Mozart Fest

[subcontrabass]

I see that Radio 3 will play nothing but Mozart for the first 12 days of January (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11908048). At least that might stop some of the moaning about Breakfast :smiley:

[Roehre]

This is a straightforward example how to cut costs.
At least I know that I don't have to check R3 for programs to listen to .:whistle::cool2:

I hope however that they will repeat the complete Stravinsky/Tchaikovsky from february 2007 , as I missed a couple of items (Bach/Stravinsky WTC, some PT-operas as well as PT's 1st symphony in it's 1st version e.g.)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I see that Radio 3 will play nothing but Mozart for the first 12 days of January (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11908048). At least that might stop some of the moaning about Breakfast :smiley:
So you are certain that the Mozart snippets on Breakfast will not be interspersed with requests for us to "text in" our favourite Divertimento movement or concert aria?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

As they did so in 2006, this is a straightforward example how to cut costs.

I hope however that they will repeat the complete Stravinsky/Tchaikovsky from February 2007 as well, ...
Yes, I really enjoyed that interesting week.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oh dear, we have a second thread on this topic already. Just like the bad old days. :(

[subcontrabass]

So you are certain that the Mozart snippets on Breakfast will not be interspersed with requests for us to "text in" our favourite Divertimento movement or concert aria?

I only said "some of the moaning", not ALL of it.

[subcontrabass]

Oh dear, we have a second thread on this topic already. Just like the bad old days. :(

The old problem of posting before reading.

[french frank]

Oh dear, we have a second thread on this topic already. Just like the bad old days. :(I'll try and keep on top of this - I've closed the other thread as it hasn't yet received any replies.

Meanwhile, you can have your say directly to the boss man on the R3 blog (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio3/).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Wall-to-wall listening of any composer's music can become a little wearing. I've done it with Mozart, Bach and Beethoven when I bought the complete works of these great men on CD. At present, I'm doing the same with Britten's music, though with a (mere) 35 CDs.

[french frank]

At least that might stop some of the moaning about Breakfast :smiley:Whaaaattt? Some of the pieces are less than a minute long! Anyone know this? .

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4188MXQZ58L._SL500_AA300_.jpg

:smiley: Nice

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No. What's on it? Does it contain that little snippet "La Tartine de Beurre" (I think that's its name) - a piano piece full of right hand glissandi?

[Roehre]

Apart from completed snippets, which attributed works are included? Which of the surviving fragments anyway?

[french frank]

No. What's on it? Does it contain that little snippet "La Tartine de Beurre" (I think that's its name) - a piano piece full of right hand glissandi?No piano music. Here's the Amazon list (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mozart-A-Little-Light-Music/dp/B001N59WIW). I'm not too keen on Ein musikalischer Spaß, and most of the rest are dances. The 'Breakfast' suggestion was for Das Donnerwetter (48 secs) but I also rather like Der Sieg vom Helden Koburg.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Mostly late stuff then. Has anyone heard the Philips "Mozart in London" CD with snippets edited by Erik Smith?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Oh! We have jet another Mozart thread.

[Cavaradossi]

Which I have deleted.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Now I feel mean. :winkeye:

[Cavaradossi]

RW view in 2005


Roger Wright, controller of Radio 3, said the station had talked a lot about playing Mozart's oeuvre back to back, but had decided against it: "Our view is that Mozart end to end, the overall effect would be detrimental to the music. The music could wrongly be seen as slightly more chocolate-boxy than it really is."

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/unhappy-birthday-its-his-250th-anniversary-but-mozart-is-too-chocolateboxy-for-radio-3-520770.html

[subcontrabass]

RW view in 2005



http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/unhappy-birthday-its-his-250th-anniversary-but-mozart-is-too-chocolateboxy-for-radio-3-520770.html

According to RW on his current R3 blog the programmes will not consist just of Mozart's music, but will "feature his complete works, including a lot of live music as well as contextual programming, including Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This does sound a much better option.

[maestro267]

They've already done a Mozart immersion. Surely they could choose another composer, such as Liszt (an anniversary composer in 2011), to cite one example, rather than re-hashing an old idea.

[johnb]

I greatly enjoyed the "A Bach Christmas" and the Beethoven-Fest, less so the Tchaik-Strav-Fest but, as much as I love Mozart, the idea of 12 days of his music fills me with horror.

Oh well, it will be a chance to catch up on my back-log of CD listening.

[Bryn]

This is a straightforward example how to cut costs.
At least I know that I don't have to check R3 for programs to listen to .:whistle::cool2:

I hope however that they will repeat the complete Stravinsky/Tchaikovsky from february 2007 , as I missed a couple of items (Bach/Stravinsky WTC, some PT-operas as well as PT's 1st symphony in it's 1st version e.g.)

Roehre, I have the DAB mp2s of nearly the whole lot. Just a few recordings I already had are missing. Let me know by PM or email what you are looking for.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Please wake me up on January 13th then. Some Mozart is Ok but 12 days of it? I expect this will start a pattern of 12 days of Bach, 12 days of Handel etc in the next few years. How much worse can R3 get under RW? (is there anyway he can be got rid of?) Well at least I'll already know who will be topping the most broadcast list in my 2011 survey. Mind you it's a close run thing for 2010 and it could be Mozart this year too as the amount of music broadcast by him has increased significantly in 2010!

Anyway better select my CDs for January 1-12 as R3 will remain switched off for that period.

[Caliban]

Surely they could choose another composer, such as Liszt (an anniversary composer in 2011.

:yikes::yikes::yikes::yikes::yikes:

Wall-to-wall Liszt would have me hurtling for the 'off' switch. The idea of 12 days of Mozart is quite scary but I'll see how it goes...

[Ian Thumwood]

I suppose that I am probably one of the few listeners who detests Mozart's music. The 12-day "festival" of Mozart will be shear hell - it is boring enough to solely concentrate on one composer let alone someone like Mozart.

When I took piano lessons back in the 1990's, my teacher was hugely dismissive of this composer's work and would argue that he only had a handful of original ideas. Whilst I would concede that this is an exageration, I think there are motifs and rhthmic patterns that were done to death by this composer. This opinion did colour my perception of Moizart and I have never been able to listen to his music since. It drives me around the bend! I can appreciate that he did advance Classical composition albeit I don't think he was quite the extraordinary genius of Bach nor a match for the more sophisticated composers who followed in the wake of the "modernist" Chopin. Small wonder that few jazz composers have really taken anything from Mozart's music unlike Bach, Chopin, Ravel, Debussy, Scriabin, Stravinsky or Messaien who have provided a wealth of inspiration as well as adding significantly to the harmonic of vocabulary of jazz. Probably only Beethoven is the only composer of the magnitude of Mozart who has had no bearing on jazz? Probably equally baffling insofar that both Mozart and Beethoven were noted as improvisers in their time and the former certainly left a wealth of "Variations" that give some clues how his mind worked as an improvisor. ( From a jazz point of view, the "improvising" being limited to inversions, transposing themes into minor keys, etc, etc.) Putting my head someway above the parapet, I would venture to propose that both Mozart and Beethoven's improvising abilities were probably a bit limited in comparison with the kind of innovations available to true giants of this art such as Coltrane or Sonny Rollins some 150-200 years later.

Does this mean that the jazz content of Radio 3 will be kicked into touch or are we to endure Mozart-related numbers on JRR. ?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

pressumably it will all be prerecorded so r3 can run with a man and a dog for the holiday period

[Mr Pee]

Does this mean that the jazz content of Radio 3 will be kicked into touch

Well that would be one good thing to come out of the Mozart marathon. :devil:

But seriously, I love Mozart's music. I cannot agree with Ian Thumwood at all- how easy it is to be dismissive of such genius. Perhaps he would care to furnish us with examples of motifs and rythmic patterns that have been "done to death"? I'm sure that if you're prepared to look hard enough you can find recurring rythmic patterns and similar thematic ideas in just about any composer's works, from Buxtehude to Boulez.

But when Mozart can produce glories such as the Clarinet Concerto and Quintet, the String Quintets, the great Piano Concerti, the Grand Partita, and such a cascade of genius as the last movement of the "Jupiter" Symphony, I for one can forgive a little repetition.

As for the fact that Jazz musicians have not used his music, well I fail to see that having any relevance at all. Mozart's music is just that- Mozart's music.:erm:

[Roehre]

Mostly late stuff then. Has anyone heard the Philips "Mozart in London" CD with snippets edited by Erik Smith?

It is an originally 1973 or '74 released Philips LP, which served very well as promotion/teaser for the 1978 Philips Mozart Edition on LPs. The LP was not included in this Edition, but was part of the 1991 Complete Mozart Edition as one of the CDs in vol.45 Rarities and Surprises.

I think it shows Mozart's emerging talents as lad of 8 years of age, as well as the skill of Eric Smith (aka Erich Schmidt-Isserstedt btw) how to (re-)arrange a selection from those 40-odd pieces KV15a-ss.

One of the pieces as constructed by Smith is the last one featuring on LP as well as CD: Divertimento in E-flat KV15kk/15dd/15cc+ff.
The first two movements are without doubt not conceived for keyboards exclusively. As Zaslaw in his book on Mozart's Symphonies (a result of his studies of the symphonies for the AAM/Pinnock series) IMO rightly states: these are primarily orchestrally thought.
This is consistent with a remark made by Nannerl, that her brother composed an orchestral work, to be precise a Symphony (eine Sinfonie mit allen instrumenten - auch mit Trompeten und Pauken) before what we now know as his first Symphony KV16 (which btw hasn't got either trumpets or timpani).
Therefore this Divertimento may be very well based on the draft of Mozart's real first symphony.

[Roehre]

I suppose that I am probably one of the few listeners who detests Mozart's music. The 12-day "festival" of Mozart will be shear hell - it is boring enough to solely concentrate on one composer let alone someone like Mozart.

That makes two of us, as I still do think that 75% of Mozart's output would never be played, let alone recorded, had these been works by contemporaries of his.
These works are simply not better than that of his neglected contemporaties. Who is interested musically in the utterings of a lad's violin sonatas (KV 6 e.g.) including daddy's improvements and still including many compositional errors?
With exception of the early symphony in g KV183 IMO the first real work of importance by Mozart may be Die Entführung. And Robbins Landon stated simply that nothing composed before the Sinfonia concertante KV364 is better than the best works of M's colleagues at that time.

