My Corona Diary December 2020 - 2021

[Nasiadai]

An interlude

I'm on the road in Bangkok; maybe 1995/1996 or so, strolling along Thanon Silom, one of the wide main streets, where along the pavement there are these typical country stalls; veritable flea markets where you can buy anything your heart desires: textiles and shoes, perfumery products, plus watches, bric-a-brac and costume jewellery; all pirate products at ridiculous prices. There is the famous Rolex for 20 dollars. I stop at a stand selling music CDs.  On a length of about 15 m, almost the entire classical repertoire of Deutsche Grammophon is offered for sale in seven rows; all pirated copies. All the great composers are represented; they are played, conducted and interpreted by the best orchestras, conductors and soloists in the world, all of whom are under contract to Grammophon. I am watching a Farlang - an American, as it soon turns out - who is interested in Mozart's piano concertos. We get to talking and talk shop for a while. After some minutes he asks me the following question:

“Charly, can you tell me which one is the best piano concerto of Mozart?”

I think feverishly about which one I should name. The twentieth in D minor, perhaps? Or rather the 27th, his last, which many music experts and connoisseurs consider the most perfect concerto of the entire Viennese classical period. But there is also the so-called 2nd Coronation Concerto K. 537, which Mozart performed for the coronation of Emperor Leopold II in Frankfurt in 1790. Oh no, the best is the one in C minor K. 491, hardly to be surpassed in dramatic intensity. No, the best could also be the Jeunehomme Concerto. What the 'Eroica' was to Beethoven, the 'Jeunehomme' is to Mozart; the pianist Alfred Brendel even thinks it is one of the greatest wonders of the world.

All this and more flash through my mind. The American keeps looking at my face with interest, as if he can read the answer in my expression. But then, after a few more seconds of thinking, the answer comes to me:

"Sorry, but this is a stupid question," I say.
"Oh really? But why?" is his surprised answer.
"There is no best concert. They are all good!  Mozart? There are no flops! The best concert is that one you are just listening to."
"Oh yes, Charly, you are right. Your answer is convincing." he replied with a smile.
"There is always a certain development, trying new ways of expression for the piano and the orchestra. In every concert Mozart tries out new motifs, new musical ideas."
"Yes, I understand."

We buy the Jeunehomme Concerto, K. 271, the darkly dramatic one in D minor, K. 466, known from the Amadeus film, the "Elvira Madigan Concerto" in C major, K. 467, with the world-famous 2nd movement, and the one in B flat major, K. 595.

The American and I spent the whole day together on Silom; in the evening we both enjoyed ourselves until late at night in the GoGo bars at Nana Plaza with rock and pop music and Singha beer, which flowed for us in streams; of course, always with a few pretty GoGo girls. I don't remember how I got back to my hotel; film tear.
Oh memories, sweet memories.

 

[Nasiadai]

Mozart - a composer and musician in the shadow of the superstars of the time

A search for traces

Mozart and the Vienna of the years 1781 to 1791 or Mozart and his competitors Antonio Salieri, Giovanni Paisiello, Giuseppe Sarti, Domenico Cimarosa, Martin y Soler.

My brother Stefan, 20 years younger than me, and I had watched the Hollywood film "Amadeus" by Milos Forman (8 Oscars!) several times during the autumn of 1984 with the greatest pleasure; we took the whole family to the cinema, as well as many friends and acquaintances. Again and again we went to the Lichtburg on Königsallee (Cinema in Düsseldorf). Then we wanted to know more about the end of the 18th century in Vienna and above all about Salieri and his opera compositions. Why was he completely unknown to us; after all, he composed over 40 operas. Why was there not a single recording of a Salieri opera available? Why were his compositions hardly ever heard on the radio (e.g. on WDR 3, the classical music station)?

During the Christmas holidays, we went to the city library, which has an extensive music library. A knowledgeable librarian got us opera scores by Mozart as well as by those now largely forgotten composers Salieri, Paisiello and y Soler. My brother, who had already mastered this secret technique of reading scores, studied them intensively and with full concentration for hours. His study of a whole series of scores went on for several days. Again and again he interrupted his score study and played arias and choruses, excerpts from the scores on the grand piano, which was located in the music room of the library. I was quite eager to hear his verdict.

