nick Armstrong]

Surely they could choose another composer, such as Liszt (an anniversary composer in 2011.

Wall-to-wall Liszt would have me hurtling for the 'off' switch. The idea of 12 days of Mozart is quite scary but I'll see how it goes...

[Ian Thumwood]

I suppose that I am probably one of the few listeners who detests Mozart's music. The 12-day "festival" of Mozart will be shear hell - it is boring enough to solely concentrate on one composer let alone someone like Mozart.

When I took piano lessons back in the 1990's, my teacher was hugely dismissive of this composer's work and would argue that he only had a handful of original ideas. Whilst I would concede that this is an exageration, I think there are motifs and rhthmic patterns that were done to death by this composer. This opinion did colour my perception of Moizart and I have never been able to listen to his music since. It drives me around the bend! I can appreciate that he did advance Classical composition albeit I don't think he was quite the extraordinary genius of Bach nor a match for the more sophisticated composers who followed in the wake of the "modernist" Chopin. Small wonder that few jazz composers have really taken anything from Mozart's music unlike Bach, Chopin, Ravel, Debussy, Scriabin, Stravinsky or Messaien who have provided a wealth of inspiration as well as adding significantly to the harmonic of vocabulary of jazz. Probably only Beethoven is the only composer of the magnitude of Mozart who has had no bearing on jazz? Probably equally baffling insofar that both Mozart and Beethoven were noted as improvisers in their time and the former certainly left a wealth of "Variations" that give some clues how his mind worked as an improvisor. ( From a jazz point of view, the "improvising" being limited to inversions, transposing themes into minor keys, etc, etc.) Putting my head someway above the parapet, I would venture to propose that both Mozart and Beethoven's improvising abilities were probably a bit limited in comparison with the kind of innovations available to true giants of this art such as Coltrane or Sonny Rollins some 150-200 years later.

Does this mean that the jazz content of Radio 3 will be kicked into touch or are we to endure Mozart-related numbers on JRR. ?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

pressumably it will all be prerecorded so r3 can run with a man and a dog for the holiday period

[Mr Pee]

Does this mean that the jazz content of Radio 3 will be kicked into touch

Well that would be one good thing to come out of the Mozart marathon.

But seriously, I love Mozart's music. I cannot agree with Ian Thumwood at all- how easy it is to be dismissive of such genius. Perhaps he would care to furnish us with examples of motifs and rythmic patterns that have been "done to death"? I'm sure that if you're prepared to look hard enough you can find recurring rythmic patterns and similar thematic ideas in just about any composer's works, from Buxtehude to Boulez.

But when Mozart can produce glories such as the Clarinet Concerto and Quintet, the String Quintets, the great Piano Concerti, the Grand Partita, and such a cascade of genius as the last movement of the "Jupiter" Symphony, I for one can forgive a little repetition.

As for the fact that Jazz musicians have not used his music, well I fail to see that having any relevance at all. Mozart's music is just that- Mozart's music.

[Roehre]

Mostly late stuff then. Has anyone heard the Philips "Mozart in London" CD with snippets edited by Erik Smith?

It is an originally 1973 or '74 released Philips LP, which served very well as promotion/teaser for the 1978 Philips Mozart Edition on LPs. The LP was not included in this Edition, but was part of the 1991 Complete Mozart Edition as one of the CDs in vol.45 Rarities and Surprises.

I think it shows Mozart's emerging talents as lad of 8 years of age, as well as the skill of Eric Smith (aka Erich Schmidt-Isserstedt btw) how to (re-)arrange a selection from those 40-odd pieces KV15a-ss.

One of the pieces as constructed by Smith is the last one featuring on LP as well as CD: Divertimento in E-flat KV15kk/15dd/15cc+ff.
The first two movements are without doubt not conceived for keyboards exclusively. As Zaslaw in his book on Mozart's Symphonies (a result of his studies of the symphonies for the AAM/Pinnock series) IMO rightly states: these are primarily orchestrally thought.
This is consistent with a remark made by Nannerl, that her brother composed an orchestral work, to be precise a Symphony (eine Sinfonie mit allen instrumenten - auch mit Trompeten und Pauken) before what we now know as his first Symphony KV16 (which btw hasn't got either trumpets or timpani).
Therefore this Divertimento may be very well based on the draft of Mozart's real first symphony.

[Roehre]

I suppose that I am probably one of the few listeners who detests Mozart's music. The 12-day "festival" of Mozart will be shear hell - it is boring enough to solely concentrate on one composer let alone someone like Mozart.

That makes two of us, as I still do think that 75% of Mozart's output would never be played, let alone recorded, had these been works by contemporaries of his.
These works are simply not better than that of his neglected contemporaties. Who is interested musically in the utterings of a lad's violin sonatas (KV 6 e.g.) including daddy's improvements and still including many compositional errors?
With exception of the early symphony in g KV183 IMO the first real work of importance by Mozart may be Die Entführung. And Robbins Landon stated simply that nothing composed before the Sinfonia concertante KV364 is better than the best works of M's colleagues at that time.