Christopher Webber wrote in answering Norman M. Schwartz:

>>Peter Shaffer has an acute awareness of Wolfie's familial background,
>>personality and character that Steve Schwartz might have overlooked or
>>rather unlikely is unaware of.
>
>He has a superficial biopic awareness of these things - which is no big
>deal - and gleaned most of his 'facts' from biographies anyone could pick
>up in their public library.

How do you know, Christopher? Could you tell us? I read interviews with
Shaffer where he says he did a lot of research, including contacting a lot
of Mozart scholars and diving deep into archives.  How do you know that he
just read some books?

>>The booklet accompanying the CD "Mozart Unexpurgated", Scatological and
>>Other Songs, Canons and Piano Variations (Tall Poppies TP009) makes point
>>of Mozart's smutty sense of humor, with his references to "shit", "arses"
>>and "farts" along with "strings of childish onomatopoeia, ie.  "Muck chuck,
>>suck!".
>
>Your translation does the original German no justice.  It isn't quite
>childish onomatopoeia, but actually rather amusing.  What on earth is worth
>making a fuss about here, on stage or off? Doesn't everyone use this kind
>of language in private life? What's so shocking - or interesting - about
>Mozart or anyone else writing this way to his sister?

It is so interesting because romantic Germany turned Mozart into a
legend-laden God, a genius with no faults and so on.  By the way, I am a
native German: the letters are not really amusing.  They are sometimes
astonishingly creative in inventing new words but most of the time very
exhausting because too much happens all the time.

>Schaffer's total lack of a handle on Mozart's creative processes (or worse,
>blatant steamrollering of the facts in favour of his bogus, trivial theory
>of "mysterious genius") is one of the worst examples of intellectual
>dishonesty I've ever come across.  The play itself is mere hackwork, and
>has dated badly.  The film is marginally better, as we get less of his
>ghastly script and more of the pretty visuals.

I am so, so tired of criticism like this.  Christopher, all I know now
is that you don't like the movie.  But I don't know why - and this would
be the interesting point.  You state some points of criticism but do not
explain anyone: where is there an evidence of "total lack of a handle on
Mozarts creative processes" in the movie, why is the theory of mysterious
genius (which is nowhere to be found in the film, by the way) "bogus and
trivial", why is the play "mere hackwork", what has "dated badly" about it,
why is the script "ghastly"? As long as you don't answer these questions
your criticism is just ranting and pretty poor ranting, I would say.

Robert