Deryk Barker wrote in regard to Bob Draper's remarkable comment that
Mozart's best concerti were not on a par with Beethoven's better concerti:

>Now I think it is you who go too far.  Mozart's piano concertos surely are
>some of the most sublime masterpieces of Western Art (capitals intended).
>...
>I don't think Beethoven himself would have agreed with you BTW.  He made a
>remark to Schindler IIRC regarding K.466 on the lines that neither of them
>would ever produce anything so wonderful.  Anyone got the exact quote?

I'm going from memory, but (a) I believe the reference was to the c-minor
concerto (no.  24), and (b) that the comment was something like, "Such
things are denied to the likes of you and me."

Also, Brahms stated something like, "The fact that people do not appreciate
the very best things, like the piano concerti of Mozart and the violin
concerti of Viotti, is what allows men like me to make a living."

FWIW, I think Deryk, Beethoven, and Brahms have got this one pretty much
right.  I don't want to slight either Beethoven's fourth and fifth piano
concerti or his violin concerto, nor do I want to slight Brahms's second
piano concerto or his violin concerto (I guess the remaining concerti do
not seem to me top drawer, even when judged merely by the standard of the
rest of the composers' output), but I certainly don't find Beethoven's or
Brahms's best in the concerto repertoire to surpass Mozart's.  (I'm trying
to speak moderately in order to allow for differences of taste; the fact
is, I find Mozart's best unequalled, not just unsurpassed.) I agree with
what Deryk says about the works from no.  17 on, although I'm inclined to
start a bit earlier and include everything from no.  14 on.  And I know
that many, including Deryk perhaps, include no.  9 among the great
masterpieces.

I find an inability to "get" Mozart, particularly when talking about the
major masterpieces such as the later piano concerti, really interesting.
I think these are staggeringly fine works, and it's the existence of such
works that makes me suspicious of the common claims about "subjectivity"
(i.e., the ones that suggest a sort of relativism.  This connection
needn't, of course, be made; as I've said before, if people think granting
that the appreciation of art is a subjective phenomenon is incompatible
with an absolute standard for distinguishing better from worse art, they
should read Hume's "Of the Standard of Taste.")  If the slow movement of
the A-major concerto, no. 23, is not a test of the sensitivity of the
listener, then I'm sadly misguided.  But I don't think I am.  (I guess
I'm not speaking moderately any more.  Time to get off the soapbox.)

Nick
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