"What is your opinion?" I asked. 

"One or two interesting motifs could be used for a film score." was his answer.

"What do you think of the artistic quality? Are they as good as Mozart?" I asked in a probing voice.

"They are light years away from Mozart. They're just second-rate." is his apodictic, irrefutable answer, which brooked no contradiction.

They are musical craftsmen who, together with their librettists, delivered the desired opera compositions to their patrons and lords with skilful routine skill; whereby both, music and stage action, move along typical courtly-aristocratic conventional lines. With such productions, they served and pleased their courtly-aristocratic audience, satisfied them, and could hope for approval and further orders.

"So," says Stefan, "if I could compose as well and as slickly as these Italians - and I mean that completely unironically - I would have already written the film music for a 'Tatort' and for one or two of ZDF's (German TV)  love stories ("Herzkino" - scripts: Utta Danella, Rosamunde Pilcher, Inga Lindström). And Hollywood has also made cautious enquiries. Clooney, George, and Pitt, Brad, would inquire through their agencies whether I would be interested in working with them on their next film project."
So much for the Italians, in whose shadow Mozart stood all his life.

 

[Nasiadai]

"But this," says Stefan, pointing to the score of Mozart's Don Giovanni, "this defines a completely different league. This guy here, he does his own thing! The Italians are experienced craftsmen, normal average Bundesliga. But Mozart plays a few levels above that. No, not Champions League; this is playing somewhere between the stars, between Sirius and Aquarius, light years above us."

A conversation ensued between us in which Stefan tried to point out the crucial differences between Mozart and his contemporary competitors:

"They want to please their aristocratic audience, to sound beautiful; often pompous, but somehow empty. The vocal part is simply accompanied by the strings and other instruments in parallel melodic lines. Nothing happens; it just ripples along; constant repetitions, nothing is formed, shaped, commented on, expressed, not reflected. Is this supposed to be love or grief, what the characters express in their solo arias? That is affected posturing! It's terrible and repulsive. There are - I think - no ensemble numbers, no tercets or even quartets; at least I haven't found any. Instead, there are long secco recitatives (a spoken song, accompanied by a spinet, which advances the action, the stage action), then, after endlessly long recitatives, an aria with a bang effect to close the performance. These are typical number operas. It's all well done in terms of craftsmanship; but that's about it. The music is dry as dust."

"With Mozart, everything is completely different. The secco recitatives are pushed back or replaced by accompagnato recitatives (here the voice is accompanied by the orchestra). There is always something being shaped. The stage action is commented on, depicted and accompanied by the music, which gives it drama. The finales of the acts are completely composed; no recitatives. The individual characters are shaped individually by the music. The many ensemble numbers from duets to octets are highly complex. Each character is given its own melodic line; while one is sad and distressed, the other laughs maliciously, etc. The arias express the respective state of mind, the mood of the person with complex and yet at the same time sparing orchestral accompaniment. That is simply ingenious. Mozart's music quivers in every bar, is full of movement, vibrates with life, love, lust and passion."

The entire classical music industry is nailed down to a relatively small repertoire. Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Electrola, Decca, Philips and all the other record companies that have classical music in their programmes must surely be on the lookout for new, old treasures that can be marketed. A conductor like Karajan, who is hungry for success and media, could dig up such an old opera with his Berlin Philharmonic and present it to the astonished public, supported by a few journalist pals from the tabloids and a sensationalist television crew: "Karajan stages old Salieri opera". So we both mused and reflected.
"These operas are not coming back" Stefan said in conclusion.
"There's nothing interesting to rub against. You know what I mean; you can express it much better than I can."

Authoritative, backward-looking ethics of mind and state, affirmation of the actually existing model of rule and society, any rejection of possibilities to think, develop or even suggest alternatives. This type of opera - stronger in the seria than in the buffa - affirmatively reflects behavioural patterns, the typical code of conduct of the courtly-aristocratic society of the time. That is my conclusion.

to be continued ...  stay tuned

[Nasiadai]

"This is true not only for the libretti, but also for the composed music that I have seen through." sums up my brother.
At the end, Stefan plays a few arias on the grand piano; all only by Mozart: Pamina, Zerlina, Susanna, Don Ottavio, Tamino.
"Why only Mozart?" I asked hesitantly.
"He's just better, more alive, more human." was his categorical answer.
It was ravishing, I knew the respective context of the arias. After his explanations, I intuitively sensed, felt the mood, the state of mind, the inner tension, the sadness of Pamina while listening.

