No, I stand corrected... All the way past minute 21 is the perfect time to visit the restroom.

Of course, it doesn't help that no one improvises (Mozart was known in his day for improvisation). When I hear Robert Levin play Mozart it's tolerable.

Charles, actually Trent never called for textual clarity - that's one of the great misunderstandings of church music history. There was some preliminary discussion of clarity, but it never made it out of the drafts and deliberations into the final pronouncements of the council. But personally I do agree that Bach's vocal music often leaves me cold. It almost always sounds like instrumental music with text, rather than music that stems from and showcases the beauty of the human voice.

As to the Mozart, I wonder if he might tend to agree with Francis. The piano concerto genre, like the symphonic genre, was usually intended for the unwashed masses as accessible and popular music. The musicians themselves might prefer a string quartet or other chamber music in the company of other professionals.

That said, I really enjoy the Mozart symphonies and piano concertos!

You have to remember that the Kochel listings are somewhat deceiving: K467 sounds high, but it was in that perfervid period, Mozart as a rapidly developing young man, just before such masterpieces as Le Nozze di Figaro (K492) and the Piano Quartet in G minor. Many of the pieces from this time, including k467, sound to me like recycling or maybe pre-cycling of music from Le Nozze. Mozart's best is still better than anyone else's best.

My local horrible classical radio station does its best to discredit Mozart, playing music from K80 and thereabouts rather frequently. He was a six year old!

In terms of preferences for performers, not so good. Just an opinion.

Lol ... i take that as a challenge, I'm going to try to find a good performance of K467 2d movement. Meanwhile, free music and a very fine performance of a great piece:

https://soundcloud.com/santa-fe-chamber-music/02-mozart-string-quintet-no3

I don't defend K467 as the best piece, just Mozart as the best composer.

Mozart as the best composer? We have definitely hit an impasse.

Rubenstein: about 01:17:50, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3J38vad2DVs

Illustrating some of the points from Francis' earlier post re 10 rules to better music.

Francis, would you please bump that earlier post from your luthier ... had some most interesting points in it, and I can't find it. As to I I I I V V V V V I I I etc, I used to rage at Tchaikovsky because every darn moment was formed into an 8-bar period. More recently, I've appreciated the beauty, ingenuity, and even variety he squeezes into those periods, and have treasured the moments he extends a period from time to time.

Salieri:

I cannot find the love...

The rest is twaddle. If I have to listen to Eine Kleine Nacht Musik or that blasted Sonata in C Major again, I might not be responsible for my actions.

Yes. This.

mrcopper:

More recently, I've appreciated the beauty, ingenuity, and even variety he squeezes into those periods, and have treasured the moments he extends a period from time to time.

HOLY CRAP! It was MOZART who was the instigator of minimalism!

It may be hard for some organists to appreciate the finer points of the art of orchestration.

I am not an organist, but I would have guessed - and really, just guessed - that other things being equal (OH THAT PHRASE!), an organist would be better equipped to appreciate orchestration than, for example, a chorister or pianist - or, really, anyone else who plays primarily only one single instrument.

A general dissing of Mozart is low rent clickbait and nothing more.

This.
Pathos. And joy. And yes, counterpoint.

including his operas which are trite like most all opera.

Well, Ja. I like Musical Comedy, too. And P.G. Wodehouse. They're trite. But it's good trite.

horned helmet. ;-)

now *there's* a reference to trite opera.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07E5sLsJQe0&feature=kp

That looks really expensive for how boring it is.

To Francis, with all due respect, plus some extra respect -
I am at an head-scratching loss as to what to make of this denigrance of Mozart. So, he doesn't use a XXIst century harmonic vocabulary. So, his vocabulary is a predictable, though one would insist, resourceful and inventive, application of XVIIIth century 'common practice'. So, we can Schenkerise it to illustrate on paper how boring it is. (Don't most Schenkerised things not stand up well under this ruthless microscope?)
There is far more originality, inspired melos, treatment and development of form (sonata or otherwise), use of colour, and pure music (absolute or referenced) in his oeuvre than in all his contemporaries combined. Haydn would be his sole near-equal, Beethoven his only true successor.

I have just finished re-studying Stravinsky's Poetics of Music. In it he throws in Dionysius the Aereopogite's assertion that (of course this is what some would call 'speculative theology' - but it's instructive just the same) in heaven one will observe that in the ascending angelic hierarchy those of higher and higher rank speak fewer and fewer words, with the highest speaking but a single syllable. But! Imagine the brilliant profundity that must be enshrined in that single utterance. This is applicable in our creative crafts, whether they be music, art, sculpture, architecture, or what have you. Are we to dismiss so lightly one of the half dozen greatest musical genuises of all human history because we are put off by his tonal palette? I think that in not seeing the genius and musical marvel in such a man's work one should perhaps question one's own sight rather than the value of the meisterstuck which is deserving of better vision.

Now, Mozart is no longer, as he was in my youth, my favourite composer all the time. In fact my favourite composer now changes by the day or week between anyone who lived between the time of Leonin (or his Carolingian predecessors), Tallis and Byrd and Monteverdi, and Stravinsky or Britten, or (on some days) Bartok or Schoenberg or Messiaen. But I never tire of the refreshing sanity and humanity of our classical and early romantic era masters. I do not, though, like classical era masses. They are indeed theatrical and lack that ecclesiastical ceremoniality, that sacral bearing that one hears in Monteverdi or others of the renaissance and early baroque eras, not to mention the consistent spiritual purity of an all chant liturgy. Concerning that, we have in our latter times lost that colourful palette of musical degree which reigned in earlier times than modern ones, when the organ and polyphony were heard only on those feasts which were of the greatest importance. Otherwise it was 'plain song'. It wouldn't hurt us to try making such distinctions in our day; but this would undoubtedly not be popular with those who fill the pews expecting a good show every week. It would probably be frustrating for us as well, for we would feel our musical imaganitiveness stifled. But back to Mozart, you are looking at the Sistine Chapel ceiling and seeing nothing but a predictable variety of colours - you aren't seeing Michaelangelo's genius in their application. No one can explain it to you if you don't get it; but you are capable of finding it yourself if you start looking at the painting, the music, instead of its component matter.

To my dear MJO:

Mozart and the Sistine chapel are an entirely humanistic endeavor, shrouded in the gymnastics of flamboyant melodic lines and bursting colors... (the animators who 'refurbished' Michaelangelo destroyed any semblance of what little art was left) where angels have been consigned to sing 16th note alleluia's and relegated to infantile cherubic form. It is gravity for the here and now and cares not for the soul but only anchors the body firm to the earth. Simulicrum. Opaque. Your destination is the art itself (or artist, himself). It is Signature.

The likes of Gregorian Chant, Bach, Palestrina and Iconography are its exact opposite... magnets of the soul toward heaven. Authentic. Transparent. Your destination is God (THE artist) himself. It is Author.

Francis, I am just not as pure as you. Man, am I ever glad about that! LOL. What our crazy past leadership hasn't destroyed, extremists will. It has happened before.

.

Charles

I see my philosophy as more 'black and white' as opposed to 'pure or not'.

I'm still waiting for someone to assert that they would spit in Mozart's face. And that whomever doesn't dislike him is a Nazi.

I don't hate Mozart, Padster. I just have no interest in listening to his music. That is a far cry from hate.

One piece I DO like is his Fantasy in D minor which I play often for gigs.

Have a happy K333.

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