Daily Blague

Do listen to Cosi. Especially if you're having trouble sleeping. It, like most Mozart, will enduce narcolepsy. In that wonderful movie, 'Amadeus', the Emperor says, "too many notes, Mozart." Royalty is always right, or at least was in this case. The only more boring evening would be a lecture on costumes of the 18th Century.

Back in your cage, Grandpa (Pépé au cul). Further references to Amadeus will cost you your commenting privileges. And what do you suppose Joseph would have said of your beloved Parsifal, note-wise?

How nice that the Webmaster (hah!) interjects at every moment.

The Emperor would have undoubtedly said, "Herr Wagner, couldn't you write a Fourth Act?" Parsifal is sublime, Don Giovanni a torture and 'Amadeus' a wonderful movie.

I'll try, maybe, to listen to Cosi but needed no arm twisting to try the geography puzzles when a GIS friend sent me the URL last week. My self-esteem soared for the U.S. but sadly, I don't even deserve the linen closet for Asia and Africa. Just put me directly in the dumpster.

The pedant in me was going to correct you for calling Salzburg a principality within the H.R. Empire instead of a constituent land of the Habsburg crown, but you were actually closer than I was. It was not held by the Habsburgs until after Mozart's death. However, after collecting further research, the pedant will point out that Salzburg was not a principality, but an archbishopric.

It seems like I should love Mozart more than I do. I find him charming, but not passionately engaging, unlike Haydn, whose chamber works I adore in particular.

Wagner? I won't even start. Let me leave it at this: his rival/enemy Brahms is one of my favorite composers.

But I don't really like any opera particularly anyway, so I will now jump out of the fray.

Principality: If only someone would write a lively administrative history of the Holy Roman Empire, we'd learn a few things about an utterly vanished world. I called Salzburg a principality because as a temporal ruler the Archbishop was known, also, as a Prince (Prince-Bishop). Like the three electoral bishoprics (Cologne, Trier, and Mainz) - and let's not forget lovely Würzburg, with those Tiepolos that I'm dying to see someday - Salzburg emerged from the Middle Ages still under the control of an ecclesiastic - a phenomenon peculiar to the Empire and a factor militating against state-formation.

Mozart/Haydn: It sounds flip to say that these composers are utterly different, but it's quite true nonetheless, for Mozart's imagination was logarithmically richer in melody than was Haydn's. This meant that Haydn husbanded his tunes very carefully, and, in exploring ways of taking them apart and splicing them in unexpected ways, he paved the way for Beethoven. Mozart was comparatively prodigal; listen to any of the later piano concertos for throw-away tunes before the piano even gets going. Mozart is about balance, not development; an unswerving isostasy opposes every element of his music with its counterpart, and the intricacy, once you learn to hear past the prettiness (which, happily, many contemporary performers are doing their best to damper), is almost terrifying.

Good job, Flather!

All I know is that when Mozart was my age, he'd been dead for 22 years. Cookie?

Following your advice, I just celebrated Mozart's birthday by listening to the Act I finale of 'Cosi' and have now started again from the beginning; it is one of my favorite operas to listen to, but the one time I saw it staged, at Lyric Opera several years ago, it did (almost) put me to sleep. My preference among Mozart's operas is (and probably always will be) 'Le Nozze di Figaro' (particularly if one can see it with Renee Fleming as the Countess, Dwayne Croft as the Count, Bryn Terfel as Figaro and Susan Graham as Cherubino). And at the risk of having my commenting privileges cut off, I must admit that I have always enjoyed 'Amadeus' and may just watch it again tonight (sorry, RJ).