Pamina
Ach, ich fühl's, es ist entschwunden,
Ewig hin der Liebe Glück!
Nimmer kommt ihr, Wonnestunden,
Meinem Herzen mehr zurück!
Sieh, Tamino, diese Tränen
Fliessen, Trauter, dir allein.
Fühlst du nicht der Liebe Sehnen,
So wird Ruh im Tode sein!

I give you a translation which I found on the internet.

Pamina
Ah, I can feel it, love’s happiness
Is fled forever!
Nevermore, O hours of bliss,
Will you return to my heart!
See, Tamino, these tears
Flow for you alone, beloved.
If you do not feel love’s yearning,
I shall find peace in death!

Mozart's music to this Schikaneder text is simply overwhelming. I don't want to go on raving about it. Mozart's orchestration is sparing, but every note, every tone is in the right place. This aria touches on the absolute. Mozart, the womaniser.

Cimarosa, Paisiello, Sarti, y Soler, Salieri and all the other contemporary composers were miles away from such depth of feeling; especially in the representation of these feelings in their music.

 

 

[Nasiadai]

Mozart - important composer of the so-called Viennese Classicism

I wrote the following in 2010 for a friend with whom I had previously had lively and controversial discussions about classical music and Mozart in particular. I have sent the text to several friends over the years.

Classical music and your previous listening habits

So far, dear Bernd, Axel, Regine, Nina, Hanna, Sabrina, Barbara, Patty or whoever else is reading this, you have listened almost exclusively to Schlager, rock and pop music. As a result, your musical ear, your sense of music, is adapted, "pre-structured", accustomed or whatever to these very specific forms and sounds of music.
Now, with so-called classical music, we are dealing with a completely different genre, a completely different type of music. Listening to these new sounds takes time and is also to be regarded as a certain form of work in order to be able to adequately comprehend, understand and also appreciate classical music. Back then, when I listened to classical music during my studies, it took me many weeks, even months, to accept and enjoy this kind of music. If you are serious, this introduction to classical music will seem like an exciting and intellectual adventure and will bring you many new insights and experiences.
Your musical consciousness - like the consciousness in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit - will go through several stages until at some point you will arrive at "absolute hearing". You will start at the bottom, where you are now, with your sensual musical certainty (because rock and pop music aims at sensuality), and you will find that this shape does not have much to offer in the way of knowledge, fullness of meaning, spirit. Intensive listening, listening to Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven & Co. will make you rise to become a virtuous and musically discerning knight.
One more thought: classical music is not about melody, tunes and euphony; that would be a complete misjudgement of the artistic character of this music. That's what operetta with its uncrowned king Franz Lehar is responsible for, or the Anglo-American musical, pop music and schlager. No, classical music is about artistic design and shaped creative expression in which truth is manifested.
If you want to inspire a person for Mozart, you should reach for the Magic Flute and/or the piano concertos. Mozart wrote to his father on 28 December 1782:

 „… – nun fehlen noch 2 Concerten zu den suscriptions Concerten. – Die Concerten sind eben das Mittelding zwischen zu schwer, und zu leicht – sind sehr Brillant – angenehm in die Ohren – Natürlich, ohne in das leere zu fallen – hie und da – können auch kenner allein satisfaction erhalten – doch so – daß die nichtkenner damit zufrieden seyn müssen, ohne zu wissen warum.“

These sentences in somewhat antiquated German are hard to translate. I'll try anyway. They give an insight into Mozart's musical aesthetic.

 "... - now two concerts are missing from the suscriptions concerts. - The concertos are precisely the middle ground between too difficult and too easy - are very brilliant - pleasant to the ears - of course, without falling into emptiness - here and there - even connoisseurs alone can receive satisfaction - but in such a way - that the non-connoisseurs must be satisfied with them without knowing why."