[Roehre]

Probably only Beethoven is the only composer of the magnitude of Mozart who has had no bearing on jazz?

Uri Caine's Diabelli Variations, or Beethoven's own variations from the sonata opus 111?

[Ian Thumwood]

Roehre

Didn't realise that Uri Caine had recorded "Diabelli Variations." I have his first Mahler CD "Primal light" and was intrigued by the Goldberg Variations disc as I like Bach's work too. The Mahler disc is very good. However, I think most jazz musicians have borrowed little from the kind of approach to harmony and rhythm that Beehoven employed. Uri Caine is probably an exception even if he does tend to use the material as the basis of his "re-composition" in contract to actually employing the harmony used the these composers. I think he has worked on Mozart's music too and having met him once, know that he is extremely well-informed about all kinds if music. He is a really interesting person to converse with and a top bloke too. Easily one of the nicest jazz musicians I have met. Needless to say, he is a great pianist as well.

For me, the problem with Mozart is that he was a visionary in some respects but a bit regressive in others. To 21st Century ears, you can hear harmonies in composers like D. Scarlatti which sound "modern" whereas the era of Mozart didn't move harmony on much from what was happening in the mid-18th century. From a jazz prespective, I think harmony is a major component of music insofar that it is an essential ingredient of what makes jazz improvisation interesting. The better jazz musicians have a more sophisticated harmonic palette than musicians of Mozart's era as you would expect from 150-200 years of development. Harmony in Classical music definately got "sexier" to my ears with the arrival of Chopin. It is the impact of colour in classical music that really appeals to me hence my preference for the French Impressionist or Messaien. Mozart just doesn't tick all the boxes for me - have to say that I find a lot of his music extremely irritating. I have as much enthusiasm for WAM's music as Rap or Folk Music.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've always put Mozart very high up my list of favourites. But I do take the point that some of his music would never be played, had it been written by a lesser composer. Wall to wall playing of his music does not do him any favours. There are composers who wrote much less, for whom blanket coverage might be more beneficial.

[Alf-Prufrock]

Robbins Landon stated simply that nothing composed before the Sinfonia concertante KV364 is better than the best works of M's colleagues at that time.

And almost everything afterwards is better than anything written by contemporaries with the possible exception of Haydn.

[Norfolk Born]

On the first day of New Year, my DJ played for me.....On the second day ....
In common with some other contributors to this thread, I love the music of Mozart, but not to the exclusion of anybody else's for 12 days.

[sigolene euphemia]

:mistletoe:

I love this forum !

The visuals are such a pleasure and expressive as to who we are as individuals.

A Montgolfier [ see post #10 ] as I listen to Mozart on Sean Rafferty's Program this day.

Sigolene

:mistletoe:

[verismissimo]

Roehre, if we followed Robbins Landon's suggestion that good Mozart starts with K364, we'd have to forego, par exemple, K201, K218, K271, K296, K297, K304, K 309-11, K317, K319 and K338.

Need I say more? :)

[french frank]

Roehre, if we followed Robbins Landon's suggestion that good Mozart starts with K364, we'd have to forego, par exemple, K201, K218, K271, K296, K297, K304, K 309-11, K317, K319 and K338.

Need I say more? :)So which is the earliest indispensable Mozart? Exsultate jubilate is K165, and I don't think I'd want to be without it.

[Bryn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lf249oYO7I ;)

[Flosshilde]

I suppose that I am probably one of the few listeners who detests Mozart's music.

I'm another - can't stand the stuff, apart from the operas. My heart sank when I heard that there was going to be 12 days of it in January when I would be deprived of any listenable music on R3. An afternoon or evening every now & again is OK - no-one should expect the schedules to reflect their own likes & dislikes, & one can listen to CDs - but 12 days? Surely he can't have written enough to fill them?

[Flosshilde]

I have as much enthusiasm for WAM's music as Rap or Folk Music.

& just what is Andrew Ridgely doing these days ;)?

[Roehre]

Roehre, if we followed Robbins Landon's suggestion that good Mozart starts with K364, we'd have to forego, par exemple, K201, K218, K271, K296, K297, K304, K 309-11, K317, K319 and K338.

Need I say more? :)

I just have to point at the 1990/'91 Decca 20CD Mozart Edition, compiled by Robbins Landon, which indeed starts with KV364 IIRC.
The Philips "The best of" excerpts from the CME ( 25CDs) includes most of the works you mention. It omits the sonatas 309 and 311 e.g., but that one includes e.g. KV299 as well. and that's more a popular than a top notch Mozart, isn't it?

But it 's RL's reasoning and choice, with which I for the best part concur, but certainly not completely.

[Idamante]

There's a piece about the Mozart marathon by Tom Service in the Grauniad but for some reason the comments are disabled.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/tomserviceblog/2010/dec/03/mozart-classicalmusicandopera

Personally, I find this kind of programmiing lazy and deeply unintelligent, a kind of musical equivalent of autism. As music lovers we should be trying to expand our range of experiences while deepening our knowledge of what we already know. In the case of Mozart that means getting to hear the music of his contemporaries like JC & CPE Bach so we can judge for ourselves who's better.

I should add that some of my all time favourite pieces are by Mozart although nowadays I tend to find Haydn's music more interesting and enjoyable.

[Dave2002]

This is a straightforward example how to cut costs.
At least I know that I don't have to check R3 for programs to listen to .:whistle::cool2:
Not sure what you mean. Are you suggesting that maybe this will reduce the audience numbers to a point where they can close R3 down without many complaints, or something else?

I like Mozart, and I quite liked some of the other total immersion efforts, but 12 days is rather long. Can't we have time off for good behaviour?

[Brassbandmaestro]

I am not a great fan of Mozart. Only a very few of his works I like, and then only performed by certain artists, whi IMO, really can brimng his music to life. Thisnhas sure to be a cost cutting exercise by the BBC?

[Bryn]

Can't we have time off for good behaviour?

Good Behaviour and Mozart?! It does not compute!

[StephenO]

If I could only listen to one composer it would be Mozart. However 12 days of nothing but Wolfgang strikes even me as a bit excessive. I felt the same about the previous Bach, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky/Stravinsky fests. I intend to pick and choose, filling in the gaps with Wagner and some Late Romantic indulgences courtesy of my CD player.

[Jonathan]

I quite like Mozart in small doses but fail to understand the logic of 12 solid days worth! As someone else said, what about the other composers who actually have an anniversary in 2011?

(Roll on 2013 for Alkan!)

[StephenO]

I quite like Mozart in small doses but fail to understand the logic of 12 solid days worth! As someone else said, what about the other composers who actually have an anniversary in 2011?
Like Mahler, you mean? :biggrin:

[Jonathan]

Nope, I think we've all had enough Mahler in 2010 (ducks behind a nearby wall...)

[Anna]

I cannot think of anything worse than 12 days of Mozat, and anyone tuning in will surely re-tune to Classical FM and R3 lose so many more listeners ?

Lovely post by tony yyy on the Blog asking if RW had considered a R3 MB about this!

[StephenO]

Nope, I think we've all had enough Mahler in 2010 (ducks behind a nearby wall...)
Enough Mahler? Surely a contradiction in terms!

[Lion-of-Vienna]

Here's a little party trick to impress your musical friends with during the Mozart Fest. Ask them to name any work by Mozart (with K number) and tell them the year in which it was written.

How do you do it? Divide the K number by 25 and round off the answer to the nearest whole number. Add the result to 1766 and hey presto!

eg. Symphony No.29 is K201. 201/25 = 8 (rounded)
8 + 1766 = 1774.

It works within a year for most of Mozart's works.

:star:

[french frank]

Wait a mo"

K 626/25 = 25.04 = 25 + 1766 = 1791 :ok:

Yes, strange Tom poses so many questions on his blog and then we're not allowed to reply ...

Anna - tony yyy is quite the naughtiest poster on the boards, isn't he? :smiley:

[custardfish]

Just popped over here from Roger Wright's blog, and adding my voice to those who regard this as overkill. I hastily admit to not being a fan of Wolfgang - Bassoon Concerto and Requiem are my only exceptions [just because I like bassoons and requiems] - but that's not the point; this would be a bad move for *any* composer.

Even if they did, say, wall-to-wall Mozart from Breakfast to the start of Night Waves, that would be much better so it would afford *some* contextual relief in the evenings.

[Anna]

Anna - tony yyy is quite the naughtiest poster on the boards, isn't he? :smiley:
Indeed he is frenchie, after you of course! :winkeye:

[Roehre]

Here's a little party trick to impress your musical friends with during the Mozart Fest.

It generally works well after KV100, and it is very impressive indeed :cool2:

[Idamante]

Roll on 2013 for Alkan!

he'll be competing with Wagner, Verdi, Britten and Lutislawski - so good luck with that :whistle:

http://www.classical-composers.org/search/year3

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

[QUOTE=Anna;9778]I cannot think of anything worse than 12 days of Mozat, and anyone tuning in will surely re-tune to Classical FM and R3 lose so many more listeners ?

QUOTE]
I shall be dipping in so as to hear new interpretations of one the greatest composer's music. It'll still be much better than CFM.
But I'll give the divertimenti a miss.

[Ian Thumwood]

I thought the Lion of Vienna was Nat Lofthouse and not Mozart? Shame no one ever did a Lofthouse like tackle on Roger Wright!

[Suffolkcoastal]

he'll be competing with Wagner, Verdi, Britten and Lutislawski - so good luck with that :whistle:

http://www.classical-composers.org/search/year3

As well as Hindemith (50th death annivesary) & Corelli. With Wagner, Verdi & Britten it seems 2013 will be opera lovers heaven!

[Roehre]

And what about Hartmann and Poulenc???

[doversoul]

As well as Hindemith (50th death annivesary) & Corelli. With Wagner, Verdi & Britten it seems 2013 will be opera lovers heaven!

