Following up on yesterday's post: Does anyone know of a RAW essay, comparable to the Beethoven one that I referenced, where RAW talks about Mozart? Mozart appears as a character in the "Historical Illuminatus" books, but I cannot remember any references to Mozart in RAW's writings that last more than a sentence or two.
Like most classical music fans, I have quite a bit of Mozart in my music collection. A few weeks ago, I got a Mozart collection from Amazon called Mozart -- 100 Supreme Classical Masterpieces: Rise of the Masters, a huge budget collection for $2. Yes, it has recordings by lesser-known musicians, but it's still an amazing bargain. I've been going through it, checking out some of the compositions I had not heard before.
4 comments:
I have not seen an essay devoted to Mozart by RAW, but I think it possible that something on par exists; I just wouldn't know where to find it.
A picture of how RAW perceived Mozart can be delineated by reading the Historical Illuminatus trilogy closely. In the Beethoven As Information essay, RAW advocates seeing (reframing?) every musician as a "sound engineer," so obviously that would go for Amadeus.
On p.299 of The Widow's Son we see a riff RAW repeated in other places: statements that "Mozart is better than Beethoven," only refer to the nervous system of the person who makes the statement.
In Nature's God, Sartines compares Mozart to cocaine:
"For me, the greatest pleasures are those that leave one mildly dissatisfied and always longing for just a little bit more. Like caviar, for instance, or the music of Mozart. Or political power, to take the extreme example. Or that marvelous new stuff with crushed coca leaves in it. Have you sampled it? A taste of paradise on Earth, I assure you..." p.211
I think this was pretty close to how RAW viewed Mozart: clearly some freak-genius, but not satisfying.
BTW: I always see Sartines as being played by Claude Rains.
I remember reading (Somewhere!) that he found Mozart pretty predictable compared to Beethoven.
And in "Right Where You Are Sitting Now," Bach is "the creator of heaven and earth" and Mozart is "his only begotten son." I just wish there was an actual RAW essay about Mozart somewhere, if only a short one.
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