By Tom Kando
A good friend of mine recently asked me to provide her with a few comments about Mozart, and the social significance of his music. Here is my reply: Hi Gail,
Mozart!
Many people think that he was the greatest composer ever. Everyone agrees that he was one of the three greatest (the other two being Bach and Beethoven). Mozart died at thirty-five, and even so managed to compose over eight hundred works. The Requiem (to which you were just listening) was his last composition, one of the few works with a magnificent but somewhat somber character.
He was a child prodigy, and his compositions matured as he got older. His operas, piano and violin concertos, his quartets, his symphonies got better and more imposing as he matured. Mozart was also a virtuoso on the piano, the violin and other instruments. His father was also a composer. He began Mozart’s musical education when Amadeus was still an infant. Unfortunately, their relationship was difficult. However, most of Mozart’s music is enormously happy . One of his few tragedies is his opera Don Giovanni, which contains a moral condemnation of promiscuity (Don Giovanni goes to Hell).
Have you seen the movie Amadeus? (1984). A must. One of the greatest movies ever made. However, don’t accept it literally. It takes many liberties with the facts of Mozart’s life. Even so, the movie is correct in describing Mozart dying in obscurity and only gaining justified recognition posthumously. Such is the fate of many geniuses in all the arts. Think of Van Gogh, Kafka and so many others! The problem with geniuses is that they are often far ahead of everyone else, much too brilliant to be recognized in their own time.
A sociological perspective? Well, obviously Mozart was not a member of the proletariat. However, neither was he a member of the ruling elite. He depended, for his income and survival, upon the jobs/orders he received for musical compositions. And his patrons included not only archbishops and members of the nobility, but all the way to the Emperor of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg empire. He had to humiliate himself to remain in the VIPs’ graces, teach music lessons to rich, powerful nincompoops who were utterly devoid of musical ability.
But Mozart’s spirit remained indomitable. At least, that is the impression one gets from his music. Always humorous, joyful, happy. Listen to his opera The Magic Flute. It doesn’t get any happier and more beautiful.
The Queen of the Night’s Aria is the most magnificent solo ever written for any voice.
Or his opera The Marriage of Figaro. When the emperor admonishes him not to be a rabble rouser and stoke the flames of revolution, Mozart happily complies, explaining that he has no desire to be political, that his music is all about love. He seems to have been a happy man, the creator of a bounty of magnificent sounds for all the ages to come. Imagine how much more of it we would be the happy beneficiaries, had he lived longer!
I hope this helps you a bit. Not very sociological. Marx might have said that Mozart suffered from false consciousness, that he did not express sufficient sympathy for the oppressed classes. Apparently, that was not his concern. He was concerned with beauty, and he was endowed with a genius that enabled him to express the most divine music ever written. He was unique and unequaled in talent and ability.
I hope that this is a reasonably helpful commentary
Love
Tom
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