On Mozart

On Mozart, from the June 2006 issue of The American Enterprise

We are already halfway through 2006, the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The culture took brief heed, and then marched on unchanged. The operatic pimps-and-hos of Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio" have hardly led Tupac fans to embrace real music and start buying pants that actually fit. Proponents of "historically informed performances" still battle fans of "living tradition performances" on catty classical-music discussion boards. Makers of atonal, minimalist, and other avant-garde music haven't come clean and admitted their work is mostly tripe. Tom Hulce, Oscar-nominated for his starring portrayal in Amadeus, still could probably use some new acting gigs.

To be sure, some good things have come out of Mozart's big anniversary. Many of the big record labels re-released some older CDs at lower prices. And there have been some good books published to mark the occasion. Two of the best are 'Mozart' by Julian Rushton, and 'Mozart: The Early Years 1756-1781' by Stanley Sadie.

Rushton's book is for people smarter than I. An early warning sign was the number of musical notation charts it featured (I read music about as well as I read Sanskrit). The focus here is clearly on Mozart's work, not Mozart himself. Yet Rushton, a professor at the University of Leeds, does an admirable job of making his very detailed analysis of Mozart's music more or less understandable, even to those of us who couldn't learn the recorder in grammar school.

Right away I knew Sadie's book was more up my alley: less musical notation, more pictures. Don't get the wrong idea, though. This isn't some fluffy bio meant to be read at airports, but a 600-plus-page bit of fantastic scholarship by one of the greatest music writers of all time. The late Stanley Sadie, the man responsible for the magisterial 'New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians', originally intended to write about Mozart's entire life. Alas, his own life ended before he could complete the task. Thus we are left with a book covering Mozart's first 25 years, carrying the subtitle "The Early Years," which is a bit odd considering Mozart died at 35. (No doubt 'Mozart: The First Five-Sevenths' just didn't have the right ring to it.)

Reading Sadie allows one to come as close as possible to experiencing Mozart's era without the aid of a time machine. He covers everything from the Mozart family tree, to life in old Salzburg, to the inns in which the composer stayed. Sadie also resists the urge to interpret the eighteenth century through a modern prism.

Though both of these books are, of course, primarily about Mozart, another composer's presence is felt in each. Johann Christian Bach was famous in his day, and both authors acknowledge his profound influence on Mozart's work. Today he is completely overshadowed by his father, Johann Sebastian. Ironically, while the elder Bach's gifts are universally recognized today, Mozart probably wasn't very familiar with his work until later in life. Yet Wolfie was clearly influenced by the younger Bach. Born to one genius, and a source of inspiration to another, poor J.C. Bach is now forgotten by nearly all.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, however, is not forgotten, though in our era of gangsta rappers, teenage pop tarts, and would-be American idols, one could be fooled into thinking otherwise. Yet as long as there are excellent Mozart recordings to be had for mere dollars, as well as fine books such as those by Rushton and Sadie, there will remain a flicker of hope that true art and culture can still survive in our coarsened era.