Lecture 17. Mozart and His Operas
TLDRThis university lecture analyzes the genius of Mozart's music across various dimensions like his sense of balance and proportion, capacity to create beauty from simple materials, dramatic mood swings, and inexhaustible melodic imagination. It explores how Mozart's music seems divinely shaped and gives us a vision of something better than mundane reality. The lecture also discusses how music links us to memories and transcendental experiences. It concludes by demonstrating excerpts from Mozart's opera Don Giovanni which contains his signature contrasts between the divine and demonic.
Takeaways
- 😀 Mozart had an incredible capacity to retain musical sound and mimic dialects and gestures
- 🎹 Mozart's music features perfect balance and proportion, simplicity transformed into beauty
- 😲 Mozart could quickly swing between contrasting musical moods and keys for dramatic effect
- 🎶 Mozart had an inexhaustible melodic imagination and supply
- ☝️ Mozart's music was considered divinely shaped and heavenly sent
- 🎼 Music can connect us to distant memories and give us hope for something better
- 🎻 Mozart wrote 3 great operas - The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute
- 🎭 Opera features musically heightened drama to reinforce the story
- 👨🎤 Don Giovanni is the story of a misogynistic rake who tries to seduce women
- 🤺 Conflicts play out between genders and social classes in the revolutionary-era Don Giovanni
Q & A
What is the premise of the film Amadeus?
-The film is based on two premises: 1) What does mediocrity do in the face of absolute genius? And 2) Isn't it ironic that God-given talent comes to earth in the childish form of Mozart?
How does the portrayal of Mozart in Amadeus differ from the real historical figure?
-The movie portrays Mozart as vulgar, childish, and buffoonish. But based on letters and memoirs from the time, the real Mozart was likely more refined, contemplative about death, and fluent in multiple languages.
What was Mozart's fascination with numbers and shapes about?
-Mozart had interests in arithmetic, geometry, anagrams and mimicking accents. This suggests he had an innate fascination with patterns, shapes, and mimicry, which may have played into his musical talents.
What are four defining traits of Mozart's music?
-1) An infallible sense of balance and proportion 2) The ability to make something very beautiful from the simplest materials 3) Wild swings of mood within a single piece 4) An inexhaustible melodic imagination.
How does the opera Don Giovanni reflect social/political tensions of the late 18th century?
-It plays out tensions between men and women, as a male nobleman abuses his power and status to manipulate women. It also has peasant characters acting more nobly, foreshadowing the coming French Revolution.
What spiritual purpose does the professor believe art serves?
-Art gives people hope that there is something greater than mundane existence. It provides glimpses of the divine and makes people feel there is something bigger and better than themselves.
What two key things does the professor say music does for people?
-1) Taps into our memories and reminds us of meaningful times and people from our past 2) Gives hope that there is something transcendent and divine beyond normal existence.
How did Mozart compose so fluently compared to Beethoven?
-Beethoven labored over melodies, making corrections and revisions. Mozart's melodies seemed to flow out perfectly formed, with no need for corrections in his manuscripts.
What surprised the professor about hearing Mozart at the Nashville airport?
-The professor was surprised to hear Mozart's music blended seamlessly into contemporary life, demonstrating his timeless popularity even today.
What advice does the professor give for having a spiritual experience with art?
-He cannot guarantee a spiritual experience, but suggests exposing oneself to sublime art like Mozart to increase the chances of being profoundly moved.
Outlines
😃 Prof introduces himself and gives background on his Mozart studies in Nashville
The professor discusses his weekend in Nashville where he attended a Mozart requiem performance, visited the Country Music Hall of Fame, and heard Mozart music playing in the airport. He muses about the diversity of music and culture in America and Mozart's enduring genius.
😄 The opening music from Amadeus is played
The professor plays the opening music from the film Amadeus, which is based on the premise of exploring mediocrity in the face of genius and the irony of Mozart's juvenile personality contrasted with his divine musical talents. He asks how the writers crafted Mozart's character and explains they used memoirs and letters from the time period.
