Volume 9–2 (Low Res).pdf

IIII‘ 40
ROM ENGLAND,
Mozart returned
home to Salzburg.
There he freelanced
weekend
church music for
the Archbishop of Salzburg.
His work was not appreciated
by the churchman. Mozart had
been to Italy and there he mastered
the techniques of fugue
. and counterpoint. He combined
them with the gallant
style of Salzburg and had a new
thing going. It was a new idea:
go to church on Sunday and enjoy
the music. In fact, it could
be enjoyed at home or. anywhere.
It was pretty, sometimes
even pleasant and
cheerful, the kind of music
Mozart liked to compose for his
own pleasure. He must have figured
that the Archbishop didn't
really care, so he set about to
enjoy it. And he really wasn't
paid well. When the Archbishop
figured out what was
happening, he had a fallout
with Mozart and fired him.
Wolfgang was happily free to
continue his tours.
Now his travels opened up
new vistas for a maturing
Mozart. He heard the great
orchestra at Mannheim—the
best in the world at that time—
and he even composed for it.
He was making a name in
Europe. Maturing under these
conditions had made him quick
at coming up with musical answers
to any problem; ideas
flowed easily and he had the
technique to make them work.
Most of what he was writing
then was for his own use:
either for performance at his
concerts, or for his publishers
to sell. As his fame spread, he
received requests to write music
for orchestras or instrumentalists
who could afford that
sort of thing. He was a success.
Not so for his dearest desire:
operatic composition. He
loved opera. Mozart was showbiz
through and through. There
wasn't much to work with in
the way of creative storylines in
the operas of the day, and
Mozart was always searching
for something good on which
to spend his great talent. Most
of what were called operas in
Germany were actually sing-
spiels (a spoken story or play
with music added) for which
he composed a series of arias
joined by dialogue.
Idomeneo was his first big
shot at the real thing, and he
threw himself into it, producing
a great opera which was to be
forgotten for its stiff story. It
was so bad, even his music
couldn't save it. Then he found
Lorenzo da Ponte who knew
how to write a good story and
had the good sense to see how
talented Mozart was. Together
they produced some of the
world's best operas: Don
Giovanni, The Marriage of
Figaro, and Cosi fan Tutte. In
these, Mozart began to break
the rules and do new things. He
perfected quartet and sextet
arias and brought them to their
heights for the first time. And
he gave such life to his characters
they still live today. Very
few 18th century operas survived
the 18th century! In all,
Mozart wrote 21 operatic works.
He began at age 12 and only
finished his great Magic Flute
just before his death.
Performers will tell you
that Mozart's greatness lies in
the consideration he gave them.
Breathing is always provided
for in the right spots; fingering
is logical and sensible; and keys
are always tailored to the instrument
or voice. In fact, everything
is made so easy that it's
very hard to play Mozart! Pure
Mozart is a challenge in interpretation,
nuance, and simplicity.
There's nothing to
hide behind Just plenty to
work with.
We asked Rick Meyerowitz (the cartoonist who illustrated
this section) to give us his Mozartian impressions. We also
found a lot of other impressions about Wolfgang and hope
you'll take the time to read them on the facing page.
How did he actually produce
this work? Because
Mozart was a natural, he wrote
effortlessly. We know this because
his original manuscripts
were neat and legible—not
tentative or troubled like, say,
those of Beethoven who scribbled
his way through it all.
Wolfgang began by thinking
everything through way before
he wrote down the piece.
Sometimes he did this while he
was putting down something
else he had thought out before.
He never wasted a minute and
liked to overlap his thinking.
He was a multi-project man.
When he finally sat down to
compose, he was merely copying
from a visual manuscript
which he stored in his photographic
mcmory.
First he put down the melody
(the strings or voice). Then
the base line, and finally he
filled-out with other instruments.
Sometimes he'd jot
down only the melody, his
mind racing faster than his pen
could run, and he'd go back
later and fill parts around it.
Other times he'd just put it all
down at once, top to bottom,
neatly, cleanly. He rarely altered,
changed, or corrected
his work.
Like the other composers
of his day, Wolfgang was influenced
by the Bachs, Haydn,
Paesiello, and Cherubini. In
fact, his one really sublime
friendship in the business of
making music was with a man
24 years his senior: Franz
Joseph Haydn. They were good
for each other. They traded
musical ideas, Continued on page 42 column 4 .
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