dc wrote:
John Howell écrit:
In the very good Arts & Entertainment Mozart biography, someone (it
may have been Robert Marshall) played a little minuet that's supposed
to be the earliest piece by Wolfie and said that whenever he played it
for anyone and asked them to identify it, they hazarded that it might
be something from a late opera but had no question but that it was by
Mozart. Sort of puts the "early music was childish" argument in
perspective.
Really? As everyone knows, Mozart's earliest pieces are by Leopold. But
then, why are there so many attribution problems if "anyone" can
identify Mozart so easily? Instead of having scholars spend so much time
on studying the papers, the manuscript, the style, the handwriting,
etc., why not have your fellow simply play the music for "anyone"? The
above anecdote is typical of ignorant people taking pride in their
ignorance.
Aw, Dennis, tell us how you really feel about this, don't hold back so
much. ;-)
How do we know that all the earliest pieces attributed to Wolfgang are
by Leopold? When did this change? What was the first piece confirmable
as being actually written by Mozart? Perhaps Leopold simply left a huge
library of manuscripts and Wolfgang merely copied them all his life.
Maybe if we got all the musicologists into diplomacy and out of music,
they could deflect concern over the issues which would propel nations
into war onto minutiae as to why someone forgot to dot an 'i' in some
treaty and all the war-mongers would get so bored to death they'd decide
to go out for a beer and before long the enemies would be friends
deciding how to kill the musicologists-cum-diplomats. And the musicians
could get back to making music, playing music which they've always
thought was written by Bach or Mozart or Purcell and remain blissful in
their ignorance of the real composer. Audiences respond to the music,
not to who wrote it.
There's a reason that Grout's History of Western Music is sold in drug
stores under "Sleep Aids" rather than in music stores alongside books
such as "I was Mick Jagger's Love Child."
--
David H. Bailey
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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