Too Many Notes

Lynn responds to my post below about Mozart, which was in turn a response to a post of hers about Mozart. Blogistan rules!

Anyway, she makes a valuable point about the way Mozart is viewed these days. We seem to love child prodigies in a "circus freak" kind of way, and Mozart is classical music's ultimate circus-freak, a kid who was writing symphonies when most kids are still struggling to spell "cat" if you spot them the 'c' and the 'a'. The profound work of Mozart's maturity is not often explored for that reason. And if that's not bad enough, there's all that folderol about listening to Mozart making your brain work better, or some such thing. (I'm pretty sure that stuff has been debunked, but I'm not sure.) So Mozart is not only freakish, but good for you! Thus we turn Mozart into a curiosity that is also the musical equivalent of Brussels sprouts or rice cakes. He's shoved off into that realm of things that we know we should listen to more often, but dammit, it's just plain more fun to listen to a Tchaikovsky ballet. (Not to disparage Tchaikovsky ballets, mind you. I adore those, too.)

Also, AC Douglas was also kind enough to leave a pointer in comments to an older piece he wrote for his own blog about Mozart. I seem to remember reading the Norman Lebrecht column to which he's responding, and I recall being mystified at the idea of being crushed beneath the weight of too much Mozart.