|
As an undergraduate Music student, I had to analyse Mozart's music for a term. I had enjoyed playing one or two of his piano sonatas. As a composer, he did not seem to be bothered by 'handedness' in his music which is often formed around symmetrical patterns. Listening, playing and analysing I found how Mozart would base his pieces on simple raw materials like scales and arpeggios, but turn them into something else using modulation, chromaticism and suspension. I came to the conclusion that Mozart's music is like licopodium: the plant that when dry forms an almost crystalline structure that can be rubbed between the palms to form talcum powder. Mozart's music is like a palace of playing cards - remove one element and the whole lot falls down: each component is essential to the whole. Mozart also liked teasing and 'glueing' his melodies by making the end of one phrase the start of the next, so that one gets an almost subliminal phrase structure. Leonard Bernstein illustrated this principle with the word 'deaduck'. Perfection. |
 |
|
