Just kidding, dear friends; undergrads of Mozart's time didn't drink on Wednesdays.
But seriously, a lot of people think Mozart was a genius, and that's rather a problem. (Or, as we say around here, "That's kind of a problem." What kind of a problem is it? Oh, that kind.) If anyone claims that X is a genius, my immediate reaction is: Oh yeah? I don't think so. In an instinct of self-preservation, I have always contended that people generally considered to be geniuses are just misunderstood idiots. But the question that we're interested in is: is his music any good?
Before I answer that, we have to admit that all music isn't appreciated equally by everybody. Classical music, especially, is a music of the emotions, and you're not going to easily get music written three hundred years ago by people whose lives were very different from ours.
The music of Bach, in my humble opinion, is about joy, about symmetry, about wonder; about solving a puzzle, about rhetoric, about grandeur. John Eliot Gardiner, a British conductor who rose to prominence in the seventies and eighties, said that Bach's music was about the wonder of the universe. I don't know where that comes from, but if you understand Bach's idiom (the particular way he used music), you do get the strong impression that it is about fairly universal values.
The music of Beethoven, John Eliot Gardiner also said, told you a lot about being Beethoven. I'm sure this was intended to be humor, because Beethoven had (according to what has come down to us) little insight into the thoughts and feelings of others, but was able to express his own feelings only through music. This is obviously an exaggeration, but this much is true: In Beethoven's time, musical works were becoming more like manifestos; it was the musician saying this is what I believe, and this is what I stand for. The culture of being subjugated to society was being replaced by strong individualism. In music, Beethoven was almost the poster-boy for the new Romantic individualism, hence the epigrammatic statement that Beethoven's music told us about being Beethoven.
If that is true, I would suggest that Mozart's music tells us what it means to be human. I'm not sure whether John Eliot Gardiner said that, but certainly the idea is not original: despite the surface perfection of Mozart's music, humanity is found it: about struggle, and love and loss, and small triumphs, and putting on a brave front, all that sort of thing. It is carefully hidden, because in Mozart's time, people hid their feelings. Children are drawn to the pretty music of Mozart; youths are drawn more to the the bold individualistic vigor of Beethoven. But in middle age, you begin to notice feelings in Mozart's music that resonate with your own. Unless you've had a certain amount of life experience, a love affair or two, you're not going to pick up on the beauty and meaning of Mozart's music.
Where Mozart was a genius is in the technical skill of his writing: how well he wrote for the instruments that he had. But that sort of technical skill can only be appreciated by people whose business is music; to force an ordinary listener to see genius in Mozart is really to ask a little too much. People are too easily willing to declare someone a genius, as if anointing a genius is an enormous achievement. It's quite enough to enjoy Mozart's music if you can; it is truly beautiful, and often poignant. A beautiful moment in Mozart is usually very un-self-conscious; it passes by, and leaves you wanting to rewind to that point, because it isn't set up with a lot of fuss. Perhaps that's genius too: to be able to throw a beautiful moment at a listener without a lot of fussy set-up.
Archie
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