Regarding Bob Draper's comment about Mozart's complexity:

>The pundits seem to be awarding plaudits to M for this line of approach
>but to me the result seems messy.  There's much too much going on in 'late'
>Mozart for my liking as the man seeks to impress.  The musicians seem to be
>having a battle with each other.

Excessive complexity is not something which comes to mind when I think
about Mozart.  Indeed, I suspect that when many people say they do not like
him, they are thinking of the opposite:  an excessive transparency and
simplicity.  I have heard several people say they find Mozart 'childish' or
'trite'.  With regard to Mozart or any other composer, however, I do not
think that simplicity or complexity is a virtue or vice in itself.  I find
that M adapts the complexity of his writing very judiciously to the context
of the work:  the contrapunctal finale of the Jupiter Symphony is, for
example, an exhilerating conclusion to a very grand work; the 'childish'
simplicity in some of the numbers of a work such as the magic flute is
appropriate for the 'comic relief' elements of a German Singspiel (I am
thinking of the Papageno/a music, for instance).  It is a question of the
means fitting the end.

In a later message, Bob added:

>There has to be something more, an emotional connection of some kind.  I
>get this from nearly all composers.  But, I'm afraid it's lacking from most
>of Mozart's works.
>
>There are exceptions, for example the Mass in C and a couple of the piano
>concertos.  But the majority of the works leave me cold.

I would entirely agree to the worth of many of M's piano concerto's.  First
of all, they exploit perfectly the potential of the interplay between a
soloist and an orchestra.  Content and form agree perfectly.  Contrast this
with Rachmaninoff's concertos, which to me resemble more or less symphonies
with extended piano accompaniment (or, conversely, piano sonatas with
orchestral backing) - the choice of the concerto form seems gratuitous.

Interestingly, one area where Mozart himself fell prone to this inconcruence
between form and content was in his church music, some of which you say you
like. Something in me rebels against hearing sacred texts sung in the form
of arias which may just as well fit in a Da Ponte opera. For the same
reason, I hate the use of rock music in religious contexts - it has, for me,
overtly hedonistic and often aggressively sexual connotations which seem
entirely out of place.

Secondly, what makes many of M's piano concertos such great works in
themselves is the way in public display and more private emotions are
so inextricably and successfully woven together.  What marks those of
his works which I would agree with you can sound rather frigid and aloof,
especially in the slow movements (I would, incidentally, count at least
two late piano concertos among these, the C major K 503 and the D major
'Coronation', as well as many of the major-key symphonies) - is an almost
exclusively 'public' character - they are *meant* to be grand and external.
If they are accepted as such, then their aloofness makes sense in the
context, as does Papageno's childishness.  However, we may still not like
the end result.  That's the problem with Mozart:  his almost invariably
superb means were often moulded to fit ends which we do not agree with,
rather than bent to his own will, as the Symphonies of Beethoven are, with
such impressive results.  Andrew Carlan wrote:

>For me, it isn't whether you avoid the errors, it is how high you reach.

Sometimes, Mozart doen't seem to have reached high enough.

Against these 'public' pieces, however, you have to set a whole lot which
are indeed personal and innovative:I have found very moving the clarinet
concerto and quintet, for instance, or the great string quartets and
quintets, or the G minor symphony.  It is always interesting how few pieces
in the minor Mozart wrote, and how often these are his most individual and
complex (in a positive sense!).  Mozart could certainly 'say something' -
he just seems to have chosen the moments to do so rather circumspectly.

Another point to make is that unfortunately the merit of Mozart works,
like those of Chopin, if we get to know them by listening, rather than by
reading them, seems to depend very much on the acumen of the performer.
Mozart, unlike much of Beethoven, does not seem to me to survive very well
when left to speak for itself.  When I heard a Beecham recording of the
Jupiter symphony, I thought the slow movement was very beautiful and even
affecting in an Olympian sort of way - usually, it is interminable, with
all repeats taken and all repeats played in the same way.  Incidentally,
when I hear Hofmann playing the Chopin F minor concerto and especially the
Andante Spianato and Grand Polonaise in 1937, I sometimes think that this
is the ideal style for the Mozart concertos:  polished and sparklingly
transparent generally, but with a lively wit and great alertness to the
twists and turns of a phrase, and into this urbane context, there will
suddenly shoot a sharp pathos or a violent charge of ironic humour.  Geza
Anda approached this for me, with less daring, in some of his recordings
of the concertos.

Felix Delbruck
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