I've killed someone because I didn't want to marry him.

Mozart? One of my favourites. And if you think Mozart's music is garbage, I'm cool with that. It would be very interesting to have a conversation with you about that.

Szell forgot the hundreds of minuets and fantasies he composed

Yes, and you broke my heart, you know that

Mozart wrote more than 41 symphonies. More like around 60, which includes works Mozart himself regarded as "symphony". Also more than 13 operas.

Oh, and you forgot a quote, Artemis: Mahler's last word was apparently "Mozartl."

Despite all of those quotes, I tend to think that Mozart was too perfect, too smooth and attractive and whatever. So I don't like to listen to it much. There's not much conflict, I don't care what Bernstein says about "agony." Bernstein thought everything had agony anyway.

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"Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n
wirst du, mein Herz, in einem Nu!
Was du geschlagen
zu Gott wird es dich tragen!"
-Gustav Mahler

You've got a point there. But it still stands that Mozart is the perfect realization of balance. I've never heard anything even slightly pretentious out of him, yet he doesn't necessarily take himself so seriously. His minuets are an excellent example of that facet.

I'd go right back down the road of no composer being inherently better than any other, but it's been said and done. You know what I'm getting at

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"Your mathematics are correct, but your physics are abominable..." Einstein

When I was first introduced to classical music, I loathed Mozart's music. That was until I was more properly introduced by Bruno Walter's recordings, which then opened the door to many, many other composers. So, is Mozart garbage? Hell, no. God? No. There are far too many great composers whose music has stood the test of time (in immense adversity, in many cases) to believe that.

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Op. 109

Naww- she's just considerately saving a few for the rest of us, e.g.:Mozart's not my favorite composer. Hey- among favorites, he might be hard-pressed to crack my top-10. But... he's much closer to "God" than "garbage," by a margin so sizeable the only parallels are astronomic space, geologic time, and current American governmental expenditures.

Oh, and if Mozart's output was 'uneven,' what reputable
composer (other than Bach) ever had consistent output??

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The hardest knife ill us'd doth lose his edge. Shakespeare- Sonnet 95

Damn, even mozart didn't foresee how much havoc he'd cause on the internet!! So he's not god afterall...or did he do this on purpose?!

Garbage? This is really the worst poll ever.... In classical music is quite difficult to find garbage, but if you do, it will not be Mozart... any person who has any kind of musical knowledge will agree... Maybe it will not be a favorite for some (maybe some even can't stand the grace of his music, whatever) but "garbage"?

He's very close to a musical god (I don't believe in the other kind of god anyway)... Only Bach was even closer....

Mozart is certainly not garbage, but IMHO the classical period is generally a garbage period and the low point of classical music. So even though Mozart and Haydn are highly influential in music and worshipped as gods, I would never rate them as highly as the Bachs before them or the Beethovens after them.

I guess this could be termed an "extreme" poll?

It could be argued that he's over-rated, but I feel he's probably closer to God than garbage. So I'll have to go with that, I guess, if I have to go with something. Do I have to? Or should I just abstain. Hmm.

I think I'll abstain, in protest, because I can't really vote that he's either. I object to the lack of choice. So there.

Gee, my posts have been really helpful around here these days. *shrug* Can't fault me for trying.

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"The dissonance of today is the consonance of tomorrow." - Claude Debussy
"(gives) the charming and bizarre sensation of eating a pink bon-bon stuffed with snow." - Debussy on the music of Grieg
Make Your Music Lessons More Fun

This poll reminds me of the vocabulary of the dearly departed Mirror Image (some people will remember him, he was banned a few months back). He had the regrettable tendency to call any composer's music which he didn't like to be "garbage." I think this attitude is faulty to say the least, very extreme, very subjective (although I know this poll was meant to provoke debate).

Personally, I avoid deifying (or vilifying) any composer, because in doing so you are making music into an ideology, which is plainly wrong. It's art, not politics or religion. Of course there are composers I like or dislike, but that's another matter entirely...

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"Contrary to general belief an artist is never ahead of his time but most people are far behind theirs" - Edgard Varese

Who can forget all that?

It is regrettable that someone has set up such a silly poll giving only two options for describing the quality of Mozart's music one of which is "garbage". It shows a very puerile mentality in my opinion, and is not even remotely funny. I suppose, however, we live in free societies (or at least most of us do) so this kind of thing has to be tolerated.

To me, this present round of anti-Mozart bias is akin to the nonsense perpetrated by Robert Newman on this Board a couple of years ago, and trotted out mercilessly on other Boards before that and subsequently. I accept that Newman’s hostility towards Mozart was based on alleged skulduggery in faking most of the works, and this latest round is of a completely different nature. But the similarity is that there is now another person on the loose with an obvious gripe about Mozart and who seems intent on polluting as many threads as he thinks he can get away, and creating yet more by way of denigration on a gratuitous and very dubious basis.

More recently, and on another music Board, there was a more limited fracas concerning the status of Mozart, which was referred to as evidence of "bullying" in another thread. After the perpetrator of the allegation that Mozart is among the "5 worst composers" suffered quite a bad set-back from other members, one of the Mods eventually came to his rescue and said that the thread itself was unfortunate but it was equally unfortunate that anyone would be daft enough to include Mozart among the worst five composers without offering any sensible explanation, and hence they deserved all the hit-back they got. Sensible moderation. We need more of that kind of approach here, instead of the usual limp-wristed responses which are becoming so typical.