This is Mozart's musical aesthetics exactly and in detail. He describes his piano concertos. They are brilliant, yet compositionally very demanding without overstraining the listener; at the same time, they are never merely entertainment music, "they never fall into emptiness"; and connoisseurs and nonconnoisseurs alike receive satisfaction. The compositional principle of his piano concertos is: The highest mastery with the greatest simplicity.
This also applies to his serenades, symphonies and cassations; in other words, to types of music that served to entertain a courtly aristocratic and upper-middle-class society at the time.

 

[Nasiadai]

Mozart and the Vienna of the years 1781 to 1791 or
Mozart - a composer in the shadow of the contemporary superstars of the time

Mozart as a freelance artist in Vienna and his competitors

In 1781 Mozart left his permanent position as court organist for the Archbishop of Salzburg and went to Vienna as a freelance musician and composer. He did not have a permanent position there in Vienna, but lived and worked as a self-employed person, as a free music entrepreneur, as a self-employed person in matters of music. He composed his music, which he then performed in public and private academies (= concert evenings) and in his subscription concerts. We owe the great wonderful piano concertos, for example, to this time and these circumstances. His compositional fertility was enormous; simply admirable.
Mozart was probably the most gifted and brilliant opera composer of all time. Composing operas was always his greatest goal and his favourite task. He must have read over 100 "Büchelchen" ( booklets) - as he called texts that might be suitable for an opera setting - in the course of his too-short life. He was always on the lookout for stories and texts suitable for an opera. He had an extraordinary flair for dramatic and stage-effective material, and he by no means shied away from socially critical themes.

In the years when Mozart lived in Vienna (1781 to 1791), Martín y Soler, Antonio Salieri, Giovanni Paisiello, Giuseppe Sarti, Domenico Cimarosa and a few others were the real and great superstars of the time. They celebrated great successes with their operas at the royal and princely courts of Europe. They were the favourite composers of the European aristocratic elites. Mozart was no unknown - his childhood and youth as a child prodigy had not been forgotten - but the musical competition was considerable. In fact, he played only an outsider's role in Vienna's official music and opera business.
Soler and Salieri each wrote over 40 full-length operas in the course of their lives; Sarti and Paisiello even wrote close to 100. These were mostly operas of the opera seria type (serious opera, tragedy) and only a few of the opera buffa type (comic opera, comedy). The operas of these former superstars are now almost all forgotten and have almost completely disappeared from the repertoire. Here are a few exceptions:  Una cosa rara (A Rare Thing) by Soler, Axur, Re d'Ormus (Axur, King of Hormus) by Salieri, and Re Teodoro in Venezia (King Theodore in Venice) by Paisiello, Giulio Sabino by Sarti.
Incidentally, Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote libretti for all 5 composers; a highly interesting man with an adventurous life; he died in New York in 1838 at the age of 89. For Mozart, he wrote the so-called "Da Ponte operas" Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosi fan tutte; all in Italian. In all, Mozart composed seven great master operas: Idomeneo (at the age of 20, an early opera seria, Italian), the Singspiel Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Cosi fan tutte, so they all do it (all Italian). Then La Clemenca di Tito (The Goodness of Titus, a late opera seria, Italian), and Die Zauberflöte, The Magic Flute.

All Mozart operas surpass the compositions of the others by miles in compositional, aesthetic quality and artistic level! To illustrate the gap in a picture: The productions of the aforementioned Italians (and other contemporary composers) appear like ugly grey molehills at the foot of proud 8000-metre peaks!!!!

 

[Nasiadai]

The following is not factual knowledge, does not present historical knowledge that can be tested and used to become a millionaire on Jauch or a quiz king on Pilawa or Kerner (Quiz programmes on German television). It is enlightening knowledge, reflective knowledge in the best sense.

The social role of music and especially the role of music theater in Vienna at the end of the 18th century

Vienna, the metropolis of the vast Habsburg Empire, was home to some ten to twelve princes, at least sixty counts, and dozens of barons. In addition, there were their family members, i.e. many-headed noble family clans. These nobles had immense economic resources. In addition, there was a thin layer of the upper bourgeoisie. This included bourgeois administrators (in top positions), high-ranking military officers, big merchants, wholesalers, bankers and factory owners, who themselves maintained representative houses and salons and competed with the noble families in these. Then there was a still relatively thin bourgeois middle class. Bourgeois here meant economically independent or working in a permanent position at a princely court. And there was the Viennese lower class, the Viennese proletariat, who made up the great mass of the population at that time. A total of about 200,000 people lived in Vienna at that time; servants, day labourers, craftsmen, workers, rural refugees who sought their fortune in Vienna, etc. Europe was rumbling, the times were crying out for social change, the French Revolution was just around the corner, which actually broke out in 1789.

