>I'm having a hard time understanding Mozart... >Can someone recommend any introduction?... I appreciate your honesty. Few music-lovers tell the truth about how they feel if they don't "get" Mozart. I started with large-scale romantic music, and for me, Wagner, Strauss, early Schoenberg have a visceral impact I didn't get from Mozart. But then I got turned on to his operas, not necessarily the big ones, but "Abduction," "Idomeneo," etc., and now I am one of the faithful, sincerely. Anyway, I asked some friend to help me "explain" Mozart and the winner of this informal competition is Mike Richter, whose opera site is ever-changing, always delightful. So take a look at his message below and then explore www.mrichter.com. Best of luck, Janos There is music which wears its heart on its sleeve - please do not try to form an image of that! Mozart's does not. It is not alone in that; the emotional content is not lacking in Isaac or Josquin, in Gesualdo or (Papa) Bach, in Stravinsky or Schoenberg. It simply is not lying on the surface ensnaring each passerby. To find the emotion in Mozart's vocal music, I suggest first turning to that of the peasantry. Listen to Zerlina and Masetto, not Don Giovanni and Donna Anna. Try Papageno, not Pamina. Easiest of all, have a go at the canons. They're ribald and lusty and completely accessible. I was late coming to Mozart's quartets. Listening to them superficially was all too easy and quite unrewarding. I wanted the intensity of Bartok's and the richness of Beethoven's - and they were missing. One night, I put on K. 465, the "Dissonant", and discovered that the music was there but I had not been listening. It was one instance where the surface was not so placid that I was lulled into assuming that the depths were empty; the veneer was missing so the rich substructure showed through. Going back to the ones I had dismissed, I found that there was substance in each case, but that the surface had concealed it. I am not expert in the other instrumental works - to tell the truth, I'm not expert in any music since I've never studied it formally. I will say that I am astonished at the late piano concerti when I remember that even 21 and 27 were written when the instrument was still a novelty. It did not have the sonority of a modern Steinway or Bosendorfer, yet its majesty comes through for me in those. I suspect that if Mozart had had the hardware of Beethoven and his successors and had had some years to finish his experimentation, the result would have been dramatic on their scale. To sum it up, try the masses. The "Great" C-major and "Coronation" C-minor introduced emotion into the church as even the Bach B-minor does not for me. There were others since - Verdi's "Manzoni" Requiem and Janacek's "Glagolitic" for example - which clutch at one's guts in their own ways, but I still return to Mozart's for catharsis. As for understanding Mozart, I'm afraid I find that hopeless. If I have another decade or two, I may begin to comprehend "Don Giovanni",. It will take at least another lifetime to grasp "Le nozze di Figaro". Forunately, I'm able to revel in both today. Mike Janos Gereben/SF [log in to unmask]