Wednesday is the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. often said to be the greatest composer of all time (as if such a thing is possible), what's your favorite bit 'o Mozart. feel free to choose a complete work, a passage, a movement, etc. i've sung the C-major mass, Don Giovanni many times, as well as a couple of roles in The Magic Flute, but with so much wonderful music, ultimately two "bits" stand out: -the second movement of the Clarinet Concerto -the finale to act II of Le Nozze di Figaro (the marriage of figaro) both were prominently featured in the film Amadeus, the former had salieri weeping, the latter the emperor marvelling that anyone could compose 20 minutes of opera uninterupted by recitative. it's all glorious, and touches the soul in a way that few other compositions can.
Symphony #40 Turkish Rondo Excerpts from his Requiem Mozart had so much great stuff but I always found myself liking Tchaikovsky, Bach, Handel, Beethoven, and Debussy more.
my daughter, who is 3, loves Bach, and has actually gotten me to learn more about him. I love the Cello Suites.
Symphony no. 41 is far and away the best piece of music by Mozart. For all it's happy-sounding-ness, it has a few moments of what sounds like genuine pathos and complexity. It's the only music by him that I will actually go out of my way to listen to, in contrast to my usual Mozart listening - if it comes on the radio, I don't turn it off, but I don't notice it much. I admire Mozart as a composer, what he did with his talents in that particular place and time, but I don't really enjoy listening to him. Too light and airy for me, so much so that a lot of it just seems trivial. I don't care much for opera either, so I'm sure that inhibits me from giving him his proper due. I like Schoenberg (not really his serial compositions, but I love "Transfigured Night"), and Stravinsky, and Satie, and Mahler, and particularly Bartok and Mussorgsky ("Pictures at an Exhibition" - the orchestrated one - is the kind of music that sounds perfect no matter where it's performed - I have 4 recorded performances of it, and though they're all different, they're all good). But Mozart just doesn't do it for me.
i confess ignorance. At holiday dinners the loudest voice states this: Don Giovanni in order Mozart, Bach, Beethonen
No 41 would be one of his better works in my opinion. I really don't think he's the greatest composer of all time, but his level of genius was something on another level. While Beethoven was the consumate worker, Mozart just spit tunes off the top of his head with ease, and was the master of the classical style. Beethoven just took it to the next level and toward Romantism, which I happen to like more than classical.
Speaking of The Marriage of Figaro, who can forget the mesmerizing Duettino - Sull 'Aria', if you are also a fan of the movie Shawshank Redemption. Listen here