Oh no! I survived that opera hype back in spring, just about. But Corelli, ah…


That besides, is this Mozart fest, with the ceaseless invitation to voting for the favourite, telling us something about where R3 is going to go in the coming year? Oh dear…

[pilamenon]

One might have hoped that the New Year would bring some interesting and original proposals to the now rather tired-looking schedule. Instead, one of the laziest possible marketing ideas, 12 whole days of the same composer??? Thank goodness there are so many other relatively non-expensive ways to hear plenty of classical music these days. And I enjoy Mozart from time to time. :sadface:

[Eudaimonia]

Well, perhaps the point is "R3 can do something commercial stations can't".
And then, there's always this survey HMV did in 2008:

"A new survey confirms that Mozart is the nation’s most popular composer"
http://tinyurl.com/23czbqb


And what about HartmannWhich one--Thomas de or Karl Amadeus? The former was born in 1885, the latter 1905. Better hurry! :biggrin:

Thomas de Hartmann
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKknzxK4AdI

Karl Amadeus Hartmann
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsd2ClZAcMI

[doversoul]

Well, perhaps the point is "R3 can do something commercial stations can't".


More like no commercial station would do anything so…mis-focused.

This is beginning to look like yet another Radio3 bashing thread but if anyone from Radio3 is reading this, please don’t think we are accusing you. We are saying all this because we desperately want to see Radio3 being allowed to do what it really can.

[Norfolk Born]

Many, and often deserved, have been the critical comments directed towards Classic FM's 'Hall of Fame' and Tuesday's Specialist Classical Chart on Radio 3. But neither has yet managed to come up with a 'Top Ten' comprised entirely of works by the same composer. Welcome to the BNC (that's the British Narrowcasting Company).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

That besides, is this Mozart fest, with the ceaseless invitation to voting for the favourite, ...
I remember Classic FM doing this in 2006. But they gave a shortlist of their own to choose from, giving you the option (in small print) to choose something else by Mozart. So I chose Symphony no. 9 in C - slow movement. :devil:

[James Wonnacott]

I like Mozart and have many of his works in my CD collection.

If I wanted to hear Mozart from dawn to dusk I wouldn't need the radio and I certainly wouldn't have to listen to the infantile rubbish sent in from "listeners" as to why a piece is their favourite.:steam:

[Lion-of-Vienna]

Shame no one ever did a Lofthouse like tackle on Roger Wright!

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[Suffolkcoastal]

I think this Mozartfest announcement is the reason the R3 messageboards were closed at so short a notice. So that no one logging into the R3 website and glancing at the MBs could see the criticism from regular R3 listeners. RW doesn't like anything negative as he is never ever wrong.

In relation to 2013, K A Hartmann is another of those totally neglected composers on R3, I'll check when I get home on my spreadsheet but I don't he's had more than 2 or 3 works broadcast by R3 in the last couple of years, I expect RW will make sure he gets the 'Holmboe Treatment' i.e. snubbed. As for Poulenc, he's a R3 favourite so will probably have plenty of exposure.

[Daring Tripod]

I feel that these deep immersions in composers such as Tchaikovski, Bach and the like have done nothing to increase my enthusiasm for them. In fact, quite the opposite. Certainly, with Tchaikovsky after that 'stint' I could not hear another note of his music for some time afterwards!

As for Mozart, as he wrote 12 days worth of music there must be lots of "gebrauchsmusik" he wrote, i.e written for occasions and not particularly inspired. Is it is really worth broadcasting everything? What is the philosophy behind these occasions to immerse us in one composer? Have listening figures proved that these are succesful ventures?

[Eudaimonia]

What is the philosophy behind these occasions to immerse us in one composer? I've been pondering that myself: the best I could come up with is "Look at what cool, innovative, educational, daring programming we can do as a public broadcaster-- you'll never see THIS on ClassicFM!" Maybe it serves to set them "apart and above" and make a statement reminding everyone how awesome and unique R3 is. Bleeped if I know...just a thought. heh.


Have listening figures proved that these are successful ventures?If the whole point is to make a statement, it hardly matters, does it? What percentage of the R3 audience leaves the radio on 24/7? How representative do you think we are of the R3 audience at large, anyway? If you want to be polite about it, you might say that here on the message boards, our sample is skewed. If you don't? Well, let's not. :laugh:

Say what you will, Mozartapalooza certainly will be educational!

[mozart79]

as a mozart fan i can't wait for this i realy can't

[Andrew Slater]

I think there's one chink of hope: TTN might not follow, as it's also broadcast by several other organisations. I can't imagine that they would be too happy with 12 nights of solid Mozart (or would they?)

[mozart79]

I think there's one chink of hope: TTN might not follow, as it's also broadcast by several other organisations. I can't imagine that they would be too happy with 12 nights of solid Mozart (or would they?)

that's a good point but i think TTN will go along with the rest of radio 3

[Andrew Slater]

that's a good point but i think TTN will go along with the rest of radio 3

I'm afraid you might be right - I've just checked, and they abandoned TTN during the 'Tchaikovsky Experience' in 2007.

Oh, well, they've lost a listener for 12 days (at least).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm afraid you might be right - I've just checked, and they abandoned TTN during the 'Tchaikovsky Experience' in 2007.

Oh, well, they've lost a listener for 12 days (at least).
It's true. Some of the operas were broadcast during the night, necessitating recording.

But let's not forget they had to broadcast the music of 2 composers during a shorter time-scale.

[Norfolk Born]

Make that 2 listeners....

[Flosshilde]

Make that 2 listeners....

3

The Guardian's view -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/dec/05/mozart-radio-3-january :)

[Idamante]

3

The Guardian's view -
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/dec/05/mozart-radio-3-january :)

Note the following Q&A:

So why play them all? Because classical music lovers are trainspotters

Well, you might be forgiven for thinking so based on this evidence. A Radio 3 own goal I think

[lordmhoram]

I suppose that I am probably one of the few listeners who detests Mozart's music.

You're certainly not the only one! I find that a lot of his music makes me feel physically ill. I also know why: it's his harmony. For me, 90% of the interest in music is the harmony: Mozart with his endless unbroken stretches of chords IV, V and I only just drives me crazy. The only works which attract me are the ones in which he lets his harmonic hair down a bit - the Ave Verum, the Jupiter symphony, etc. (Predictably, the composers that I enjoy tend to be ones who consistently feature interesting harmony: Ravel, Delius, Bax, Brian, Howells, Ireland, and the like.

For me, the Mozart debauch basically means doing without R3 for 12 days.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Mozart's genius was that he could achieve his effects with the simplest of gestures. His harmonies are often straightforward, in the manner of the late 18th century, but he would produce a single chord or modulation which turned the music into a different world. I'm not putting this into words particularly well, but I think there are others who could do so better.

[Norfolk Born]

The irony - presumably lost on RW - is that, while I believe Mozart to be arguably the greatest musical genius who ever graced this planet, and I love most of his output, I shall, like you, be tuned elsewhere for those 12 days.

[doversoul]

The Guardian is asking/giving the readers a chance to vote for/agains Radio3’s Mozart fest. Our chandce to say NO?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/poll/2010/dec/15/poll-radio-three-3-mozart

[kuligin]

Exactly the point, OFACHAP, these marathons are most exasperating when you actually deeply care about the music, its the idea of this wonderful music being treated in this way that angers me. I listened to very little of the Bach extravaganza for the same reason

So the only Mozart I shall listen during this period will be from my own collection!

[subcontrabass]

The Guardian is asking/giving the readers a chance to vote for/agains Radio3’s Mozart fest. Our chandce to say NO?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/poll/2010/dec/15/poll-radio-three-3-mozart

Note that the vote closes tomorrow.

[Suffolkcoastal]

... and also note that the 'No's' are comfortably ahead at the time of posting. I have of course voted against this daft experiment.

[Bax-of-Delights]

2 to 1 against the idea - which is a fairly high percentage of nay-sayers. There are some interesting comments from posters on that site which would appear to show that a fair number will be turning OFF R3 during those 12 days. Not quite the idea is it?
I finhd the concept very strange indeed. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart - are R3 saying that other composers in the intervening centuries just don't measure up to them or worthwhile being given their own "fest" or what precisely?
I am beginning to feel that R3 has seriously - and dangerously - lost its way. If it was piling on the listening figures RW could rightly say that the trajectory was working but the truth is that it isn't and increasingly, I fear, it is losing the "old" core audience.

[Peter Katin]

as much as I love Mozart, the idea of 12 days of his music fills me with horror.



Me too, I'm afraid. Already a Mozart work seems mandatory in most programmes and I really don't know why.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Guardian is asking/giving the readers a chance to vote for/agains Radio3’s Mozart fest. Our chandce to say NO?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/poll/2010/dec/15/poll-radio-three-3-mozart
Thanks for that, doversoul. I've just voted. Mozart is one of my favourites, but this is just plain silly.

[Bax-of-Delights]

There are a core of composers who will make an appearance in nearly every Breakfast/In Tune programme:
Telemann
Scarlatti
Vivaldi
Mozart
Bach
Dvorak/Grieg/Smetna/Brahms: Slavonic Dances/Peer Gynt/Ma Vlast/Hungarian Dances
Chopin.
"Modern" music (i.e. since 1945) is represented by Django or Ella

A disturbingly blinkered output one might argue.

[Bax-of-Delights]

Interestingly, very interestingly, that poll in the Guardian which was 2 to 1 against just 14 hours ago has miraculously become more or less even stevens. Anyone for a conspiracy theory? Such as a directive to staff to get voting for the yes...?

[mercia]

I wonder if Florence will get a look-in in the Mozartfest.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM6qntPpyZ0&feature=related

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Or perhaps the Portsmouth Sinfonia? :)

[mercia]

Or perhaps the Portsmouth Sinfonia? :)

Indeed. Did they do Mozart?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtVDazgT3ko&feature=related

[Bryn]

They didn't even include the opening of K550 in their "Classical Muddley" single (which had the Halleluja Chorus on the flip side).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Must listen to that again. :laugh: I have it on a 45 r.p.m. disc in the loft.

[subcontrabass]

Interestingly, very interestingly, that poll in the Guardian which was 2 to 1 against just 14 hours ago has miraculously become more or less even stevens. Anyone for a conspiracy theory? Such as a directive to staff to get voting for the yes...?

Now shifting back to a "No" majority.

[vinteuil]

Now shifting back to a "No" majority.


that was me, he he he....

[Suffolkcoastal]

I have visions of RW furiously pressing the yes button, shouting I'm right, I'm never wrong!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think we're all a bit like that, aen't we? :erm:

[Suffolkcoastal]

True, but in this case I would say that RW is clearly wrong and perhaps if he did admit this some of us might have a little more respect for him.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Very true, but we won't achieve what we want unless we can convince him that we are all on the same side. (At least, I think we are.)