Mozart knew his society very well. In Salzburg he experienced the degrading treatment when one is only considered a domestique at the archbishop's court. As a young man in Salzburg, he composed his cassations, divertimenti, serenades, a few symphonies, lots of church music and, above all, the five immortal violin concertos for aristocratic and upper middle-class families and performed them as soloist and conductor with a small orchestra. The occasions were usually family celebrations, parties on secluded summer evenings, church holidays, to which the aristocratic and upper middle-class Salzburg audience gathered.

Mozart had a fairly precise idea of the social composition and the ideological, social and cultural sensitivities of his audience and listening communities. He was familiar with the musical tastes, listening habits and listening or rather understanding dispositions of his recipients.

Mozart's music is - like all art - 'fait social' and embedded in the historical-social contexts of life, and as such I am concerned with its intended effect, its respective directionality as well as the aspects of its reception, its social situation.

Note: at that time there were no mass media, no radio or television, no CD players, no films and hardly any differentiated press with newspapers, magazines and journals, etc. The media were not yet available. And certainly not in an absolutist state with strong censorship. Which medium offered meaning to an audience searching for sense and significance but also for entertainment? It was the theatre, the play and the opera!

The Vienna National Theatre, the Hofburg Theatre, was one of the central meeting places for the great Viennese society: for the emperor and the imperial family, for the nobility, its large family clans and for the upper middle classes. In addition to the theatre, it was the large full-evening opera that offered the assembled aristocratic and upper middle-class audience entertainment, communication and identification. Such an opera evening was always a social 'event', a major event; here the rich, the beautiful and the influential, the social elites of Vienna and the Habsburg Empire met.

[Nasiadai]

The operas of the great stars of the late 18th century.
My assumptions and theses on the operas of the superstars Sarti, Soler, Salieri, Paisiello, Cimarosa:

The libretti, the stories set to music, as well as the composed music, the dramatic personnel, the conflicts and their solutions were geared towards this aristocratic and courtly audience. These operas fulfilled the expectations of this audience; in them, a sacredly exalted backward-looking utopia of imperial and noble rule, noble-courtly life is presented and celebrated. The purpose of these operas was the collective safeguarding of aristocratic life and rule, the presentation of the absolute social primacy of the nobility as the representation of an order that had always existed. Their operas offered possibilities for securing identity. That was the ideological appeal of these operas.
It is therefore true of these musical dramas that a noble society communicates with itself as a communicative community. This aristocratic society as a communicative community is the resonance space into which these operas achieved their effect, their offers of identification and orientation. The operas of the Italians mentioned above fulfilled the noble desire for representation of their power and rule as well as the presentation of their social superiority.

It can be assumed that the political and ideological claim to power of the emperor, the imperial family and the feudal nobility unfolded through the events on the opera stage. Through the plot, music and song of these operas, the collective safeguarding of noble-courtly life, imperial and noble rule, is realised, testifying to the acquired social dominance as quasi-ontological: as the realisation of an order that always already existed. These operas (probably, it cannot be otherwise) offer their noble audience tangible offers of identification, possibilities for individual and social determination of position as well as the experience of a communal “we-feeling”, feeling of togetherness, sense of unity, even a “we-intensity”, due to the stage action, the characters, the courtly choreographies, the rituals and ceremonies that take place, the conflicts as well as the solutions to the problems. In addition, these operas offer very practical application possibilities due to the similarities between the forms of society depicted on the opera stage and the aristocratic world. How do I arrange a party in the future, how do I arrange a wedding, which wardrobe etc. is 'in' at the moment? How do I resolve a conflict within my family, etc.?