🤔 Prof quotes a Mozart letter showing his thoughtful view of death
The professor shares a quote from one of Mozart's personal letters written after the death of his good friend at age 31, the same age as Mozart at the time. In the letter, Mozart expresses an accepting, tranquil view of death, thanking God for the opportunity to see death as the portal to true happiness.
😎 Discussion of distinctive traits of Mozart's music
The professor outlines four key traits of Mozart's music: 1) an infallible sense of balance and proportion exemplified in Classical period style, 2) simplicity and beauty, illustrated with a famous piano concerto excerpt, 3) wild contrasts and shifts in mood, demonstrated with choral excerpts, 4) seemingly endless melodic creativity.
🎵 Example of Mozart's divine vocal writing ability
A soprano solo excerpt from a Mozart mass is played to showcase his divine vocal writing gifts which seem effortlessly beautiful. Mozart never struggled over melodies like Beethoven, but occasionally sketched out counterpoint.
💡 Mozart viewed by contemporaries as divine musical genius
Mozart was hailed as the divine Mozart in his day for his perfectly balanced, proportioned, and inexhaustibly inventive music. His crystalline clarity is like glimpsing visions of the divine through art. A quote from Kepler links cosmic time to artistic beauty.
🎶 Discussion shifts to the role and impact of music
Quotes from scientist Kepler and country singer Charlie Pride reflect differing views on music's higher purpose and ability to tap memory. The professor muses music can provide divine visions or transport us through memory.
😈 Demonstration from scenes in the Don Giovanni opera
Excerpts from Mozart's dark opera Don Giovanni are performed, featuring Leporello's patter song, the mortal duel between the Commendatore and rakish Don Giovanni, and Giovanni's attempted seduction of another woman after the murder.
🥳 Concluding the opera demonstration
The professor wraps up the dramatic Don Giovanni scene demonstrations and jokes they will perform Wagner's Goetterdaemmerung next week.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Mozart
💡music
💡opera
💡genius
💡divine
💡melody
💡contrast
💡simplicity
💡memory
💡humanity
Highlights
Mozart had an incredible capacity to imitate other individuals--their facial gestures, their dialects
Mozart had a great musical memory. He could retain all of this sound
Mozart sometimes would have to sketch something. When he gets in trouble and has to sketch it's contrapuntal issues, never melody
With Mozart there is this sense of music that is divinely shaped, divinely proportioned, a sort of endless variety
In music it often happens, well, sometimes and maybe with Gustav Mahler but particularly with Mozart, and I think it has to do with the sense of balance and proportion, crystalline clarity that's operating there
Music is a bridge to my distant memories. When I hear a piece, it reminds me of a time or an event of my childhood or of my youth. Music carries me back there
Take a look at the sheet. I was sitting there last night typing this up. It seemed to me that we used to put these lists on the board but then the lists got so long I decided just to put them on a sheet for today. So here's the list, "Craig's Essential, Mozart,"
What music is this? Musically heightened drama. Music is there behind the drama and it reinforces it. It does the same thing in film.
Here we have a story that involves male, female, don't be distracted, because this one of our cast members, the dog, and he's bringing Richard up, along with him.
We have a guest with us today and we're going to introduce him, Professor Richard Lalli. How many of you know who Richard Lalli is? Okay. Oh, good, a famous guy already.
And he happens to be a darn good singer, as you will see here in just a minute. So we're going to start out here with a little of this, and Richard and his friend are going to help us out here.
Nobody ever notices it but it's some of the most beautiful music that he ever wrote. We ended up on a diminished chord and then the penetrative, diminished chord again at the top of that line where he gets stabbed.
It goes by very quickly. Nobody ever notices it but it's some of the most beautiful music that he ever wrote.
That's it for today. Next week we're doing Goetterdaemmerung!
Don Giovanni goes on to another seduction in which he attempts to engage in amorous compromise, he makes his advance and she is initially intrigued. Will she succumb to his advances? Let's find out.
Transcripts
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