Spending time with Mozart

For the last 12 days, my musical New Year diet has consisted of little more than Mozart. It was never going to be possible to donate 100% of my time to his music over this period, but other than necessary diversions (British Sea Power, Hindemith, Fujiya & Miyagi and Anna Calvi) the vast majority has been spent in the company of Wolfgang Amadeus.

The reason for this intensive study is BBC Radio 3's Genius of Mozart season, a 12 day project playing every note the composer penned on the radio. Previously the Beeb have subjected the likes of Bach, Beethoven, Webern and a memorable double act of Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky to this intensive treatment, yet the chance to hear this applied to Mozart didn’t grab me initially.

The problem – with me, at any rate – seems one borne of respect rather than love. It is easy to appreciate Mozart's genius, either through wide-eyed wonder that he had written more than 20 symphonies by the end of his teens, or through his mastery of form, instrumentation, harmony and above all melody.

Yet if you asked me who I liked more, Haydn or Mozart, Haydn would win almost every time. Finding reasons for this is difficult, but in the end I prefer his wit, his profusion of melody and above all the sense that his really is music for the people.

That said Radio 3's festival has reaffirmed some Mozart works in my mind. Few late night treats can equal listening to the Gran Partita, the serenade for 13 wind instruments. None of the piano concertos, especially no.9 and upwards of the teens, are found wanting, and the symphonies remain incredibly involving too. For me the performance of no.39 from the ever capable Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was easily the best performance of the week.

Some Mozart I can take or leave, which isn't meant to sound dismissive and arrogant, but to say that it functions as intended – as background music - or doesn't always move me. Some of the Divertimenti (save the String Trio masterpiece) and the serenades fall into this category, while some early works do feel as if they are going through the motions. The piano sonatas, too, I find largely functional, though they retain the capability to surprise when you least expect them to.

The real winners, for me, have been found within the chamber music, which can totally absorb the mind. Each of the 'Haydn' quartets is a delight, as are the four mature String Quintets, one of the forms that Mozart truly pioneered. Also proving unexpectedly magnetic were shorter works for piano, including the Rondo in A minor K511 and the Fantasy in D minor K397. Both seem to generate the extra intensity Mozart found when working in a minor key, which can also be said of the Adagio and Fugue in C minor K546, for string quartet.

As yet Mozart's operas remain beyond my reach - the problem most certainly my end rather than the composer's, as I continue to strip away at my previous indifference to classical opera. But for now, the chamber music will do just fine.

I have grouped together some of my favourite Mozart from this intriguing series, in the form of a Spotify playlist:
The Genius of Mozart