{"id":1843,"date":"2017-05-23T19:51:01","date_gmt":"2017-05-23T19:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hollerung.hu\/?page_id=1843"},"modified":"2017-05-26T20:33:28","modified_gmt":"2017-05-26T20:33:28","slug":"mozart-symphony-no-41","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/hollerung.hu\/en\/mozart-symphony-no-41\/","title":{"rendered":"Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C major, K 551, \u201cJupiter\u201d Symphony"},"content":{"rendered":"

Good morning everyone. Warm welcome in this year\u2019s opening presentation in our series Understanding Music.
\nDear Ladies and Gentlemen, This year our program and the themes of the concerts will be focused on the titles of some literary works, e.g. Angles and Demons, Heaven and Earth, War and Peace, Now and Forever. Let me tell those who are susceptible to literature that they shouldn\u2019t be hoping and not even worrying, as the presentations will have nothing to do with the literary works. Actually, we tend to come up with such titles as I have a leaning towards uniform title mechanisms. Can you still remember the titles of the presentations like \u201cincomplete and incompletable\u201d, the phrases with other privatives, or any other refined titles? The title of this presentation and concert might be the most appropriate of all, as today we\u2019ll also get closer to our theme from the aspect of a literary work. Under the title Mozart and Salieri Pushkin wrote a drama in altogether two short scenes, and Rimsky-Korsakov adapted that into a rather rarely played small opera. Regarding the theme, this piece elaborates two equally successful (in their age) composers\u2019, Mozart\u2019s and Salieri\u2019s presumed or actual conflict. The curiosity in this piece is that Salieri poisons Mozart. Quite many of you must know the film Amadeus[1]<\/a>. With a musician\u2019s eyes it\u2019s the most genial film that could ever be made of an artist; and here the focus is not mainly on Mozart\u2019s life but his art. All the wealth the film phrased in its own language led and could lead even us, musicians to miraculous recognitions. But what is the film, and to some extent the Pushkin drama, actually about? It\u2019s about relationship between ordinariness and geniality. Well, this is of course a bit more complicated topic than you would first think. We in the 20th century have a wholly different understanding of geniality than our ancestors had beforehand. No genius without really being understood in his own age could actually exist in cultural history. So it isn\u2019t at all true, in this sense of the word, that the genii were rather frequently not understood. Neither Leonardo nor Michelangelo, neither Bach nor Mendelssohn or Mozart were artists who in their age were not considered real genii.
\nThe subsequent development of this approach was the consequence of a consumers\u2019 mechanism in civil society. Basically, consumers\u2019 logic is not open to innovation. Consequently, consumption affecting the economic sphere created the notion of marketing for itself, which convinces the consumers of the importance and indispensability of novelties. So in simple terms, just to give you a recent example, we have to be somehow persuaded not to be using the same, usual toothpaste day by day but something new, because that will make our teeth 63% whiter. However, art is not suitable for, nor capable of this. This evolves the notion of non-understood genius in the 19th and 20th centuries. I believe you prefer coming and listening to Mozart\u2019s piece, as you\u2019ve heard it a lot of times and you know what to expect, to listening let\u2019s say to J\u00e1nos Kukutyin\u2019s latest symphony, as you might not even have a clue to who he is and what music he\u2019s composing. Poor J\u00e1nos Kukutyin has two options. He can either say that no one\u2019s interested in or cares about his music, and then he can quit his profession or try to compose some music that might arouse the interest of the audience. The other option is that I\u2019m a genius and I\u2019m not understood. Some genuinely marvellous mechanism accompanied this approach in the 20th century. There are some genius boxes in theatres where composers would only let in one another; and although nobody\u2019s actually concerned about them, still, they profoundly contempt the composers who more than one would listen to. You can misinterpret this if you like, or just the other way round. But naturally, real genii always exist, just as there\u2019re always some toothpastes that would not make a hit though they\u2019re better than the others. The novelty here is that posterity will decide who a genius was. So now in our age we have a totally different approach: we let the posterity judge the best of our age.
\nWe, ordinary people might still have a leaning towards the simple, which is quite a different issue. Our consumer\u2019s approach created the notion of audience demand in culture, too, and it also generated the notion of art in the service of audience demand.
\nJust consider: one of the most significant squalors manifested in our most recent cultural mask is the soap opera. Going back to my childhood, I can still remember the Szab\u00f3\u2019s that we were all excited to listen to in the radio week after week, and the series Neighbours[2]<\/a> in the \u201880s. The topicality of the story, the situations that led the viewers recognize some cases, the existence of genuine artistic tools in the storyline and dramaturgy created a new (though still within the borders of art) genre which gained immense popularity. The significant difference in today\u2019s soap opera, compared to these plays, is commercialization which, given its virtual reality, works as a cultural drug and does not even tend to touch arts, as the only goal is financial profit.
\nMeeting the demand of the audience has also existed in music history from the very moment the institution of concert and opera came into existence. Even H\u00e4ndel\u2019s opera was overshadowed by since forgotten composers. Or in Amadeus there is a superbly effective moment when the benchmark for the public audience, embodied in Joseph II, is Salieri, while Mozart\u2019s art remains incomprehensible.
\nSo this has always existed in music history. But don\u2019t ever forget something, and I\u2019m now emphasizing this for our own sake: there is a need for us, the ordinary people. No art, no society, nothing can exist without the ordinary rank. But where the borderlines of ordinariness are, in how big a field we can call this value and how we can call it deficiency is yet another issue. Still, don\u2019t ever be afraid of considering yourself an ordinary man, because ordinariness means you know and do a lot, you create values, even if you don\u2019t stand out against the mass.
\nSalieri was more popular than Mozart, from a certain point of view. What\u2019s more, powers and political mechanisms have always been phenomena that don\u2019t necessarily award performance \u2013 this is not a 20th century invention, either. Actually, Mozart was a plain nobody compared to Salieri who was a court composer. Mozart would also have loved to be a court composer but he couldn\u2019t be, at least not in Vienna. Everyone was aware of the difference between them, naturally including themselves. Amadeus is a really genial film as it gives an excellent insight into Mozart\u2019s awareness of his geniality, and we can be certain that Salieri must also have recognized that he, unfortunately, didn\u2019t come up to what Mozart knew. Just to show this to you expressively, I\u2019ll do some evil (now I frankly confess) against Salieri. After quite a long search I managed to find a not very good piece from Salieri. I did so intentionally. I could actually show you some Salieri piece that you would take delight in listening to, while leaning back, and you would calmly claim it to be a composition by perhaps Mozart or Haydn. To be frank, I could even show you some Beethoven piece which is indeed bad. But this can apply to great many composers who can nevertheless be genii. All in all, I was nasty enough to look for a not really good piece by Salieri. I\u2019d only like to prove how much a commonplace can remain commonplace and how such a commonplace can still do wonders. I\u2019ve chosen Salieri\u2019s Tempest of the Sea [La tempesta di mare] which shouldn\u2019t be mistaken for Vivaldi\u2019s identically titled piece[3]<\/a> that in turn is a superb work. Salieri\u2019s Tempest of the Sea would also be a highly exciting and entertaining work if, to Salieri\u2019s misfortune, he were not compared to Mozart today.
\nOne of the strongest coacting forces in classical music is the triad. The triad which, strictly taken, is a natural phenomenon. As I\u2019ve shown you so many times, the chime of the root and the tones within it produce harmony, the starting and, simultaneously, ending point in music. Let\u2019s play Salieri\u2019s piece from the 8th beat. <\/p>\n

     <\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/span>1. Mozart: \u201cJupiter\u201d Symphony<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div><\/span>