These composers - superstars of the time like Sarti, Salieri, Soler, Paisiello, Cimarosa - follow well-trodden stereotypical musical paths. The arias and chorales are clichéd, always the same or similar. Strings and other instrumental groups accompany the respective human singing voice in a rather unpretentious and well-behaved parallel melodic line. The music remains external to the characters. The music and the singing are intended to create a mood and a feeling of always already being understood and agreed with in the audience, as well as to evoke a sensual-emotional enjoyment, quite comparable to operetta, the musical, the pop song or pop music. The dramatic characters are usually a king and his family as well as other noble characters. The bourgeois and lower classes appear merely as extras or as a chorus whose only task is to praise the goodness and charity as well as the aristocratic wisdom and dignity of the ruler and his family.

It is not for the sake of the opera that the noble audience gathers, but for its own sake, for the sake of its ostentatious self-expression. The interest is not so much directed towards the music and the stage action, but it is directed towards the audience. The aristocratic audience celebrates itself. Attention is centred on the emperor, the king, the ruling family. Musical theatre is an integral part of such a social event. For opera as a work of art, this means that it does not follow its own rules autonomously, self-sufficiently in freedom, that it creates an independent fictional, aesthetic reality; instead, it is commercial art, entertainment, and this is how it was consistently used and received by the aristocratic audience of the time. Opera as an art form is thus devalued to a degraded service, robbed of its productive freedom and aesthetic innovation.

 

 

[Nasiadai]

In contrast to this, Mozart:

Mozart was a musical revolutionary, no, not a loud and aggressive revolutionary. He was a change agent on the quiet. He stood fully in the European musical tradition, which he knew very well. He mastered all the usual compositional techniques and styles for all genres of music: Opera or symphony, concerto, serenade or church music. In all these genres he set outstanding compositional and aesthetic standards.

In his great operas and singspiels, he portrayed characters who represented the whole of society: Kings, nobles, but also burghers, servants, peasants, even marginal characters such as the black slave overseer Monostatos or the bird-catcher Papageno in The Magic Flute, the 'high' and the 'low' couple; princes and princesses, aristocrats, but also servants, chambermaids, peasants, peasant women. Mozart treats all these characters musically on an equal footing, whether king, count, valet or peasant, they are all musically equal; differences in social rank are largely levelled out. In The Magic Flute, the princess Pamina and the bird catcher Papageno even sing a duet with each other, musically completely equal, on an equal footing, on the same musical stylistic level. With Salieri & Co. that would be completely impossible: Potztausend! That's really not possible. I can't expect my aristocratic audience to do that!

That is the sting of Mozart's music, even today. That is the critical, the utopian, the visionary, also the unresolved, the alternative, at the same time also the dangerous. Mozart's music is an unredeemed promise, an unredeemed legacy.

All characters are given a wonderful music that defines them as a completely individualised person, as the unique individual. Through Mozart's music we look into their souls and inwardness, we participate in their feelings and thoughts, their sensations, their longings, their love and their suffering. Mozart actually composes 'inner monologues' for his characters, who thereby come to life and become individuals. Music and song reveal their respective states of mind, the arias present us with moods, individual reactions to dramatic turns in the plot. Even in the ensemble numbers (tercets, quartets, etc.), which were a novelty at the time, each character is given its own specific melodic line that corresponds to its character and individuality; and yet this polyphonic, individualised singing harmonises wonderfully. This is compositional art at the very highest level.
Mozart's operas touch on basic human experiences such as love and desire, joy, hope and trust, but also striving for power, hatred and anger, guilt and suffering, disappointment, failure, fear and death. Mozart portrayed these existentials of human existence in a unique way, almost in an exemplary manner, so that we today can apply them to our own experiences and our own experience over the temporal distance of more than 230 years. Mozart's music allows us to directly understand, experience and feel the infatuation of Tamino, the suffering of Pamina, the intrigues of Figaro, the exuberant lust for life of Don Giovanni and the rage of Osmin. As if it had been composed especially for us today. That is what is "classical" about it.

Mozart - and this is another decisive difference to his contemporary competitors - subtly snatches opera from its hitherto usual contexts of use and reception. Paisello, Salieri, Cimarosa & Co. compose in the environment of an aristocratic-courtly society, which they supply and entertain with fixed musical forms and - in collaboration with their librettists - familiar material and themes. For them, opera serves as a social event to demonstrate the power, dignity and majesty of the emperor, the prince and the aristocracy present.

