winter wrote: 
The point that I was trying to make with my OP is that, when thrown into a huge random mix with other classical composers, Mozart's stuff is decidedly different and doesn't fit well. So is a lot of Shostakovich, for that matter, as well as some Tchaikovsky. I even had to throw out some Chopin from the mix.

Taken individually, any of these composers are terrific given a certain setting. As pleasant "wake-up background music while I'm preparing breakfast," however, it's too much. It would be akin to a set here on RP with Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, John Martin and Zero 7, with a little seven-minute interlude by Tony Williams Lifetime thrown in just to mix it up a little and tweak our ears. 

That is all. 

 Alexandra wrote: 
Pretty much any music you like will do. ;)

 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128104580

I think it's more that Mozart, being a man of a very different age, doesn't fit in well with our current tastes. Beethoven and the Romantics are full of drama and emotion - it's not hard to make them fit in with rock music, which is also dramatc. Mozart is about exquisite little filagrees and extraordinary structure: you might fit him into a mix with a lot of jazz, but not rock.

 Skaterella wrote: 
Nor do I. He is one of my absolute favorite composers.
 
His music is very mathematically oriented and balanced and there have actually been studies that it helps one's brain functions in academic settings (while studying for tests, etc.). I used to study with Mozart playing in the background in college and massage school - and always got good grades.

 Antigone wrote: 

there is nothing like a mozart opera (except maybe a Rossini or a Wagner or a verdi or a Puccini, or a Berlioz, perhaps the occasional Liste.....)  i love mozart. don't find him too notey at all.

 meower wrote: 
must be why you're so smart!

 meower wrote: 
Me neither...always felt he had that ability to know when "not to play a note"...which added to his genius. 

 meower wrote: 
My mom was an avid music lover, but in this town there were no live, classical concerts like that, so it was radio and records. I think that's why I was so blown away in college to see Don Giovanni. And the theatricality of it enthralled me.

 Antigone wrote: 

did you grow up hearing him as well?

my parents used to drag us to "mostly mozart" concerts at Lincoln Center when we were kids.

 Antigone wrote: 
Separated out, I have no bone to pick with Wolfie. There are times I want to just hear Iggy Stooge. I'd even go see the Marriage of Figaro if it was convenient to take in a first-rate performance.

In the quiet of the morning, however, he grates on our nerves. 

 jagdriver wrote: 
I'm not sure if I would compare any of these following artists to Mozart, but for the adjectives "bombastic and downright noisy", in a relatively contemporary setting - Yes, E.L.P., and Rush come to mind for me.

 meower wrote: 
It's not really the quantity of notes, but rather how he arranges them that we find disturbing. Consider a melodic piece by Debussy segued into Mozart blowing the roof off. It's like listening to a Nick Drake track followed by the Sex Pistols!

 meower wrote: 
I love Mozart too. One of my most amazing memories was seeing Don Giovanni in London. I'm not an opera fan, but a Mozart opera? That's a whole 'nother thing. And then there was seeing Amadeus on Broadway. Awesome.

 jagdriver wrote: 
I agree. Most Mozart that I've listened to - I freely admit my exposure is limited - is far too "wordy."  I much prefer later, primarily Romantic Era composers.

  Hmmm. maybe it's b/c I grew up in a house where for my 18th Birthday my mum gave me a set of all of his piano concertos.... in otherwords, he was the background music of much of my childhood.

I don't find too many notes at all.

Every morning these past few weeks I've been carefully culling a very large classical music collection while I have breakfast and prepare a brown bag lunch. By far and away most of the discards are by Mozart, the bulk of his work being bombastic and downright noisy when in random-play mode with other composers. "Too many notes," indeed.



If reincarnated, who would Wolfie be today? I'm thinking Joe Bonnamassa.