[Suffolkcoastal]

Yes, you would think and hope that the controller of R3 would be on the side of their listeners, though like many I'm very concerned that either he or someone else high up in the BBC have their own agenda regardless of opinion.

[subcontrabass]

I see that the Guardian poll ended up in an almost dead heat.

[Suffolkcoastal]

I expect RW and his cronies were up until the poll closed trying to make sure that the yes's were at least equal. I expect CFM can't wait for the increase in listerner numbers for the first 12 days of 2011!

[subcontrabass]

There do not seem to be any figures for the total number of votes.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Sounds a bit like a Zimbabwe (or Florida) election.

[antongould]

The 3 of us who listen to Breakfast or more exactly the 2 of us who have time, albeit a little, for "polls" will know the Great Man's great Requiem was the listeners No. 1. Would anyone wish to comment? Or are we having no part of it?

[aeolium]

Well, I don't listen to Breakfast or have any time for polls, but surely some people are aware that much of the Requiem (in the version most commonly heard) was not even written by Mozart. I find it difficult to listen to this work because of the disappointing second half after the wonderful opening movements. I'd almost rather have it played as an uncompleted fragment.

[antongould]

To be fair Sara did point out the dual composition as well as the (hooded?) stranger. But is it clearly documented and accepted who wrote what? Even I, without the "ear" of others on these boards, sense a drop in "quality"!

[salymap]

I mustn't put ideas into anybody's head but how long before one of our intrepid arrangers finds yet another Mozart work, PC or symphony half finished and ready for his 'talents'. Or is it already on the way? Salieri mark 2.

[Bryn]

To be fair Sara did point out the dual composition as well as the (hooded?) stranger. But is it clearly documented and accepted who wrote what? Even I, without the "ear" of others on these boards, sense a drop in "quality"!

"dual composition"? You are too kind to Süssmayr. What about the initial work of Eybler and Freystädtler which Süssmayr happily drew on without properly crediting them?

[Roehre]

I mustn't put ideas into anybody's head but how long before one of our intrepid arrangers finds yet another Mozart work, PC or symphony half finished and ready for his 'talents'. Or is it already on the way? Salieri mark 2.

Monday Jan 3rd the "premiere" of a piano concerto mvt in G (from Nannerl's sketchbook) is broadcast, in Levin's arrangement (not by chance the performer that night I guess) (information taken from the BBC MM which I found in my mail box this morning)

[Eudaimonia]

Here's a little more information on the reasoning behind the series:

Celebrating the genius of Mozart
BBC Radio 3 is about to broadcast every note the Austrian composer wrote. Ivan Hewett asks Radio 3 controller Roger Wright about the Mozart tidal wave to come.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8230247/Celebrating-the-genius-of-Mozart.html


[...] Why do it? Because, says Roger Wright, controller of Radio 3, it brings an oasis of focus and calm to a station that normally has to reflect the busy plurality of cultural life, which now and again is a good thing.

But is Mozart a good choice? Isn’t there an awful lot of music from the early years that is pretty but not much more? “Well, you might say that,” says Wright, “but, as always with these complete composer portraits that Radio 3 does from time to time, we put our editorial stamp on the music. We don’t bundle like with like: we mix early music with late, and we do each composer in a different way.

“The really fascinating thing is how these projects involve the team in difficult choices about performance. Do we want an authentic early-music sound or the more familiar sound of modern instruments?” The answer, as you might expect, is a statesmanlike compromise between the two. [...]

[french frank]

Here's a little more information on the reasoning behind the series:Doesn't quite explain this (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/unhappy-birthday-its-his-250th-anniversary-but-mozart-is-too-chocolateboxy-for-radio-3-520770.html), though, does it? :smiley:

[Bryn]

Doesn't quite explain this (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/unhappy-birthday-its-his-250th-anniversary-but-mozart-is-too-chocolateboxy-for-radio-3-520770.html), though, does it? :smiley:

Oh I think the Mozart fest is just an example of adaptive preference formation on Roger Wright's part reducing his cognitive dissonance regarding that composers output.:whistle:

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

from that Torygraph piece:


says Eisen. “There’s this idea that Mozart picks up the baton from Bach and Handel. But that couldn’t be true, because the circumstances just weren’t right. No one bothered with Bach in Salzburg or Vienna: he was too old-fashioned, and, besides, who would want to listen to his Lutheran chorales in Catholic Austria? No, Mozart learned from the stuff that he heard in Salzburg and on his travels, which was basically Italian.”

really? no lunnun then ....and JC never mind pa?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

it's just an ironic spectacle innit, a detour to jolt our middle aged commodity fetishism and stirrup the commercial flow of packaged music on CFM innit?

is RW a situationist in the closet .... or just a circus proprietor striving to win notice and favour at the New Court .... ?

or a conceptualist event stager ..... like the kids at US Uni stations who broadcast weirdness for hours ....

[Eudaimonia]

Doesn't quite explain this (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/unhappy-birthday-its-his-250th-anniversary-but-mozart-is-too-chocolateboxy-for-radio-3-520770.html), though, does it? :smiley:

Oh dear. Well, I'm sure if you asked him about it, he'd have a slick, super-smooth explanation ready for you that would make everything seem perfectly reasonable and clear. Doesn't he always? Let's see how that might play:

1) no no--any questions of chocolateboxiness have been fully resolved by their bold and creative editorial approach to programming--if you just give it a chance, you'll see how their original and clever juxtapositions encourage everyone to hear Mozart in an entirely new light!

Or maybe...

2) in difficult times, people reach out to music for comfort and consolation just as people have traditionally reached for the chocolate box around the holidays in times of great stress--perhaps the nation could do with a wonderfully consoling aural sugar rush about now.

3) Or perhaps he'd seize the opportunity to display a little of his trademark affable faux-humility, admit he was wrong, shrug charmingly and and say something along the lines of "we all learn and grow".

Haha! Did I miss anything? Oh I do hope someone asks him about it...it ought to be good. :laugh:

[french frank]

Oh dear. Well, I'm sure if you asked him about it, he'd have a slick, super-smooth explanation ready for you that would make everything seem perfectly reasonable and clear. Doesn't he always?Finally, one is d'accord!

Actually, the main reasoning behind these mammoth events is that they're publicity stunts to get some column inches in the press. Easy to do when you also employ some of the journalists who give you a good write-up :winkeye:

[Bryn]

If Radio 3's complere Mozart is as 'complete' as their complete Brandenburgs earlier tonight, there's going to be rather a lot missing. :doh:

[Vile Consort]

from that Torygraph piece:



really? no lunnun then ....and JC never mind pa?

Eh?

No part of that makes any sense to me.

[french frank]

Eh?

No part of that makes any sense to me.May I? 'So he didn't go to London very early in his short life? Wasn't in any way influenced by Johann Christian Bach (leaving Johann Sebastian out of it).'

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If Radio 3's complere Mozart is as 'complete' as their complete Brandenburgs earlier tonight, there's going to be rather a lot missing. :doh:

Go on; tell us what was missing.

[Flosshilde]

Go on; tell us what was missing.

The first movement of one of the Brandenburgs - 3 I think. The presenter did assure us that it had been played in the concert, but there was a fault in the tape.

[Flosshilde]

Anyway, make the most of today - the last time Radio 3 will be on for almost two weeks :sadface:

[Suffolkcoastal]

Perhaps there will be a fault on the mastertape around midday tomorrow that will prevent any Mozart being played for the next 12 days, here's hoping!

[Bryn]

Not the 3rd, that had a rather long improvised violin cadenza in place of the two chords that separate the two composed movements. It was the 6th which lacked its first movement.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Anyway, make the most of today - the last time Radio 3 will be on for almost two weeks :sadface:Not quite. There is the live relay from Vienna in the morning.

[Serial_Apologist]

Would anyone, in the event that they have been given just 12 days to live, like to state what piece of music they would request Radio 3 to play for them?

Only joking, innit...

S-A

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Would anyone, in the event that they have been given just 12 days to live, like to state what piece of music they would request Radio 3 to play for them?

Only joking, innit...

S-A
As an attempt to stave off death, I'd go for "Solo for Double Bass" (1969) by Malcolm Fox. Total playing time 73,000,000,000 years.

[lordmhoram]

Would anyone, in the event that they have been given just 12 days to live, like to state what piece of music they would request Radio 3 to play for them?

No point. They wouldn't play it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

As fellow message boarders will be aware, I do love Mozart's music, despite having reservations about Radio 3's blanket coverage.
There is, however, one major Mozart work that does nothing for me at all - his Symphony no. 35 in D "Haffner". Yet it is the favourite of many.

[kernelbogey]

Oddly, Alpensinfonie, that was the first Mozart symphony that I bought on LP. It had a context for me - and I think such often determines our likes and dislikes.

I've just posted on Simon's thread (If your aren't impressed....) about Mozart to say I'm enjoying the Mozartfest. Wondering which thread to contribute to as the twelve days unfold. I'm not finding it too much, tho it is only day two.

[french frank]

Ironically (given that I think the whole binge is a poor idea), I am likely to be coaxed back to listen during the next 12 days by spotting particular works I'm curious to hear (not ready to settle down to Amadeus just at the moment though). I shall listen to Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots as a curiosity, though isn't it a high profile slot for such a work?

What would be good would be if we were to produce a reasoned critique of the whole exercise afterwards and submit it to RW in the hope that we don't get any more... Worth a go?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's definitely worth having a go, but logistically challenging.

[Martin]

I heard the end of TTN, and a really excellent performance of K131, full of life and style, which brought this early piece to life.

I think that is the thing about the early works to which we wouldn't normally necessarily give lots of attention: if the performances are very good with appropriate style, tempo and articulation, they get a new lease of life, as it were, and become worthwhile hearing.

I heard much more of Breakfast this morning than I would normaly tolerate. The performances were crisp and lucid, and the early style made me think of JC Bach and CPE's pieces. I look forward to reading the full playlist when it appears, and listening again to some of it.

Even Private Passions held my interest this week, because the focus was on the music (supported by the various testimonials of the choosers) rather than the focus being on the celebrities, punctuated by musical illustrations which don't always seem to mean much.

We may yet well find that people's listening is quite different during the Twelve Days than one might have imagined.

[ardcarp]

There is, however, one major Mozart work that does nothing for me at all - his Symphony no. 35 in D "Haffner".

