What is your favorite Mozart symphony?

Interesting that no one has so far mentioned the "Little" G Minor symphony, #25. Definitely one of my favorites, along with the last six.

A favorite Haydn symphony thread would be interesting. I'll start that discussion off with #48, the Maria Theresa, and I of course must mention #31, the Horn Signal....#80 is a particular favorite of mine as well.

Hi Schubert - yes, I also love those early Haydn symphonies you mentioned.

Your post about geniuses, on the other hand....OK, I agree with Mozart, and perhaps Schubert. But Mendelssohn?? Child prodigy, yes. However, his later output never quite matched up to the brilliance of his earlier work. Geniuses keep developing, getting better and better. Another qualification would be at least originality, if not an iconoclast. So for me, Mendelssohn does not come close to qualifying for the genius tag. To add just a few, I would say Beethoven, Wagner, Stravinsky, Bartok. When we add back in Bach and Mozart, it would be hard to find another to equal those six in sheer compositional craft. Perhaps Richard Strauss, who once hilariously bragged he could set a laundry list to music. There are of course many levels and types of genius. The music to Midsummer Night's Dream is possibly the greatest piece ever written by a teenager. I suppose this is really a silly topic, but a fun one to discuss anyway.

Hi Schubert - I guess what I meant to ask, but didn't, is what is your personal criteria for genius that only Mozart and Schubert fit? Or fit all of, as the case probably is?

Hi Schubert - Brahms is an interesting case. Unlike most composers, one must remember that he literally tore up half of what he wrote. So yes, what is left is the very well crafted stuff. He was very careful to destroy anything he did which he felt was not his best effort. Imagine his output being doubled! Surely a great deal of it was still very fine music.

And by the way, I have said the same thing you did many times about my written communication. There's a reason I am a musician and not a writer. I suspect you are right that we agree more than it appears.

I am going to paraphrase what you said, and let me know if it is indeed what you meant. I think another way to say what you are saying would be that with Beethoven and Bach you hear the effort which went into the composition, whereas with Mozart it seems so effortless. This is sometimes the case with Schubert as well, definitely in the songs (though not at all with the symphonies or piano music or opera). This makes your comparison (the placing of Schubert with Mozart, I mean) make a little more sense to me, if I have indeed hit on what you mean.

This is of course not to say that it was actually effortless for Mozart, as the movie Amadeus implies. It is very well documented that he worked his butt off, in fact probably even harder than Bach and Beethoven. His output certainly would have at least equalled Bach's had he lived as long. I have said here before that I consider Mozart's the most tragic early death in the entire history of the arts.

Hi Schubert - let me clarify something I said. I did not mean that Schubert's Piano Sonatas are not great - they are! I meant that they do not show that seeming ease of composition we are speaking of with Mozart, and with Schubert's own songs. Schubert's late piano works are very complex in a similar manner to Bach. It takes a great deal of concentration for even a very serious listener to follow them, so in this sense the craft is very obvious, though of course fantastic. Hope this makes sense - it is really only in his song composition that Schubert has that "falling from Heaven" quality you describe, though personally I think that is a poor description which belittles the composer and his craft. That is one of the only bad things about the movie Amadeus, that it perpetuates this notion that God did it, not Mozart.

Yes, sometimes it is very difficult for professional musicians to turn off the critical side of themselves when listening to music. Fortunately, I can usually do this when I am sitting down to listen for pleasure, in the sense that I don't necessarily listen just to my own part. But, as my teachers all said, one can and should learn something every time you hear anyone play - even if it is only one more way not to do it - so that side of our listening is really never turned completely off.

We also have to spend so much time listening for study that there is often not a big block of time available to listen for pleasure. For me, this generally happens in the summertime, and perhaps during the holiday season, when most musicians do get some vacation time, around and after all the holiday concerts.

The thing is, as I have preached on this site many times before - the more study one does of music, the more one enjoys it when one is listening for pleasure. The knowledge always increases the pleasure of listening, and this can often more than balance out the inability to turn off the critical ear.