Much ado about mozart: craze leaves expert ‘astounded’

Previewing the Article

With the celebration of the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s birthday, the writer of this article interviews a prominent music historian, H.C.Robbins Landon, to learn whether all the “fuss” about Mozart is merely a fad. Landon contends that Mozart’s rich and varied music will endure long after the movie “Amadeus” and “I love Wolfie” T-shirts are forgotten. But one thing that he can’t do is fully to explain why some young people are so fascinated with the Mozart myth.

Before You Read

Before you read the article, discuss these questions.

1. What type of music do you enjoy? Do you listen to classical music?

2. What do you know about the life and music of Mozart?

As You Read

As you read, look for answers to these questions.

1. Why does Mozart appeal to some young people?

2. What are some of the things that we don’t know about Mozart?

Much ado about mozart: craze leaves expert ‘astounded’

H.C. Robbins Landon, the music historian, has specialized in the work and life of Haydn and, more recently, Mozart. The editor of a comprehensive Mozart Dictionary, Mr. Landon spoke to Barry James of the International Herald Tribune about the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birthday, beginning in January.

Q. Is all the fuss about the Mozart anniversary justified?

A. Oh yes. There is something about Mozart that appeals in a way that no other composer in history did.

Q. He appeals a lot to young people?

A. That’s right. They think he was someone who tried to fight the establishment and almost made it. They see him as a fantastic and a romantic figure, chucked into a pauper’s grave with five other corpses and not really understood by his contemporaries. Something else that attracts them is the fact that he was a child prodigy. They think of that little thing, aged 9, writing symphonies, which is rather amazing to come to think of. And they are quite good, too.

5 Q. Have you been taken by surprise by the Mozart’s craze?

A. Yes. I am astounded by the way the glossy magazines have latched onto Mozart. He has become the biggest myth in classical music history. The other thing which is amazing is the amount of literature which is being generated about Mozart. There is a book coming out every week. People have a mad desire to know more about him. You know, there is a classical music station in Shanghai that plays nothing but Mozart all day long. That’s what people want to hear. The phenomenon is also due in part to the comeback of the 18th century. Up to now the Renaissance or the 19th century was considered much more interesting.

Q. I suppose the fact that there is so much Mozart available also has something to do with the craze?

A. That is true. Part of Mozart’s popularity is due to the compact disk. CDs are an even bigger revolution than long-playing records were. For one thing, they are ideally geared to people with small apartments. You can now buy all the works of Mozart on CD. That means if you live in the provinces without easy reach of an orchestra, you can still have anything you want by pressing a button, and I don’t think that is a bad thing.

Q. To what extent have Peter Shaffer’s play “Amadeus” and the Milos Forman movie based on the play contributed to the craze?

10 A. They brought Mozart’s music to thousands and thousands of families who would not otherwise have listened to it. Shaffer was very clever in writing “Amadeus”. Had he tried to do a play about Bach or Haydn or Beethoven, it wouldn’t have worked. But he sniffed immediately that this was going to be a huge public success, and of course when Forman did the movie, that success became magnified enormously.

Q. But “Amadeus” also created a Mozart myth?

A. Absolutely. It filled people with the idea that Mozart was a rather poor, unworthy vessel into which God in his infinite wisdom poured unlimited, fathomless amounts of great music. This, of course, is ridiculous because Mozart wasn’t like that at all.

Q. What was he like?

A. He was a fanatic hard worker. He composed the “Linz” Symphony in four or five days. Why, it would take you the whole day flat out just to copy the thing. He worked within a classical framework with supreme greatness. Haydn of course was the great innovator.

15 Q. Why hasn’t there been a corresponding craze for Haydn?

A. Well, he wasn’t a myth. His life was a succession of hard work and a lot of luck, but he himself said it wasn’t interesting. But as a spin-off to the Mozart phenomenon, I am doing a lot of plugging of Haydn along the route. It’s curious that many people don’t even want to listen to Beethoven. I was talking to some professional musicians in London, for example, and they said they hadn’t played Beethoven’s “Fifth” for several years.