Oh dear, EA, I'm conducting the very same in Feb. Can you let me know what you don't like about it so that I can exorcise the demons by then?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

OK, when I hear the Menuetto, it sounds too much like the smae for Symphony no. 39, but not nearly so good. The Finale reminds me of the finale of Haydn 104, but not so good. The first movement does nothing for me - very unusual for a Mozart Symphony. Only the slow movement really lives up to Mozart's highest standards, but even that is tinged with memories of "Raising the Wind" with members of the "Carry On" team. :laugh:

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

As a follow-up, I've just been listening to the Haffner Symphony on Radio 3. I did so in the hope I would grow to love it, but it was with the Ulster Orchestra, trying to be HIP. So we had the whiny, thin string sound, played without vibrato, simply because Mozart's father didn't like it to be overused. (Anyway, I always had the impresseion that Mozart didn't take too much notice of his father.)
Give me Beecham, Marriner, Bohm, Furtwangler, Bernstein and Krips in Mozart any day.

[ardcarp]

OK, when I hear the Menuetto, it sounds too much like the smae for Symphony no. 39, but not nearly so good. The Finale reminds me of the finale of Haydn 104, but not so good. The first movement does nothing for me - very unusual for a Mozart Symphony. Only the slow movement really lives up to Mozart's highest standards, but even that is tinged with memories of "Raising the Wind" with members of the "Carry On" team.

Oh dear, now I've got excess baggage. Oh well, I did ask for it. I'm going to abstain from R3 anyway until the fat lady sings...apart from the CE slot, maybe.

[DracoM]

Driving me to CFM. How serious is that?

[Frances_iom]

Driving me to CFM. How serious is that?

have you sampled the post 10pm programme - the start of the R3 phone in - remember how the evening concert was wrecked during a similar RW special occasion (the 'listen up') and never recovered

[BetweenTheStaves]

I like Mozart. I like Mozart quite a lot. I can listen to Mozart for a few hours. At a time.

So I gave the Mozart-fest a go. I was hoping to hear a few gems. Maybe I was unlucky or bad timing on my part.

My conclusion.....wall to wall Mozart 24/7 for however long it's going to take..... is too much. Radio 3 now switched off for the duration.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I did want to listen to Mozart, so I switched off Radio 3 and listened to a CD of the Mozart I wanted to listen to...

[Stillhomewardbound]

Wanted some quite time radio when I go home late last night and switched to the phone-in programme.

I soon switched off again. I have no hesitation is saying that it was quite ghastly with a real local radio naffness about it.

Worse still, judging by a trailer this morning, they're going to keep this up throughout the week.

Pathetic.

[Martin]

A very good Classical Collection this morning, with Roy Goodman talking about differences in performance practice, well illustrated by the musical illustrations. A significant improvement on the usual format and content.

I think the trickthis week is not to try and listen to everything, which would be a bit like reading a whole encyclopedia, but focus on a selection of worthwhile programmes which might repay further listening.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The interesting thing is there appears to be more discussion about actual programmes on Radio 3 than usual.

[Stillhomewardbound]

Tonight on 'Play Mozart 4 Me' ...

If you have a very poorly realitive or friend in hopsital let us know which favourite Mozart track we can play them ...

Is there a particular Mozart piece that your dog likes to whine to, tell us and we can play it for you and your best friend ...

When you're shopping in the supermarket or in a hotel lift what are your favourite muzak renditions of Mozart. Tell us also your favourite Richard Clayderman, James Last and/or Gary Lovini performances ...

What would be the best piece of Mozart you'd like to hear performed at your funeral ...

Or, if you just want to make new friends on the radio you can call Radio 3 chatback. Yes, call Chatback and talk to other Mozart lovers ... speak to them for hours and exchange your memories of Wolfie and tell them about your latest bunion operation. Call now - Radio 3 CHatback - Make new friends on the Radio!!

[maestro267]

I've avoided it and shall continue to avoid R3 for the entire duration of this Mozart event. Mozart (and the Classical period in general) is too reserved for my liking. I rarely listen to any music before Beethoven. But that's just me. Thankfully I've got plenty of CDs to keep me occupied until the 13th.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

:laugh: Brilliant!

[Simon]

You can mock, you know - and SHB's jest above is little short of brilliant! - and I tend to agree with some of the negative comments - but although I've not had it on much, I must say that when I have listened I've enjoyed almost all I've heard. The piano concerti have been very excellent - Levin's programme last night was superb - and of course the good Donald's reviews have been first-class as ever.

It's the presentation, as so many of you say, rather than the music choices...

[Simon]

But I've just heard that trail for SMP's "play Mozart for me" . Creepy or what? {{{shiver}}}

[Frances_iom]

But I've just heard that trail for SMP's "play Mozart for me" . Creepy or what?
the whole of the trails have been totally off putting, has someone given RW a new jingle machine as it seems to be used in much the same way that a 3 year old uses a toy trumpet - noise at the most inappropriate places - however as you say the presentation for some sections have for me wrecked any enjoyment of the content - after 3 days I already feel sated and now tend to switch off and return to cds

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Listening to Tuesday's "In Tune" has been a complete turn-off. Good piano playing in the bleeding chunks of Mozart piano concertos, ruined by self-conscious politically correct string playing, rather like a drawn-out accupuncture session - made much worse by yet more requests to text into the programme. I'm beginning they're feeling insecure and need constance reassurance.

[kernelbogey]

But congratulations, EA, on yr 1002nd post!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But congratulations, EA, on yr 1002nd post!

Yup. Thanks! Still not a "hero member" though. :)

[PatrickOD]

Divertimento in D K136 now playing. Is it not a gem?

Another to watch out for: Donald Macleod tomorrow finishes withAdagio in B minor K540,Alfred Brendel.

[StephenO]

But I've just heard that trail for SMP's "play Mozart for me" . Creepy or what? {{{shiver}}}
The former definitely! Horribly reminiscent of hospital radio. There have been a number of real gems so far, though - a hugely enjoyable Private Passions, Welser-Most's Don Giovanni and Donald Macleod at his inimitable best being amongst the highlights for me.

[Peter Hayes]

I am loving the Mozart fest. And what I particularly like is that they have not justified it with references to birthdays or anything. They have just done it anyway. I am also excited that the general tone of Radio 3 sounds increasingly like Classic FM, which I hope means that they will be playing less modern classical music.

PS thanks for setting this forum up, I was most disappointed to go to the official messageboard and find that it had vanished.

[mikerotheatrenestr0y]

Leon Macawley this morning was beautiful, especially in K.331. It was as though he was actually listening and responding as he played, phrasing each repeated figure slightly differently, without ever exaggerating.

[3rd Viennese School]

Wouldn't you just DIE without Mozart!!??

Well, no.

3VS

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

We are told that in the 12 days of wall-to-wall Mozart, we shall hear every work. Looking at Radio Times, I can see a number of omissions. Unless, for some reason, the unnumbered symphonies and those numbered out of sequence (42 - 52) are all being played in request programmes. Also, there should be the recitative Mozart wrote for his version of Handel's Messiah - definitely pure Mozart and rather beautiful.

[Flosshilde]

Not quite half-way through & I'm getting Radio3 withdrawl symptoms

[Flosshilde]

I am also excited that the general tone of Radio 3 sounds increasingly like Classic FM, which I hope means that they will be playing less modern classical music.

:yikes:

If you don't like Radio3, & prefer Classic FM, why don't you simply stick to the latter, rather than wish for two similar stations?

[Bryn]

:yikes:

If you don't like Radio3, & prefer Classic FM, why don't you simply stick to the latter, rather than wish for two similar stations?

I took Peter Hayes's comment to be ironic in intent. Surely it could not be otherwise interpreted? :whistle:

[Flosshilde]

Well, possibly, Bryn, except for the comment about modern classical music, which gave it a more genuine air.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I see Bernstein's VPO Mozart 40th is to be played on Tuesday, 11th January. Very good. I like Bernstein's Mozart. But broadcasting the same performance TWICE on the same day. What on earth is going on?

[StephenO]

Wouldn't you just DIE without Mozart!!??

Well, no.
Well, yes - but preferably Mozart interspersed with Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner, Mahler, Sibelius, Shostakovich, etc, variety being, of course, the spice of life. I am enjoying the Mozart Fest, though, and don't think there's another composer I could listen to for twelve days.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Well, possibly, Bryn, except for the comment about modern classical music, which gave it a more genuine air.I think Peter Hayes' views should be respected, even though many may well disagree. All new members deserve a friendly welcome.

[Peter Hayes]

I feel torn about it. I really do not like modern classical music. But I like commentary to be serious and not to descend into dedications to relatives and endless soupy self-promotions as is now happening on Radio 3. My ideal is some of the local classical music stations I used to listen to when in the USA: they were scholarly in tone, but played almost entirely beautiful classical music and rarely assaulted the ears of their audience with the dreadful mistakes of the twentieth century.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But do you dislike all modern music? Is there a cut-off point where you find it acceptable?

[Peter Hayes]

Not all of it of course, only the envelope pushing stuff. I think my cut off date is about 1907 when Schoenberg started to go bad.

On another topic--Mozart, Alfred Brendel is playing Mozart's C minor piano sonata now, and while generally jolly good, I think he rather underplayed the drama of the triplets at the end of the first movement.

[Flosshilde]

I think Peter Hayes' views should be respected, even though many may well disagree. All new members deserve a friendly welcome.


I really do not like modern classical music. .... dreadful mistakes of the twentieth century.

I really can't find anything to 'respect' in the above comment. We all have music we are passionate about, and music we abhor. But I wouldn't dream of calling the latter 'dreadful mistakes'. To do so implys a level of disrespect for the composers & those who enjoy playing it & listening to it.

& I don't think my original question expressed any disrespect. Why would you want two stations to be carbon copies, rather than have variety & choice?

[Suffolkcoastal]

Nor would I call all 20th century composers mistakes, I personally find this shall we say, to be rather an unfortunate attitude to take. Almost all of my favourite composers are 20th century ones: Vaughan Williams, Holst, Bax, Rubbra, Walton, Britten, Martinu, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok, Holmboe, Rautavaara, Harris, Piston, Diamond, Copland, Barber, Hanson, Tubin, even Sibelius, Rachmaninov Elgar and Puccini composed most of their mature works in the 20th century. The composers I listed often wrote highly beautiful and moving music, I wouldn't say that many of their works are 'difficult' in any way at all. I can understand that some composers can be 'difficult' and very demanding to listen too and even I don't particularly all contemporary music by any means, but to dismiss all of 20th century music as a 'dreadful mistake' is highly disrespectful to the composers and those who enjoy their music. I do grant you that there are some rather bad composers and the odd one or two that I find truly dreadful, but you'll find examples of these in all periods of music history.

