On 12 Jan 2007 at 10:46, 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.
I assume this is meant ironically, given what follows. There is some truth in it, to the same extent that the creative output any young student will basically be significantly shaped by his or her teacher. I would say that Mozart didn't start to transcend his father's instruction until some time around the age of 10-12, and didn't come into his own until his mid-teens. > But then, why are there so many attribution problems if "anyone" can > identify Mozart so easily? I am reminded of the study by a noted Schenkerian of a Mozart minuet that was left a fragment at his death but was completed in the 1790s (at Constanze's request) by the Abbé Stadler. The Schenkerian demonstrated that the completion could not be properly graphed in Schenkerian terms, and this "fact" demonstrated that the completion was not by Mozart, since, by definition, nothing that flowed from Mozart's pen could ever have produced an imperfect Schenkerian graph! That kind of argument starts from the conclusion and then comes up with "evidence" to fit the pre-ordained result. > 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. It's typical of people who express their admiration for the ineffable aspects of music that seem to come from a realm beyond their imagining. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
