At the peak of his powers during the 1780s, Mozart's ability to weave a mesmerizing spell of music remains pretty much unrivaled in music history. There are hints of something darker and wilder lurking behind this music, but those doors would remain closed for the time being. Ever the businessman, Mozart was concerned about alienating … Continue reading Mozart the Virtuoso of the Opera House →

The entry from last week left off with Mozart freshly returned to Salzburg from his disastrous trip to Paris. Mozart again found himself, at 24, chaffing under the twin yokes of his father Leopold (who had decidedly not forgiven his son for allowing his mother to die in Paris for want of medical attention) and … Continue reading Breaking Away →

Happy birthday to me. And on my birthday, I will choose to be serenaded, by Mozart, through the magic of Jascha Heifetz. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPFm8vN0vGE If you are curious, this is the fourth movment of a much larger work, composed by the 20-year old Mozart in 1776 for the wedding of Marie Elisabeth Haffner (the same family … Continue reading Special Birthday Edition →

The very first entry of this blog was devoted to how Pythagoras created the Western musical scale through the use of mathematical ratios. It is not surprising, therefore, that the most famous of all ratios--Euclid's golden ratio--would find its way into the music. While interest in the golden ratio was common in the ancient world, … Continue reading 1.618 →

Mozart’s music can be heard to hover: between innocence and experience, ideality and sensuousness, comedy and tragedy, sympathy and mockery, intimacy and transcendence. It offers no blind faith yet no paralyzing doubt; it is not just a longingly imperfect reach for the infinite (Schiller’s sentimental art) nor just a comfortably perfect grasp of the finite … Continue reading The Real Mozart →