It seems I have provoked much more sighing from those rightfully tired
of these admittedly tedious who's-better-who to-ing and fro-ing.  And I
too must admit to having been more provokative than I perhaps intended.
Firstly, I too should confess to being one of those 'subversives' who
ultimately (when forced to take a stance) prefers Hadyn to Mozart.

Having made that point it must be said:  'so what?' To listen critically
to Mozart does not mean to not listen at all, or to be crudely disparaging
or dismissive.  I am too much of a Schoenbergian to understand how crudely
dismissive people all to often can be.  To listen critically to Mozart does
not mean to make sweeping statement to the effect that Reger or whoever
was a better composer and to degenerate into that childish game of
one-upmanship, but to recall that Mozart's greatest critic was Mozart
himself - who more nauseated than anyone else by those who thought
perfection came all too easily to him.  It was surely only through the most
vitriolic self-criticism that the composer whose early symphonies all to
often sound like a take-offs of CPE Bach, JC Bach or later on Haydn, to
rise to become an extraordinary voice in his own regard.  True 'criticism'
can only come after one has loved and lived with something for years.  It
must be something extraodinarily difficult - even painful.

But as things stand, I cannot still feel that even if Mozart were more
talented a composer than Haydn or Beethoven, that what he ultimately had
achieved at the time of his untimely death has to be said to be a mere
promise for what ought to have been but never was.  It is not the work of
some musical Messiah, straight from the mouth of God (cf GB Shaw).  It is
the work of a mortal, who failed to quite fulfill his destiny.  His death
is all the more painful for that.

As a physician how often I have obsessively turned over in my mind, why
Mozart had to die so tragically young.  I am outraged that he should
have been robbed from us by some pathetic archaic illness.  I would give
anything to be go back in time and offer the full force of modern medicine
so that he could live, even if just a few years more.

So too I have turned over in my mind who really does deserve the title of
the greatest composer of all.  At times I suspect it may be JS Bach but all
I have to do is listen to some Webern, Josquin de Prez, Isaac, or Boulez
amongst so many and the today it becomes clear that the true 'answer' is
that the whoever asked the question was a fool.

(Dr) Satoshi Akima