In Modernity, the capacity for effortless knowing is denied, ignored, or misunderstood. As a result, the origin of all knowledge is taken as unaided human effort and activity. The Two Modes of the Mind If we lack a word for an experience, we obviously cannot talk to others about it, and the experience, no matter [...]
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his divertimento for string quartet and two horns, K. 522, in 1787, the same year that his opera Don Giovanni premiered. Mozart titled the four-movement piece, "Ein musikalischer Spaß," which is usually translated as "A Musical Joke," though a more accurate translation would be "Some Musical Fun." It has long been thought that [...]
"When I listen to his music, it is as if I am doing a good deed. It is difficult to convey what exactly his beneficial influence on me consists of, but it is undoubtedly beneficial, and the longer I live, the closer I get to know him, the more I love him." Unlike most composers [...]
Recorded in Denmark between 1889 and 1897 on a wax cylinder is what is almost certainly the oldest existing Mozart recording in the world. Peter Schram In a climate-controlled section in the basement of Statsbiblioteket, you can find a couple of old solid wooden boxes. These boxes used to contain some of the [...]
Few conductors are loved. It could be as well, for music’s sake, that most conductors are loathed. Any impressive level of attendance at their obsequies readily calls to mind the witticism—attributed both to George Jessel and to Red Skelton—regarding the crowds at a universally abhorred Hollywood tycoon’s funeral: “Well, it proves what they always say. [...]
Did you know that the man who co-wrote "The Marriage of Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Cosi fan tutte" died as an American college professor? "Seldom, if ever indeed, has a more interesting personality come to these shores from Europe." —Joseph Russo, Lorenzo Da Ponte: Poet and Adventurer Opera aficionados will know Lorenzo Da Ponte's name [...]
Mozart wrote everything with a facility and rapidity, which perhaps at first sight could appear as carelessness or haste; and while writing he never came to the klavier. His imagination presented the whole work, when it came to him, clearly and vividly…. In the quiet repose of the night, when no obstacle hindered his soul, [...]
This is the story of one unique night on which rivals Wolfgang Mozart and Antonio Salieri truly went head-to-head, performing newly-composed, short operas back-to-back, at the request of Emperor Joseph himself. The rivalry between Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Mozart is well known, being the subject of Alexander Pushkin’s play, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, and most famously [...]
Richard Strauss Richard Strauss: A Musical Life, by Raymond Holden. Yale University Press. The Cambridge Companion to Richard Strauss, by Charles Youmans, Cambridge University Press. I am not a first-rate composer, I am a first-rate second-rate composer. —Richard Strauss I was never a revolutionary. The real revolutionary was Richard Strauss. —Schoenberg Richard Strauss [...]
The human voice is God’s most beautiful instrument, and the blending of voices and musical instruments within the context of a dramatic visual presentation is the zenith of human artistic achievement. This is the glory of opera. Below is a list of the ten greatest operas ever composed, in order of greatness, from ten down [...]
Mozart, Wolfgang (Austrian, 1756–91). No, not “Amadeus”; his baptismal certificate reads “Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart,” “Amadé” (the form of his middle name that Mozart himself preferred to use) being Theophilus’s Gallicized version. In fact, almost everything else Hollywood told you about him is wrong, except his child prodigy status, which even Hollywood could hardly [...]