Q. Isn’t there a danger that this craze may reduce Mozart into a kind of background music?

A. I don’t think you really can harm Mozart very much. You cannot really do in good music, despite the “I love Wolfie” T-shirts and all the other rubbish that’s going around, which you cannot prevent anyway. It is going to be very interesting to see what happens when the anniversary is over. You know what I think? Nothing is going to happen. I think people are going to go on playing just as much Mozart as ever.

Q. Is there anything new to be said about Mozart?

20 A. There is still an awful lot we don’t understand. There is not a word about the French Revolution in any of his letters, and in fact there is not a word about politics. What did he think about these things? Another thing we do not understand is why the aristocracy in Vienna stopped supporting Mozart after “Figaro” had been the success of the town. If several hundred suddenly withdrew their support, it must have been a big subject of discussion. Yet we do not have a word.

I. Getting the Message

After reading the article, choose the best answer for each item.

1. Mozart is interesting to young people because he

a. was a romantic figure

b. lived in the 18th century

c. had a difficult childhood

2. The movie “Amadeus” shows

a. what a hard worker Mozart was

b. what a religious man Mozart was

c. how the unworthy Mozart was gifted with music by God

3. Landon is suggesting that in terms of a composer’s popularity,

a. the myth about the composer may be more important than the

composer’s music

b. the composer’s music is more important than the myth about

the composer

c. we can’t discover enough about the composer’s life to interest

us personally

4. The author believes that in future Mozart’s music will

a. become more familiar

b. continue to be popular

c. lose its popularity

II. Expanding Your Vocabulary

A. Getting Meaning from Context

Use context clues to determine the meaning of each word, found in the paragraph indicated in parentheses. Choose the correct definition.

1. craze (headline):	insanity fad
2. fuss (1):	a great deal of attention useless worry
3. establishment (4):	a business the group that controls society
4. contemporaries (4):	people living at the same time people living now
5. prodigy (4):	talented person extraordinary deed
6. framework (14):	system platform
7. succession (16):	order of inheritance sequence of events
8. plugging (17):	blocking up recommending on TV or radio
9. withdrew (20):	took away retired

B. Practising Useful Vocabulary

Complete the paragraph with the words from the following list. You will have to use seven words.

appeals mysterious innovator

aristocracy fanatic myth

astounded generated phenomenon

The current popular interest in Mozart is at all-time high. Every week more books and magazine articles are being (1) ___ about him. The huge amount of interest has (2) ___ even the music critic H.C. Robbins Landon. He thinks that the current (3) ___ is explained by the (4) ___ nature of Mozart, that is, the image of Mozart as a romantic figure. This image (5) ___ to young people. But Landon states that the reality of Mozart was different. Mozart was a (6) ___ at working hard. And Landon believes that the composer Haydn, not Mozart, was the great (7) ___ of the time.

III. Working with Idioms

Study the meanings of these idioms and expressions

much ado about (headline) = a lot of fuss and attention to

almost make it (4) = nearly succeed

latch onto (6) = associate oneself with

geared to (8) = especially designed and suited for

easy reach of (8) = near

flat out (14) = a maximum speed or effort

spin-off (16) = something copied or developed from something else

along the route (16) = on the way

do in (18) = destroy

Answer the questions.

1. Why is there much ado about Mozart?

2. In paragraph 6, what have the magazines helped create by latching onto Mozart?

3. In paragraph 14, why would it take you the whole day flat out just to copy the “Linz” Symphony?

4. In paragraph 16, how is Haydn benefiting from being a spin-off to the Mozart craze?

IV. Focusing on Style and Tone

Since this opinion article is set up as an interview, questions alternate with responses.

1. What are three questions that the interviewer asks Mr. Landon?

2. What in addition would you like to ask Mr. Landon about Mozart? List two questions.

V. Talking and Writing

Discuss the following topics. Then choose one of them to write about.

1. Can you agree with Mr. Landon that a Mozart myth has been created? Why might people be interested in this myth of Mozart rather than his true nature?

2. Have you ever met, seen or read about another prodigy? Is there a famous child prodigy from your native country? Tell us about him or her.

3. Who is your favourite composer? Describe his or her music.

4. What are some other current crazes in popular culture - music, dance, or fashion? Discuss a craze and give your opinion of it. Will it last?

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