Mozart-my favorite topic!  Here are my thoughts on some of the posts from
yesterday (unfortunately I deleted some accidentally so I'm not always sure
who said what--my apologies there).

I don't know enough about psychology to know exactly how an idiot savant's
mind works, but I think we are too ready to turn Mozart into some sort
of enchanted child.  His letters reveal a remarkably normal person:
intelligent, playful, fussy, somewhat too prideful, aware of his abilities,
anxious to prove himself, desirous of independence and appreciation.  As
near as we can tell, he had a remarkable ability to compose in his head,
but that doesn't mean he didn't have to work at it.  We have more of his
fragments and sketches than you would expect.  But Glenn Miller is right to
say that Mozart was a brilliant assimilator; in his early years he picks up
all sorts of things from widely disparate styles.  In fact, his passage to
full maturity may have been impeded thereby-he was often so busy trying out
styles (J.  C.  Bach, Haydn, the Mannheim school, Italian opera, etc.) that
it took some time for him to evolve a characteristic voice.  In this I
disagree with the poster who argued that Mozart is always Mozart.  His
early works show some extraordinary anticipations of his mature style
(just listen to the father-daughter duet in his first opera, Apollo and
Hyacinthus), but I don't think he becomes fully Mozart until about K.
250-300.  As an example, one of his better known early works, the little
G minor symphony, comes straight out of Haydn's Sturm and Drang works of
1768-72.  But he's right to say Mozart is never less than competent-I think
it's a myth that his early works are bad.  In fact, once you get past the
ultra-juvenilia, most are pretty good.  Not terribly profound, perhaps, but
entertaining, and in a league with the better minor composers of his time.

William Hong wrote that Mozart was an opera composer who just happened to
write other music.  I think this observation is spot on.  Most composers
have genres in which they appear to be on home ground, as it were, where
their inspiration flows most naturally and is most personal.  For Haydn it
was the symphony and the string quartet, for Beethoven the piano sonata,
and for Mozart opera and the concerto.  Charles Rosen has some interesting
things to say about this in The Classical Style.  Mozart did indeed think
of himself as an opera composer, and had he had the opportunity, he
probably would have devoted most of his efforts to musical drama.

I very much like Donald Satz' comment that Haydn is "direct, lean,
efficient, stern." That states it much better than I could have.  You
feel it especially in his contrapuntal development sections--Mozart's
developments are more often like broad melodic and tonal curves.

Dave's speculation on what Mozart would have done had he been successful
is interesting.  Everyone testifies to his feverish activity and his mental
restlessness.  This may have been partly a result of job insecurity, and
sadly most of us slow down when we get tenure.  (Shakespeare virtually
retired at 45, the lucky stiff.) But unless he would have simply burnt
himself out, my guess is he seems among the least likely people to pull a
Rossini.  By the way, Charles Rosen has something interesting to say about
that too:  he thinks Rossini retired because he was getting to the point
that his inspiration wasn't as fluent as before, and he was just plain too
lazy to work at it.

Best,

Peter Goldstein
Juniata College