Mozart
Or, my love/hate relationship with Wolfie
Today is Mozart’s birthday, so the classical music radio station I listen to in the car was playing his music all day. When I realized what was happening on the drive to the food co-op, I cringed and almost turned off the radio, but decided to gut it out. It wasn’t so bad after all. They played his first violin concerto, composed when he was 17, and that was a fun showpiece. Later they played the quintet for piano and winds, and that was even better, a really lovely piece.
So why did I cringe? I was afraid the radio was going to play some of his piano music. I know we pianists are supposed to love his piano music, but I just can’t. This is directly related to the Mozart trauma I experienced as a 12 year old taking piano lessons, which I’ve written about before. I ended up quitting after three years, and one of the reasons was the F major Concerto, K. 459. I hated this piece and still do, more than half a century later. A primary focus of my hatred was the ubiquitous Alberti bass. Here’s what it looks like in the first measure of the pianist’s part in that hated concerto:
You don’t need to see the rest of that first movement: the left hand is doing stuff like that nearly all of the time. It’s boring and mechanical, as if it were written by an AI. It drove me bonkers.
Now, we know that later composers like Chopin adored and revered Mozart. You can hear Mozart’s influence in Chopin, but Chopin took that influence and made it brilliant and inventive. Here’s the very beginning of his wonderful D flat Nocturne, Op. 27 #2:
Even here, when he’s just arpeggiating (is that a word?) the D flat chord, you can see it’s already beyond Mozart. The range is nearly an octave and a half, and it’s in groups of six notes, not four. The left hand does this kind of thing the entire time in this Nocturne, but the range of harmonies and pitches are, once again, far beyond Mozart.
So I’m fine with Mozart as long as I don’t have to listen to (or play) his piano music. His chamber music is really very good, especially the pieces with clarinet. I guess I don’t have to cringe all the time when the radio plays his music.