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Mozart: The Man and the Artist: as Revealed in His own Words
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Summary
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The German composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was not only a musical genius, but was also one of the pre-eminent geniuses of the Western world. He defined in his music a system of musical thought and an entire state of mind that were unlike any previously experienced. A true child prodigy, he began composing at age 5 and rapidly developed his unmistakable style; by 18 he was composing works capable of altering the mind-states of entire civilizations. Indeed, he and his predecessor Bach accomplished the Olympian feat of adding to the human concepts of civility and civilization. So these two were not just musical geniuses, but geniuses of the humanities.
Mozart's music IS civilization. It encompasses all that is humane about an idealized civilization. And it probably was Mozart's main purpose to create and propagate a concept of a great civilization through his music. He wanted to show his fellow Europeans, with their garbage-polluted citystreets, their violent mono-maniacal leaders and their stifling, non-humane bureaucracies, new ideas on how to run their civilizations properly. He wanted them to hear and feel a sense of civilized movement, of the musical expressions of man moving as he would if upholding the highest values of idealized societies. One need only listen to the revolutionary opening bars of his famous Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to see this.
The purpose and scope of this little book will be obvious to the reader from even a cursory glance at its contents. It is, in a way, an autobiography of Mozart written without conscious purpose, and for that reason peculiarly winning, illuminating and convincing. The outward things in Mozart's life are all but ignored in it, but there is a frank and full disclosure of the great musician's artistic, intellectual and moral character, made in his own words.
CONTENTS:
BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
EDITOR'S NOTE
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF MOZART
CHIPS FROM THE WORKSHOP
CONCERNING THE OPERA
MUSICAL PEDAGOGICS
TOUCHING MUSICAL PERFORMANCES EXPRESSIONS CRITICAL
OPINIONS CONCERNING OTHERS
WOLFGANG, THE GERMAN
SELF-RESPECT AND HONOR
STRIVINGS AND LABORS
AT HOME AND ABROAD
LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP
WORLDLY WISDOM
IN SUFFERING
MORALS
RELIGION
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