Maynard Solomans's Mozart biography is excellent. I won't insult your intelligence by reading it to you,but I will summarize something from it that goes to your point. Mozart had to run away from a father who wanted to use him. When Mozart lived at home,in Saltzburg,he wrote stuff by the numbers. When he finally ran away to Vienna,he listened to his own(and his wife's) council. In Vienna,he became friends with Franz Joseph Haydn,an older person. The line of seperation between Mozart's young style and his mature style was the "Hayden Quartets" a set of six string quartets he dedicated to Haydn. Up untill then,Mozart would copy out stuff from his head and publish it. The Haydn Quartets were the first things he worked hard on. In a letter home,he compared their composition process to child birth. ps.Soloman's Beethoven biography is excellent as well.
Has anyone else noticed this about Mozart ....
My introduction to Mozart was through the Clarinet concerto (I'm a clarinet player, or at least was), the Clarinet and Oboe quartets or quintets (I forget which) and the Horn Concerto. It left me with the impression that Mozart's music was rather emotionally shallow, and altogether too "happy" for my tastes. Dare I say ... elevator music. I couldn't figure out what all the fuss was about.
Then several years later I discover the Requiem Mass, Ave Verum Corpus, and several piano concertos, my favourite being No23, and it's almost like I'm listening to a completely different composer ... one who rivals Beethoven for sheer depth of feeling.
I cannot think of any other composer that seems to have two such distinct styles, though I am not very well versed in classical music, and have a limited music selection. Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach etc etc all are quite easily identifiable to me, but Mozart really seems to have two sides to him.
Has anyone else noticed this about Mozart ? Am I alone or am I nuts .. I've never heard anyone comment on this, and I'd be interested to hear opinions from this knowledgable board.
Then several years later I discover the Requiem Mass, Ave Verum Corpus, and several piano concertos, my favourite being No23, and it's almost like I'm listening to a completely different composer ... one who rivals Beethoven for sheer depth of feeling.
I cannot think of any other composer that seems to have two such distinct styles, though I am not very well versed in classical music, and have a limited music selection. Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Bach etc etc all are quite easily identifiable to me, but Mozart really seems to have two sides to him.
Has anyone else noticed this about Mozart ? Am I alone or am I nuts .. I've never heard anyone comment on this, and I'd be interested to hear opinions from this knowledgable board.