Because of the dizzying height of his compositional level, Mozart's music, on the other hand - whether concerto, mass, symphony or opera - demands concentrated listening. His musical productions demand full attention; they are the centre of attention, for their sake an art-interested audience gathers. He wrests opera - and all other musical genres - from subordination; from being an element of the aristocracy's political-social representation. It is not the audience that makes demands on the opera, but the opera that makes demands on the audience. In a certain sense, this is a devaluation of the aristocratic audience in its social function. It is completely irrelevant who sits in the auditorium, whether king or peasant, princess or chambermaid, nobleman or bourgeois; what matters is the appropriate reception of what is presented. Mozart thus democratises opera as an art form. Mozart had the audacity to compose music for people of all social classes and not just for the aristocracy that ruled Europe at the time. This also sets him far above his contemporary competitors and makes him unique in the history of music. Through him, the opera stage emancipates itself, it loses its "product character", its servitude. Opera as an art form becomes autonomous, self-sufficient, free; it follows its own rules and creates its own aesthetic world.

This historical embedding of Mozart, the identicalness with the superstars of the time, but above all the separateness, the newness of his compositional art has not yet been dealt with at all by lame musicology.  Musicology still has gigantic theoretical deficits. Ultimately, all these professionals understand and interpret Mozart as if he had composed it especially for us present-day recipients. They reduce him to the typical human constants, to the human generalities of love and hate, striving for power and intrigue, etc. The reconstruction of the historical horizon in which Mozart's music was composed and received, well, such research is still rare.

 

Unfortunately not finished; key words:
Mozart desperately wanted success; he sought it among the "upper class", the upper ten thousand, he wanted to force success in courtly-aristocratic society. His defiant awareness of an extraordinary talent, ability, achievement of bourgeois musicians and composers; his self-esteem. His ambivalent behaviour towards the social elites, to whom he never ingratiated himself musically! On the contrary, he holds up a critical mirror to aristocratic society. In Figaro, Count Almaviva is no longer able to assert the right of the first night against the chambermaid Susanna; instead, the noble lord sinks into the swamp of intrigue of his own count's court. In Don Giovanni, the aristocratic bon vivant and playboy is sent to hell in a furious finale because of his refusal to change this lifestyle, to moderate himself.

(Imagine the effect on the aristocratic audience! They were pissed off, confused, green and yellow with rage. They were foaming at the mouth.  "A Mozartian mess!")

 

[Nasiadai]

Another little interlude

It is the year 1989. I had changed professionally to Hamburg only a few months ago. Friday lunchtime; I leave for Düsseldorf for the weekend as usual. When I arrive home, I can already hear my brother playing the piano in the hallway and a female soprano voice.

"What's going on?"
I am greeted by my mother at the door:
"Stefan has a visitor; a young singing student from the Robert Schumann Conservatory. The two of them have been practising for several hours; the girl has an important exam in a few days."

Mother led me down the hall to the kitchen, where everything was already prepared for dinner. I sat down and ate with a big appetite, always accompanied by the piano playing and the mountain-bright soprano voice that came from the children's room into the kitchen. After the meal, I talked with my mother about everything that had happened in the family, about the weather, about God and the world. Our conversation was always escorted by the Italian bel canto that permeated walls and doors. The two of them practised and sang the whole Verdi, Puccini, Rossini, Traviata up and down, Turandot ... I don't remember what else the two of them tried their hand at. In the last 15 minutes they had obviously got stuck on one aria, which they repeated several times. It was the Puccini aria "Oh mio babbino caro", Oh my beloved father. It is, of course, beautiful and heartfelt.
But at some point I was bursting with bel canto, I got up, ran down the hall to the nursery.
"I'm sick of Italian bel canto now, my ears are bursting!" I shouted with feigned disarmament,
"I want to hear something German now, but prestissimo!"
My brother grinned, struck a few notes and chords, the girl laughed, understood immediately, reached behind her for a stack of sheet music, and then they sang and played for me the heartfelt aria of Zaide "Ruhe sanft, mein holdes Leben" "Sweet Peace, my lovely life, Sleep, until your luck wakes"
from Mozart's Singspiel fragment of the same name. I was satisfied and thanked them. But then it was time for Düsseldorf's old town; the friends and the Alt beer were waiting.