STOP THE MADNESS

posted by James Reel

    Mozart mania became so unbearable in 1991 that I’m now an old hand at ignoring the hero-worship and dealing with the man’s music on my own terms. Exaggerated claims for anything or anyone will inevitably inspire a backlash, and, sure enough, David Hurwitz is all too happy to crack the whip:

You see, there is a dirty secret underlying all the hype: Mozart wrote more junk than any other composer of his stature. That’s only to be expected. The fact that he was composing when he was still in diapers is amazing, but let’s not kid ourselves about the importance or quality of the result.

    Indeed. Mozart produced some of the finest works in the repertory, but not every note is golden. “Discrimination” has been a bad word in America since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, but the American public could benefit from developing more discriminating taste. Some people are smarter than others; some work harder than others; some have greater skills or sheer talent than others. Some compositions, novels, plays, acting, feats of accounting, auto-body repairs, martinis and manicures are better than others. Not every kid deserves a bumper sticker just for showing up at elementary school, and not every score deserves to be called a masterpiece just because it’s by Mozart.