Re: [Marxism] Mozart: Rational revolutionary

[Ralph Johansen via Marxism]

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 Louis Proyect wrote

Their audience, then, knew what Da Ponte and Mozart were getting into. 
Joseph II was never going to tolerate explicit revolutionary language, 
and Da Ponte softened it considerably in devising his libretto. But 
Mozart deepened it again with his music, giving three dimensions to 
two-dimensional characters by granting them real-life emotional 
complexity. Instead of political force, they get emotional depth, and as 
real people, their fates once again acquire political force.


full: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/mozart-grace-notes/




 That was part of the genius and beauty of Mozart, who wrote his first
 symphony at age eight. Reminds me of the narrative, as I recall it
 from reading the book long ago, of coming back across France toward
 central Europe after the first World War on a train loaded with
 refugees, peasants who after fleeing the ravaging of their homelands
 were being forced back to their villages and countryside to a hopeless
 future, with their lands having been taken by the banks and rich
 landlords who profited from war. The narrator looks at the children of
 the refugees. Their eyes are bright and still full of hope and
 expectation, their demeanor full of activity and mischief. Then he
 looks at the returning peasants. Their eyes are dull and listless,
 their shoulders slumped and motionless, their cheeks hollowed and
 ashen. He writes: “What torments me is not the humps nor hollows nor
 the ugliness. It is the sight, a little bit in all these men, of
 Mozart murdered.”

And no change: they are murdering the Mozarts.


― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars 


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[Marxism] Mozart: Rational revolutionary

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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Beaumarchais made The Marriage of Figaro with stock characters but gave 
them depth through the force of their challenge to the existing order. 
He has Figaro say: “Nobility, fortune, rank, position! How proud they 
make a man feel! What have you done to deserve such advantages? Put 
yourself to the trouble of being born – nothing more! For the rest – a 
very ordinary man!” Later in the passage, Figaro asks “Pourquoi ces 
choses et non pas d’autres? – Why these things and not others?” a line 
that resonated in revolutionary France. Napoleon thought the play 
forecast the revolution. And Beaumarchais’s revolutionary credentials 
were impeccable — he ran arms to the American revolution, still in 
progress as the play was being written, and barely over when it was 
first produced in 1784. The Mozart and Da Ponte collaboration followed 
on that first production with amazing speed, going up almost exactly two 
years later, on May 1, 1786. Their audience, then, knew what Da Ponte 
and Mozart were getting into. Joseph II was never going to tolerate 
explicit revolutionary language, and Da Ponte softened it considerably 
in devising his libretto. But Mozart deepened it again with his music, 
giving three dimensions to two-dimensional characters by granting them 
real-life emotional complexity.  Instead of political force, they get 
emotional depth, and as real people, their fates once again acquire 
political force.



full: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/mozart-grace-notes/
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