On 28 Jan 2006 at 20:04, John Howell wrote: > At 11:25 PM +0000 1/28/06, Owain Sutton wrote: > >John Howell wrote: > > > >>(Academic: A composer who earns a living teaching because s/he > >>cannot write music that earns a living, but argues that any music > >>that sells is a sellout.) > >> > > > >A thoroughly unfair stereotype. Most composers I know who are in > >academia would dearly love to be able to make enough money from > >writing music to get out of teaching. > > Oh, I agree completely! But are they willing to analyze the > marketplace and produce music suited to it? Mozart did. . ..
Er, no, he did not. Mozart wrote what he wanted to write, and that often greatly puzzled his audiences and patrons. He wasn't as difficult as Beethoven (who seems to have been difficult on purpose because (pace recent research) his patrons preferred supporting a weird composer). Mozart's music was considered quite difficult even after his death. There's record of an Italian musician sending a Viennese edition of Mozart's Haydn quartets back to the publisher on the grounds that the engravings were so filled with errors as to be unplayable, pointing to the slow introduction of what we today call the "Dissonant" quartet. This was in the 1820s or 30s (I can't put my figner on the reference -- it's in something written by Cliff Eisen, though). Mozart actually blazed a new trail, laying the groundwork for the independent composer/virtuoso to make a living without a patron or a fixed position. He didn't do it by choice, though. Had he lived into 1793 and beyond, we might today know him as a prolific composer of church music, since he was in line to succeed Leopold Hoffman as Kapellmeister at the Stephansdom. So, I don't want to overstate Mozart's "independence" of public taste. But his father certainly lectured him repeatedly on taking more account of the tastes of his audiences, which suggests that at least one fine and perceptive musician thought he was not really responding to popular taste in his compositions. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