[Peter Hayes]

I think there is a huge gulf between Elgar, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev (on a good day) and the likes of Stravinsky. As for respect, if it was a case of mutual tolerance and accomodation, I would agree that one should be respectful and not use words like dreadful, but rather think live and let live eg. there are various kinds of non-western music that I have nothing against although they do not appeal to me. But modern classical music is different, because its exponents claim to be the successors of Beethoven etc when in fact they are creating something completely different, and they have become powerful and have largely choked off efforts to write beautiful classical music.

[Bryn]

I'm more conviced than ever that this is just a rather sub-standard attempt at a wind-up. Surely no newcomer would start off by expressing genuinely held views quite so crass? Oh, and 1907, eh? A year before Syd's favourite interstellar dust cloud from Siberia. Stravnsky was, of course, the air to Tchaikovsky's muse, Schoenberg to Brahms's, and Webern to Mozart's and Schubert's. Stockhausen? Well his muse fell from the Dog Star, possibly brought here in the 'Tunguska event'. There was another similar, though somewhat less powerful such event on the 25th September 2002. I wonder what changes to music that brought about?

[french frank]

Bryn

"Always assume good faith."

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm not trying to justify Peter Hayes' opinions, which I don't agree with, but it's disappointing when one messageboarder turns on another over what is nothing more than a personal perception. It's a bit like religious intolerance; if someone is thought to be wrong, why is it necessary to react with insults?

Ah, I've just seen ff's wise post, written while I was typing furiously...

[doversoul]

I'm more conviced than ever that this is just a rather sub-standard attempt at a wind-up. Surely no newcomer would start off by expressing genuinely held views quite so crass?

I am inclined to agree with Bryn

Re: I am also excited that the general tone of Radio 3 sounds increasingly like Classic FM, (posted by Peter Hayes)

Can this be anything other than wind-up, especially the poster claims to know the old Radio3 MBs?

[Chris Newman]

http://www.holamun2.com/news/as-seen-on-myspace-rob-g

[Bryn]

http://www.holamun2.com/news/as-seen-on-myspace-rob-g

Hmm, I wonder ... ? No, surely not?

[Bryn]

Bryn

"Always assume good faith."

In this instance, frenchie, such an assumption would, I feel, be quite unwarranted. It's not a simple expression of dislike for certain music. It goes well beyond that when PH make's such ridiculous claims against the inheritors of Tchaikovsky's, Brahms's, Mozart's and Schubert's, etc's muse. I just do not accept that this is just a lazy listener, which is what taking such expressions as if made in good faith would imply.

[doversoul]

I am also excited that the general tone of Radio 3 sounds increasingly like Classic FM,

But I like commentary to be serious and not to descend into dedications to relatives and endless soupy self-promotions as is now happening on Radio 3. My ideal is some of the local classical music stations I used to listen to when in the USA: they were scholarly in tone

Would you have said that these two posts are by the same person? I also find the way PH joined the Forum rather, well, unusual as a newcomer considering the general views that had been expressed on this particular thread.

[Richard Tarleton]

To change the subject for a moment - I greatly enjoyed Suzy Klein's evening with Sir Neville Marriner - he was extremely entertaining and I thought Suzy struck just the right note throughout. I liked the way she tactfully moved on to the record when he was riffling noisily through his papers next to the microphone looking for something he'd said about the blessed Bernard Haitink. Lovely choices too - Grumiaux/Davis, and an ethereally beautiful rendition of the clarinet concerto with Andrew M. The slowest slow movement I've heard? Fabulous tone.

Incidentally we're getting - is it the third ? - version of the clarinet concerto this pm. I think Andrew Marriner's performance would have been a good place to leave it, given how much there is to get through.

[Norfolk Born]

Wanted some quite time radio when I go home late last night and switched to the phone-in programme.

I soon switched off again. I have no hesitation is saying that it was quite ghastly with a real local radio naffness about it.

Worse still, judging by a trailer this morning, they're going to keep this up throughout the week.

Pathetic.

On the other hand, it does offer you a second chance to hear, say, all of the last movement of the 'Jupiter' symphony if you like your Mozart in easily digestible chunks and you happened to miss CfM's lunchtime request programme. ...surely this is a fine example of the BBC fulfilling its public service remit! :erm:

[Caliban]

By and large I am enjoying the Mozart Fest - during the working week I like to listen to R3 in the morning and in the evening. The standard schedule is bedevilled by the bleeding little gobbets of breakfast, and by the nattering of Rafferty and the cultural chatter and esoteric rock etc in the evening when I would rather be listening to classical music. Great to be spared those (ditto by Words and Music at 5pm over Christmas - hurrah!).

Personally the over-exposed opera and the second rate church music have me reaching for the off button, but apart from that vocal stuff, it is all either delightful (piano concertos and symphonies) or inoffensive (the rest) and yes, the discussions with e.g. Marriner are also very welcome.

So by and large - :ok:

[3rd Viennese School]

Dont get me wrong. I like some Mozart. eg. symphony no.25 (who doesn't?) ,symphony no.38 (kareoke version), Divertomento no.1 in C for wind, Haffner serenade mvt 1 and 3 (the G minor minuet! Better than symphony no.40!).
But for 12 days!? Last night P on 3 was piano recital stuff so I turned off. If it had been a few symphonies I would have listened.

Die hard fans should play the entire 5 Divertomentos for wind, all 5 mvts each in C, and see how far they get before enough is enough!
3VS

[Peter Hayes]

Second rate church music? The Vespers K399 at 4pm yesterday were out of this world!
It was Mozart's contemporaries who were second rate, but who were also better connected and better placed than he was. It is not always those who compose the best music who win, but those with the most power. In the long run Mozart's music displaced them becuase it was realised that it was far more beautiful. It is unfortuante that today beauty is no longer the standard by which modern classical music is judged.

[Caliban]

Second rate church music? The Vespers K399 at 4pm yesterday were out of this world!


Sadly was working at 4pm yesterday - yes I don't mean all his choral stuff... I remember K317 cured a hangover once when I heard it at the morning service in King's Chapel Cambridge one Sunday - terrific stuff. Some seems to me to be sub-standard though...

[Richard Tarleton]

Second rate church music? The Vespers K399 at 4pm yesterday were out of this world!
It was Mozart's contemporaries who were second rate, but who were also better connected and better placed than he was. It is not always those who compose the best music who win, but those with the most power. In the long run Mozart's music displaced them becuase it was realised that it was far more beautiful. It is unfortuante that today beauty is no longer the standard by which modern classical music is judged.

Hi Peter - please can you define beauty, for the purposes of this discussion? Thanks, richard

[Suffolkcoastal]

I'm now beginning to think Peter's posts are a bit of a wind up Richard. The conception of beauty of course depends on the person. I personally think the majority of Mozart's choral works are well written but with a couple of exceptions, nothing special. For me FJ Haydn's choral music is far more interesting and more to my taste and even his brother Michael I find more stimulating in the choral field.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm now beginning to think Peter's posts are a bit of a wind up Richard... I'm beginning to think the same, but it might be better to simply ignore such posts rather getting into mud-slinging.
The same could be said for threads whose sole purpose is to advertise community radio stations in Cheshire, or those on a deceased board promoting a particular composer's string quartet.

[Caliban]

I personally think the majority of Mozart's choral works are well written but with a couple of exceptions, nothing special. For me FJ Haydn's choral music is far more interesting and more to my taste...

Totally agreed. Apart from those exceptions, the pieces sound to me to be dutiful rather than beautiful - as if his heart wasn't totally in it. But then, to my ears, nothing he wrote comes close to the piano concertos (and the last movement of the Jupiter).

Adds: and some of the key chamber pieces... esp involving wind instruments in various capacities.

[Peter Hayes]

Hi Peter - please can you define beauty, for the purposes of this discussion? Thanks, richard

It is hard question I wonder if a defienition could be something like, beauty: wanting to conncect with something outside yourself, and feeling a sense at once of losing yourself in soemthing bigger, and connecting with your better feelings?

We must all feel roguhly the same thing when we hear Mozarts most beautiful work, so I wonder how others would descirbe it?

[Suffolkcoastal]

I agree with you Caliban, certainly for me it is also the Piano Concertos that I enjoy most of all, then a handful of the symphonies, some of the Piano Sonatas a couple of the other concertos, some of the chamber works and some of the operas. I consider some of the above works among the great masterpieces of music, but a lot of Mozart's other music is no better than and even sometimes not as good as the works of many his contemporaries. The trouble is with the notable exception of FJ Haydn the music of Mozart's contemporaries is still largely overlooked in both the concert hall and on R3. R3 missed a perfect opportunity to play the music of Mozart's contemporaries alongside his works during this 12 day series, had they have done this I for one would have tuned in out of interest, though I know and have recordings of the music quite a lot of composers of the 1750-1800 period there would have been so much I could still have learn't, sadly R3 goes for the easy option so typical of RW.

[Richard Tarleton]

Peter, I'd go for a definition along the lines of: an aesthetic, cultural or moral construct, applied to things, places, people, ideas, etc. . It does not have an objective existence, ideas of what constitutes it vary over time, and I'm not sure that I recognise it from your definition. I was hoping you could deconstruct it a bit more technically for us - maybe in relation to musical theory.

An example from another field: most of us today would regard the Alps as beautiful. Mozart's near contemporary Edward Gibbon, en route to Rome, kept the blinds of his carriage closed, we are told, to protect him from the hideous spectacle of the unruly mountains - the landscape equivalent of dissonance, if you like. The 18th century loved order. A generation or two later, reflected by Byron, Berlioz, Turner, Friedrich etc., mountains were fashionable and beautiful.

Anyway - the MB is probably not the place for a full-blown discussion of musical aesthetic theory, I was just wondering what you meant. Now I think I know. Most would agree about Mozart - I was startled by your denial of beauty in the 20th century.

