Towering Genius (Beethoven: Violin Concerto / Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 4 / Horrace Silver: Creepin In /nigel Kennedy - Nigel Kennedy)

Member Name: Pingu

Product:	Beethoven: Violin Concerto / Mozart: Violin Concerto No. 4 / Horrace Silver: Creepin In /nigel Kennedy - Nigel Kennedy
Date:	05/08/00 (46 review reads)
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Mozart is a composer about whom I am in two minds. On the one hand several of his compositions are among those pieces which move me the most. His Requiem. for instance, is simply profound. And Don Giovanni is one of the only operas I can listen to at all.

On the other hand, I can't stand most of his output. It's not that it isn't great music. In fact quite the opposite is true. Even in the works that I can't bear to listen to I can appreciate that Mozart's was a genius that will never be matched. Still I find something about it aggravates me. At times it all seems too sugary and twee. This is undoubtedly a product of listening to too much aggressive 20th century music; the sounds of the Classical period no longer seem to contain the same power which they must have had for their first listeners.

So don't be put off. If you are a casual Classical listener then you will find some of the greatest music around in Mozart. His imagination was powerful in a way that only a handful have been - Beethoven, Stravinsky, Bach maybe - and it was matched by a technical perfection completely unrivalled. If, though, you regularly listen to Penderecki, Birtwistle, Ligeti, and find their music pallatable, then you may find that Mozart annoys the heck out of you as he frequently does me.

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