All the notes behaving as if they were little children

ShiroKuro

This is how Mitsuko Uchida describes Mozart in this article:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/06/arts/music/mitsuko-uchida-ojai-festival.html

I love this description. It’s not really anything new to describe Mozart as having a childlike quality, but this turn of phrase seems particularly apt to me. The rest of the article is I suppose what you might expect, she’s a little bit scary and a little bit closed, but you find yourself wanting to hear more… 😄

So if in Mozart, all the notes are behaving as if they were little children, what would we say of Beethoven? Or Bach? Beethoven: the notes are ranting teenagers? Bach, the notes are wise grandparents?

Einaudi: the notes are sophisticated students (wearing mostly black) at a university for the arts?

🤣🤣

Bellyman

I love music that's "playful"! 🙂

I rarely listen to anything in the classical world anymore, I mostly listen to and play jazz. But some of jazz is quite playful. 🙂

FWIW, I suspect a lot of the great composers of the 1700's and 1800's would likely be drawn to jazz today considering the freedom to explore harmonies, chord structures, and true improvisation. I'm always amused at the rigid nature of modern players playing one of Bach's "improvisations" with the mindset that it must be played EXACTLY how he wrote it. I picture Bach giving a substantial belly laugh at that idea and imagine him doing the equivalent of "hold my beer" and doin' an Art Tatum on us. LOL!!

But hey, to each their own. Much like food, we're all individual in our likes and dislikes, what really moves us and what just doesn't. 🙂