[Flosshilde]

Richard, I think there could be objective definitions (although I'm not sure if that's the best term) of beauty, especially in art & architecture. The 'golden section' (http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/GoldenSection.htm & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio) has been used since classical antiquity to give harmony & balance to buildings and paintings, & Hogarth defined the the 'line of beauty' as the s-curve. However, where I think Peter goes wrong is to believe that 'beauty' is the only acceptable aesthetic ideal or standard. As your example of the alps shows, in the late 18th centrury & 19th century people developed a taste for the sublime, & in the later 19th century developed a taste for the picturesque.

In addition, what we might now call 'beautiful' in late 18th century music was viewed (or heard) with horror by contemporary audiences. I would imagine that some of Mozart's music could fall into this category, & certainly some of Haydn's & Beethoven's output.

[Flosshilde]

Strange - when I typed my post above the end of the first line read "The 'golden section'", but when I posted "section" had disappeared. When I tried to edit it "section" was definitely there, so I saved it without changing it - but "section" had gone again!

[Chris Newman]

Caliban,
I agree that most of Mozart's chorus writing is dutiful. It does not have the elements of inspired beauty and harmonic surprise that leap at you in the concerti, much of the chamber music and many of the symphonies. Haydn's religious music knocks spots of Mozart's. Mozart's late operas and even early ones like Die Entfuhrung have stunning music until the chorus comes in where you can feel him thinking "Oh, bother! This company has a chorus. I better give them something to do." True, he does make real efforts with Magic Flute but he just goes through the motions in Figaro and even adapts a Figaro number for Don Giovanni. The Entfuhrung choruses are jolly and exciting but just act as a couple of curtain closers. Those in Figaro and Don Giovanni seem to be there to keep the opera staff employed.

[StephenO]

Strange - when I typed my post above the end of the first line read "The 'golden section'", but when I posted "section" had disappeared. When I tried to edit it "section" was definitely there, so I saved it without changing it - but "section" had gone again!
The opposite thing happened to me on a different thread. I typed in "Brahms" but when I posted it apeared as "Brahms Brahms". There was only one Brahms there when I went to edit it, though, and, when I deleted that, there was no Brahms at all! It's now back to "Brahms Brahms".

[Peter Hayes]

I think that there must be an objective element to beauty, it is shared experience of it in Mozart's music that is the basis of his fame. As people across the world love Mozart, this could hardly be culturally conditioned. In classical music I do think that beauty is its superlative achievement so that any form of music that is not beautiful cannot lay claim to continue the classical tradition. And I think too that at least the early modern classical compoers would hae agreed with me and claimed (quite wrongly in my view) that their music was beautiful.

[doversoul]

Well, we are half way through…

Two things are making this wall-to-wall Mozart broadcast bearable for me: the extended participation of the guests has been interesting; and there have been more than usual number of performances on the fortepiano which has been most enjoyable.

But surely Radio3 can do both without resorting to the extreme?

[3rd Viennese School]

I listened to symphony no.36 yesterday so it was almost like a real concert. Havent heard it for yonks. Its not bad. Must be his longest symphony at that point.
Don't know why they repeated the minuet in the recap though! The trio is unusually good. They repeated the 2nd half of the finale. I didnt know that he specified a repeat here. Used to get scores in Chatham library but the building collapsed and they moved it.

Anyway, opera tonight so Im staying well away from the radio!
3VS

[kernelbogey]

I've had Sarah Walker on in the background while doing other things. Stopped in my tracks by what her guest Paul Robertson was saying firstly about the G minor quintet and then by what he said about the healing power of music. Quite astonishing - a friend lifted out of coma by being played Mozart. Must listen to this again on iPlayer to catch the bits I missed and possibly also his documentary from earlier in the Fest.

[french frank]

Stopped in my tracks by what her guest Paul Robertson was saying firstly about the G minor quintet and then by what he said about the healing power of music.He also presented Desperately seeking Mozart (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b007g52h/Sunday_Feature_Desperately_Seeking_Mozart/) last Sunday.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Don't know why they repeated the minuet in the recap though! The trio is unusually good. 3VS

It was Christopher Hogwood who started this trend - on the basis that "it doesn't say 'don't'", which is a technical argument rather than a musical one.

[kernelbogey]

Yes, FF, meant that by 'his documentary', but thanks.

My experience of this 'feast' is that sometimes it gets a bit samey - have heard some early-ish divertimenti which began to pall after a while; there are frustrating numbers of single movements at peak listening (and other) times; and some aspects like the repeated reminders about ' the genius of M' are irritating. But on the whole I feel positive about the venture.

So far I've not noticed a comment on the boards about the enormous amount of research, preparation and organisation that has gone into it. No other radio station could, I guess, have attempted something this ambitious.

[Martin]

Agreed, kb, it's been put together really well. I've particularly enjoyed Classsical Collection with the interesting guests who have something pertinent and illuminating to say.

The early works have stood up quite well, I've thought, especially when mingled with the mature pieces. You can see where he's come from, and they sound as good as early Haydn or JC Bach and others in that style. Not to be dismissed too quickly.

Notwithstanding that, if anyone sets up the Society for the Prevention of Minuets, I may well subscribe. :biggrin:

[french frank]

Yes, FF, meant that by 'his documentary', but thanks.Not at all :smiley: (Note to self: 'Always read to the end of the question.'

[kernelbogey]

Martin - on checking, I find it was Divertimenti K203 and K204 that palled for me - albeit heard on TTN very early in the morning when drifting in and out of sleep. I don't dismiss them, but perhaps would find them more interesting if the context were JH, JCB, CPEB et al rather than twelve days of WAM!

[aeolium]

One thing I find surprising, looking at the schedules and playlists, is the amount of work repetition there is. For instance (just in the last few days) 2 complete performances of the Hunt quartet plus another performance of the 1st movement; at least 2 complete performances of the clarinet concerto, 2 of the violin concerto no 5, 2 in successive days of the G major piano concerto K453, today the 1st movement of the Paris symphony followed by a complete performance a couple of hours later. And this is not taking into account any repetition in the evening request programmes. Surely it would have been possible to devise a schedule that minimised repetition, especially when there is already so much Mozart scheduled.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Looking at how it has been put together, it seems to have been competently done roughly in a way that I would have expected but nothing remarkable. I expect it has been planned for a couple of years and keeping to one composer makes it much easier to organise than say surveying the works of Mozart contemporaries alongside that of Mozart. That would have been a more ambitious and somewhat more illuminating idea and more of what I would have expected from R3. Anyway it it will all be over by this time next week and we'll be back to the regular diet of plenty more Mozart, plus La Mer, La Valse, Slavonic & Hungarian Dances etc ..... well back to the ipod!

[Panjandrum]

One thing I find surprising, looking at the schedules and playlists, is the amount of work repetition there is. For instance (just in the last few days) 2 complete performances of the Hunt quartet plus another performance of the 1st movement; at least 2 complete performances of the clarinet concerto, 2 of the violin concerto no 5, 2 in successive days of the G major piano concerto K453, today the 1st movement of the Paris symphony followed by a complete performance a couple of hours later. And this is not taking into account any repetition in the evening request programmes. Surely it would have been possible to devise a schedule that minimised repetition, especially when there is already so much Mozart scheduled.

Aeolium, I think the point is that without repetition, the Mozartfest would not have lasted 12 days. :winkeye:

By my reckoning, 700 works at an average of, say 20 minutes (including introductions etc), equates to 230 hours, or something just under 10 full days. of course, some might argue that 10 days would be more than sufficient.

[kernelbogey]

I've noticed that in some cases (eg Gran Partita) some duplications represent differing instrumentation. Perhaps also true of K453 (fortepiano/modern piano?). I agree about the single movement duplications but assume these are to make a particular historical/musical point in that day's theme, and/or for outreach purposes as they are well known or considered more accessible.

[Bryn]

One thing I find surprising, looking at the schedules and playlists, is the amount of work repetition there is. For instance (just in the last few days) 2 complete performances of the Hunt quartet plus another performance of the 1st movement; at least 2 complete performances of the clarinet concerto, 2 of the violin concerto no 5, 2 in successive days of the G major piano concerto K453, today the 1st movement of the Paris symphony followed by a complete performance a couple of hours later. And this is not taking into account any repetition in the evening request programmes. Surely it would have been possible to devise a schedule that minimised repetition, especially when there is already so much Mozart scheduled.

I haven't noticed any repition during The Genius of Mozart so far. I have heard very different performances of the same work, but not noticed any repetition as yet.

[Caliban]

I see tomorrow is Opera Day :yikes:

Very glad I recorded the 3 hour prog the other night when Ms Klein and Mr Plaistow discussed and played recordings of piano performances... :cool2: That will provide ample Saturday listening.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Tuesday, 11th:
2 x VPO Bernstein Symphony no. 40

[aeolium]

I haven't noticed any repition during The Genius of Mozart so far. I have heard very different performances of the same work, but not noticed any repetition as yet.

Fair enough - I should have said multiple performances of the same work. I suppose the point is that when the complete works of a very prolific composer are being broadcast, is it a good thing to have those multiple performances (particularly of works, like the Clarinet Concerto, which are already very frequently broadcast)?

[Pianorak]

Did anyone listen to the Mozart piano sonata in a minor KV 310 this morning? Still cross with Ms Pires who managed to cancel each and every recital for which I had booked over the years - but her playing was superb and I am almost minded to forgive her. :winkeye:

[3rd Viennese School]

Maybe they could play other stuff. Like Tchaikovsky Suite no.4 Mozartina. etc.
And Schnittke Mozart a la Haydn. etc.

Etc.
3VS

"We are all but cows looking over a gate for half an hour"

[mikerotheatrenestr0y]

As I said before, in quite the wrong place, when I was only a onefer, I don't dread turning on for Wolfi, the way I did for JSB and Ludo, both of whom are all so terribly serious and earnest. Research and preparation? Up to a point. The Family letters fill four fat volumes [and I mean fat - I wish I'd nicked 'em when I took early retirement from Southampton University, cos I can't believe any other bugger will have got them out in the past 10 years] and, as one finds whenever they are read [quite well, apart from nobody telling them about real German pronunciation - and incidentally, did anyone else cringe at Peter Schreier's impersonation of an old woman in Die Alte? The poor fellow is from Saxony, and it really showed, when I was expecting a proper Austrian accent - Tirol or Viennese, not a worry, even Styrian, like Arnie - it's like having a Scottish song sung in Brummie!] they are FASCINATING!

