Bob Draper on Mozart:

>I went to a concert with my sister who knows nothing of music at all.
>There was a Mozart violin concerto and a Haydn Horn concerto in the first
>half.  During the interval she said to me unprompted re the Mozart work
>"you always know what's coming next don't you".  I agree.  Every time I
>hear Mozart work that's new to me after the exposition I can usually fill
>in the blanks.  Don't care what anyone says.

Well, your sister contradicts the experience of the composer Ernst Toch,
one of the most remarkable figures in all of music.  Toch was forbidden
by his parents to learn music, so he taught himself.  He figured out how
to read music all by himself, in secret.  He also decided he wanted to
write his own.  He came across a volume of "Ten Great String Quartets by
Mozart" in a second-hand stall.  Since he'd heard that Mozart was supposed
to be a great composer, he bought the volume and snuck it home.  He began
by copying out (all in secret, of course) the parts onto full score.  I
think he did this with two of the quartets.  Then he decided to copy out
the first section of a third (he later found out this was called the
"exposition") and to finish the movement himself.  He then compared what
he had written to genuine Mozart and was fairly unhappy with what he had
done, compared to Mozart's solution.  He pondered the differences and tried
again.  He finished the volume in this fashion, "always looking to Mozart
to correct me." It's an amazing story.

I must admit that I often find Mozart trivial, but the guy wrote over 600
works, many of them while he was learning a new style from Haydn.  In that
heap of stuff, there are incredible works, highly unpredictable in many
ways.  To me, Marriage of Figaro is one huge surprise after another, and
the overture shows this trait of the opera in little.  How about the
finales to the Haffner Symphony and Symphony No. 39? Perhaps you can
predict what's going to happen next.  You're at least one up on me.

Then there are the Mozart works that don't surprise in that way, and I
don't care.  As PDQ Bach shows, surprise is fairly easy to achieve.  There
are Mozart works that in their way are simply and exquisitely perfect.  If
anyone has written a more beautiful aria than the "Laudate Dominum" from
the Vesperes solennes de Confessore, I don't know it.

As to who the greatest composer is of all time, I have no idea.  I don't
care.  But give the fellow his due.

Steve Schwartz