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Exploring Mozart: Best works to start with?

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9K views 49 replies 20 participants last post by  Evoken 
#1 ·
Greetings,
New to this community so "hello", nice to be here :)
A brief background: I am just someone looking to explore classical music, I am not a student/aspiring musician but am rather in a profession that is unrelated to music. Other musical genres I like are metal, jazz and darkwave. I've always listened to my bit of classical (mostly Bach and a tad of Beethoven along with artists like Natalie Dessay and Patricia Petibon) but I've never really explored the genre. Doing that is one of the reasons I joined this community.

That said, from Mozart I currently only own his CD from The World's Greatest Masterpieces collection, which has a selection of his works. I really like it and so I would like to branch out and explore deeper his complete works, which ones would you recommend to further explore his music for someone who is getting started?

Thanks in advance!
 
#13 · (Edited)
Thanks for these recommendations! Quite a lot of material to look into :) I think I'll start with the Piano Concertos, some of the Symphonies and the Marriage of Figaro.

And watch the movie made on Mozart, Amadeus (1984).
I saw that film a long time ago, isn't it more historical fiction tho? Acclaimed as it was at the Oscars, I was under the impression that its full of historical inaccuracies and that it's portrayal of Mozart is rather off the mark.

If you like metal and darkwave then the obvious best starting points with Mozart are the "Masonic Funeral Music" ("Mauerische Trauer Musik") and the Adagio and Fugue in C-minor.
Ah, interesting. I'll check these out too.

if you already like Dessay and don't have this, you should go for it ;). And this for Petibon. If you already have them, apologies :tiphat:
Oh, I don't have those! Will have to get my hands on them, Dessay is fantastic. Thanks.

Thanks again for the recommendations, you guys gave me more than enough to get started.
 
#5 ·
Hey Evoken,

Welcome to the forum! :)

You might find some handy tips here. For me, as a Mozart junkie, I made a suggestion in that thread, but also, within works there are the most delicious and moving slow movements, especially in the piano concertos. So, famously we have the slow set from #21, but really, in any of his piano concertos you have profoundly beautiful but equally accessible music. As a quick starter package, get yourself piano concerto #20: it's exciting, moody, brilliant and contains contrasts and those flashes of mood which are a trademark of Mozart... :tiphat:
 
#23 ·
For some reason the Violin Concertos are the only part of Mozart's music that I don't really like, even watching a live performance of the No.5 was not that enjoyable to me. I love the Piano Concertos, chamber music, symphonies, etc but not the Violin Concertos.
 
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#25 ·
Just a general note, these days when I have a question like this, my first resource is the classical music project on this site. Of course, like anything else, it's got its limitations and idiosyncrasies. But it's not bad.

My second resource is Dubal's The Essential Canon of Classical Music. Ditto on the limitations, but it is not very idiosyncratic.

Finally, a thing that is interesting is arkivmusic's search engine, which lets you see their records of how many times various works have been released. For example, here is Mozart's "soloist and orchestra" list: http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=8429&name_role1=1&bcorder=1&genre=154

At the top you see the Adagio in E, K 261, recordings of which have been released 84 times according to Arkiv's records (as of this post). Recordings of the 20th piano concerto have been released 206 times. That tells me something....

Things like this have to be used carefully - operas will be recorded less often than piano sonatas, Arkiv doesn't know everything, it's an indication of a sort of popularity rather than of any kind of objective quality, etc. - But I find it useful when I think something like, "So, I like the two violin sonatas by Mozart that I've just heard... what other violin sonatas by him might I want to look up?"

The worst thing about it is that if you like, say, Mozart's horn concertos, it's unlikely that this method will lead you to Pokorny's. A tool for that has yet to be invented to the best of my knowledge - and it is the tool that I need!
 
#27 · (Edited)
Thanks science! This is some very useful info. I will bookmark the arkivmusic site for future reference :)

Recently listened to the whole Marriage of Figaro and also Symphonies 40 and 41. I think I'll have to give Figaro another shot as it is quite long and it was a bit late when I heard it but the two Symphonies are brilliant, enjoyed them as much if not more than the Magic Flute Overture on the Mozart compilation I have, which is a lot.

I am not sure what it was with Figaro to be honest, aside from being quite long, it didn't quite grab me as the Symphonies did and it also seemed to meander quite a bit leading to me losing interest along the way. In any case, maybe if I give it another shot when I am less tired my impression will change.

I got my hands on the Requiem in D Minor, so that's next on the playlist.

Thanks again for the many recommendations everyone, got more than I could have hoped for :p
 
#26 · (Edited)
My first complete Mozart piece I ever listened to was the complete five movement version (not the standard four movement without the missing movement often performed today), of good-old Eine kleine Nachtmusik K525. :)
 
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#30 ·
The sinfonia concertante for violin, viola and orchestra is excellent. The overture to "The Marriage of Figaro" is delightful. I admit I'm not familiar with the rest of the opera. I also like his sinfonia concertante for four winds and orchestra (K. 297b). There is some uncertainty about whether he wrote it but it is such a great piece it is hard for me to imagine otherwise. Mozart wrote many great piano concerti but I am not familiar enough with them to know which ones to recommend.
 
#31 ·
About the Amadeus film, I watched it again yesterday on Netflix, I think that what the film lacks is balance when it comes to it's portrayal of Mozart. Sure, let's say he did many of the things the film shows him as doing, but I think that it basically only focuses on that and this is not balanced out with showing him as a brilliant composer. What I mean is that the film shows us a lot of the comical/goofy Mozart while almost completely neglecting the rest.

Compared to say, Immortal Beloved, the film of Beethoven starting Gary Oldman, which is also a historical fiction, that film at least gives use a more holistic view of the composer than Amadeus does.

Amadeus is definitely well made, produce and acted, but I am not convinced that it does a good job in giving us a holistic view of Mozart.
 
#32 ·
Mozart was nothing like the movie Amadeus! Nowt, rien, nada!

It's an entertaining flick and it shows a deep appreciation for his music, but it's essentially fiction and a travesty of justice towards Salieri, who in real life is reported to have sneaked Wolfie into his place of work where both of them would pore over old music manuscripts, like good workers do when they love their work.

The movie is a great way of getting into the music, though, and as a moral drama of the battle within the Salieri character and his faith, it's remarkable...
 
#33 ·
I would like to add that actually the movie is balanced. Imagine the alternative. Mozart is shown only slightly goofy and is shown as a serious, considerate and intellectual kind of person who thinks twice before speaking. I think this is only an image of him which is formed in the mind of a listener when he tries to gauge his character from his music, and while that is in itself a "valid" judgement (not a realistic one), it's also useless for a film because you don't even need the film then.

So, therefore the film attempted a well-rounded sneak peek into the life and times of both Mozart and Salieri. Mozart was given due respect because the film is about him, Salieri is given a chance to put his perspective forward. And Mozart only appears to be an exaggerated buffoon because you are so, so sure of the opposite somewhere deep inside you. That is perhaps the power of the music.
 
#34 ·
Yeah, but we have his letters and others impressions of him. I never read anywhere that he was a proto-rock star idiot who behaved like a spoilt brat and received music by transmission directly from God - which he kept wholly scored in his "noggin". :lol:

This is the 19th century Romantic view of Mozart, unsupported by contemporary accounts. It's a great film and I enjoyed it - but there are many rebuttals of this film which give us a picture of an erudite hardworking composer who loved his daddy, was humanly flawed, but not a womaniser, drunk or playboy.

I actually think a film on his life - based on what we know from history - would have been sufficiently dramatic and poignant...
 
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