So - why did nobody feel it was necessary to play the biographical card with Ludo or JSB??? [I recall that PIT had the completist treatment a few years ago, but it was only a weekend or so, probably with The Sorceress at 3 am, so it didn't impinge.] Nor did anyone explore different fine performances - there was no 48 with each one of the 96 played by someone different [you'd have to make sure you had the same type of instrument for each pair, and in tune, but otherwise...] So, is this progress, or dilution? Less wall-to-wall music and more thought about it, with some definitely interesting talk. [BTW, haven't both 622s been on modern standard clarinets, and not on Fred Bassett, the one with the long trailing ears?] As for the minuets - think of them as between-course sorbets - ear-cleaners. And nobody's produced the country-dance cards yet...

[amateur51]

While searching on-line for something else, I came across this set of Mozart-focussed interviews with musicians via the European Broadcasting Union:

http://www.ebu.ch/en/radio/euroradio_classics/musicora/

[Bryn]

... JSB and Ludo, both of whom are all so terribly serious and earnest. ...
Only when played very badly. Beethoven, like his mentor, Haydn, was a great musical humourist, and Back had rather more than his moments, too.

[Flosshilde]

surveying the works of Mozart contemporaries alongside that of Mozart. That would have been a more ambitious and somewhat more illuminating idea and more of what I would have expected from R3.

Agreed - that would have been very illuminating, & possibly have indicated the general untruthfulness of Peter Hayes' assertion that Mozart's contempraries were all second rate. It's very difficult to know if that is true or not when one doesn't hear their music very often (or at all).

[kernelbogey]

.... the general untruthfulness of [the] assertion that Mozart's contempraries were all second rate. It's very difficult to know if that is true or not when one doesn't hear their music very often (or at all).

I think that Mozart was put on a pedestal in the 1950s and '60s when much less was known about his contemporaries, and much much less of their music played and recorded. He hasn't altogether fallen off that pedestal, which is right, because of the major works: but I think he was deified in that period to the detriment of contemporaries. Maybe he stands head and shoulders above them, but I think we were brought up to think he was head and body well above them, and they had to look up even to his feet. When I do hear others from that era (who had heard any Salieri before Schaffer's play?) I'm struck by their quality.

[mikerotheatrenestr0y]

So, what's the shopping list? Cecilia Bartoli has a CD of Salieri arias; Jaroussky has that CD of JC Bach; there are the Dittersdorf symphonies after Ovid; there's Myslivicek; there are the international Czechs - Rosetti, Stich, the Stamitz family; there's Ignaz Pleyel, whose works on Naxos are very tuneful; there's those people like Triebensee who did wind-band arrangements of the greatest hits. JCB's instrumental music can be ravishingly tuneful and has most inventive combinations - there's a lot of it with Halstead on CPO. Not to forget JM Kraus, the Mozart of the North - and that's only the ones in the Austro-German area that I can think of, leaving out CPE Bach [not really a contemporary?] and the French and Italians and Spanish and Portuguese...

However, my impression [and I don't drop names I haven't listened to, and in many cases own] is that, while they all use the same little formulae, Wolfi does something different with them - even if it's only taking them seriously, and making them into real questions and answers instead of just call and response. I'm not sure he does it all the time - but because he does it sometimes we tend to listen to the rest of it as if were also that profound. And maybe he played it that way...

[I'd be up for a proper exploration of Danzi, Krommer and Reicha wind-music, and a detailed comparison with Mozart's... but it's not going to happen, is it?]

[kernelbogey]

[I'd be up for a proper exploration of Danzi, Krommer and Reicha wind-music, and a detailed comparison with Mozart's... but it's not going to happen, is it?]

Well why not suggest these names to Composer of the Week? What you have in mind is the sort of thing Donald M does superbly. (And I have a hunch that CoW may well have covered some of them.) Thanks for the list, btw: I know some music by many, but not all, of them!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

(who had heard any Salieri before Schaffer's play?)
He was probably best known through the Rimski-Korsakov opera "Mozart and Salieri" which was based on the same unsupportable rumour as "Amadeus".

[kernelbogey]

My point, rather, EA, was that we didn't hear any of the music of Salieri or, as I recall, of any of the other contemporaries mentioned a couple of posts back, in the 50s and 60s - but correct me if I'm mistaken about that.

[subcontrabass]

He was probably best known through the Rimski-Korsakov opera "Mozart and Salieri" which was based on the same unsupportable rumour as "Amadeus".

We can pass the blame further back to Pushkin's verse drama of 1830 which supplied the plot and much of the libretto for the opera.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

KB, I'm quite sure that you're right. One of the problems of "Amadeus" is that it makes the situation even worse, but making him appear barely competent as a composer, whereas he has been shown, in recent years, to be rather good. Put it this way: I would be extremely proud to have composed much of Salieri's music.

[Flosshilde]

I think Mozart's papa was tireless in promoting him as a child genius & touting him round the courts etc of Europe; there was also the fact that he died young, & the stiry that he was buried in a pauper's grave. It all contributed to the myth of the neglected genius. If his contemporaries had had similar opportunities (if dying young can be called an opportunity :erm:) they might have been as well known as Mozart was/is.

[aeolium]

Well, I think Mozart *was* a genius and was out on his own (with Haydn) as a composer. I have heard a fair amount of music by his other contemporaries - J C Bach, Krommer, Benda, Salieri, Sussmayr, Cimarosa inter al - and I think the mature Mozart, from roughly the composition of his 9th piano concerto, is simply in a different class. His range over many different genres, the quality of orchestration for large scale works and interplay of instruments for chamber works, the quality of the melodies and the way they are developed, the consistently high standard of composition over a great number of works - none of his minor contemporaries can match him at all for these. They may be able to have two or three good arias in an opera, or a good concerto movement but it's rare that the quality is sustained even for as long as a single work. It's not surprising that Haydn, no mean judge, told Mozart's father in 1785 that he thought Mozart was the 'greatest composer known to me either in person or by name' or that he said on hearing of Mozart's death, 'Posterity will not see his like again in 100 years'.

That's not to say we shouldn't hear works by M's contemporaries, or even that some of those works stand up better than some of M's early compositions.

[verismissimo]

I've listened on an occasional basis to R3 during the Mfest to date, without ever looking up what I'm to hear. The result has been enjoyable, often surprising in that the work in play seems unfamiliar.

And I agree with aeolium's general point above. WAM before K271 is often on a par with JC Bach and the rest.

[Caliban]

There is a (large) number of works from WAM's maturity which clearly do put him at least head and shoulders above contemporaries, to my ears - one gropes for an original way to say it, but falls back on 'sublime', 'genius', 'inspiration'... And yet the 12 day saturation approach tends to underline that (as with LvB) there are large swathes of workmanlike pieces, not often played for good reason, that show he was not the godlike genius who turned everything to gold. To that extent, the Mozart Fest could be said to undermine the 'Mozart the Genius' label. Another way of putting it, would be to say that it introduces some realism, some perspective.

I for one am grateful to the R3 coverage for introducing me - via Stephen Plaistow (to whose conversation with Suzy Klein earlier in the week I listened this morning, to avoid more operatic warblings) - to the 14th Piano Concerto K449. I'm a Mozart Piano Concerto nut but amazingly this one had passed me by. Great performance by Serkin. Just the sort of discovery I had been hoping for from the fortnight.

[subcontrabass]

See the comments at the bottom of http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio3/2011/01/a-mozart-bombe-and.shtml for some reactions to saturation Mozart.

[aeolium]

Caliban, I agree with a lot of what you say in the first paragraph - and I was against the Mozartfest from the start - but there are still a huge number of exceptional works in Mozart's output, perhaps 150 or more, and even in light music genres like the divertimenti he could compose music that went far beyond what his contemporaries could manage. Listen for instance to the Divertimento K334 and compare that with other similar works by contemporaries, Boccherini for instance, and the sheer quality of the writing, even in an occasional work, stands out.

[Norfolk Born]

I think the early symphonies numbered 25 (K183) and 29 (K201) rank as exceptions to the general point above.

[Pianorak]

I got to love it in the end - lots of stuff turned out to be such a surprise "What! That's Mozart?". And the added bonus of not having to wonder "now, what composer would that be"? and not being woken up in the morning to some ear shattering baroque music on period brass instruments. :doh::winkeye:

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And the added bonus of not having to wonder "now, what composer would that be"? and not being woken up in the morning to some ear shattering baroque music on period brass instruments. :doh::winkeye:But we've had a huge amount of ear-shattering HIP,whiny, fashionable-to-today's-critics Mozart.

[Pianorak]

Alpen - Please excuse my ignorance, but what is HIP?
PS. Just been listening again to last night's Mozart Uncovered on BBCiPlayer. Getting actually quite fond of the fortepiano. Wonders will never cease! :whistle:

[Bryn]

It's more usually written "HIPP", i.e. historically informed performance practice. Some people, such as EA, prefer their Mozart Bowlerised however.

[Flosshilde]

being woken up in the morning to some ear shattering baroque music on period brass instruments. :doh::winkeye:

Nothing better to get you going in the morning - I wish I could programme my alarm clock with some good, period instrument, baroque brass. Actually, come to think of it, although he's a bit earlier than baroque, some of Monteverdi's fanfares would make excellent morning calls.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Some people, such as EA, prefer their Mozart Bowlerised however.Bryn and I are Polarised on this issue. :winkeye:

[Pianorak]

Nothing better to get you going in the morning . . .
. . . and reach for the OFF button.:winkeye:

[Caliban]

Nothing better to get you going in the morning - I wish I could programme my alarm clock with some good, period instrument, baroque brass. Actually, come to think of it, although he's a bit earlier than baroque, some of Monteverdi's fanfares would make excellent morning calls.

My mobile phone which serves as my alarm clock is programmed with 3 baroque pieces, one with some good HIPP brass: the Suzuki performance of Bach's Sinfonia in D major, BWV 1045.

The other pieces are Ton Koopman playing the Toccata from Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564; and (not HIPP this one) Le Tic-Toc-Choc by Couperin played on the piano by Alexandre Tharaud.

They are all perfect for the job. For the the last few weeks, it's been Le Tic-Toc-Choc: what more appropriate title for an alarm clock wake up!

[mercia]

"Harry the Piano" has just played some major-key Mozart in the minor and vice versa, on Radio 3 Breakfast - nothing particularly clever about that is there, or am I missing something?