Why Mozart Rocks So Hard. Artistic Genius Explained by Leon Botstein

the more you think about each separate artform movies films buildings music painting sculpture performance art you develop sensibilities criteria there was a great example for example in the case of the composer Mozart he had a pupil Thomas Atwood who became a court composer in England during the reign of Victoria he was a fine musician but not a great talent perfectly fine craftsman wrote a fair amount of music none of which has survived but it's very competent nice music is is art music it's it's it's fine it's good it's interesting it's historically interesting because every age has its own artistic currents and it's very interesting to understand the past art is a terrific instrument for getting under the skin so to speak of ever past Europe now Thomas Edward studied with Mozart now Mozart was not much of a teacher he did it only for the money and the strange thing about Thomas Atwood is that it's the one complete record because he was English and very meticulous he kept his lessons with Mozart it's the only record we have of Mozart teaching he gave Atwood lessons and exercises and it's a great example of a minuet dance in which he gave Atwood a bassline and asked him to fill it out figure out one line you had to fill it out give melody so I gave him a bassline a kind of Foundation which to write the minuet dance in three meter and the fascinating thing when Mozart was correcting it he made slight changes and if you play Atwoods exercise that he gave back to motor and Mozart's just to fill the time your thing about it editing and changing of it you see the difference between the ordinary and the grade and blindfold and audience who's listened to a lot of eighth century minuets will identify the Mozart one right away

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Length: 2min 45sec (165 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 07 2011