REVISING AMADEUS
Alex Ross writes in a New Yorker article on Mozart that recent scholars have determined the child prodigy was a hardworking, driven composer, not at all like the Mozart protrayed in the film Amadeus, wherein he's seen effortlessly writing first and final drafts of his music. To quote Mr. Ross,
"Scholars have also demolished the old idea that Mozart was an idiot savant, transcribing the music that played in his brain. Instead, he seems to have refined his ideas to an almost manic degree. Examination of Mozart’s surviving sketches and drafts—Constanze threw many sketches away—reveals that the composer sometimes began a piece, set it aside, and resumed it months or years later; rewrote troubling sections several times in a row; started movements from scratch when a first attempt failed to satisfy; and waited to finish an aria until a singer had tried out the opening."
If Mozart wasn't an idiot savant, then no one was or ever will be as far as art is concerned. I'm not denying Mozart's musical talents, but I believe that many others out there have had/are having/wll have the equivalent of Mozart's talent. What they don't have is his enthusiasm, his passion for his work. And no, you can't will yourself to be Mozart even if you match his talent. The desire to be a great artist is not the same as the desire to create great art. The former has much to do with ego, while the latter knows of nothing but the work at hand, will create for the sake of creating, will create even if it's possible no one will ever experience this work of art, will create even if it's possible that the creation will never be completed.
Then there's that Shakespeare fellow, who claimed never to have blotted out a line in his life, at least according to John Aubrey's seventeenth century jottings. Though whether Shakespeare ever made this claim is irrelevant, as it's well known that Shakespeare wrote none of the plays attributed to him. (The plays were in fact written by an infinite set of monkeys working under less than ideal conditions in a workhouse near Bristol.)
"Scholars have also demolished the old idea that Mozart was an idiot savant, transcribing the music that played in his brain. Instead, he seems to have refined his ideas to an almost manic degree. Examination of Mozart’s surviving sketches and drafts—Constanze threw many sketches away—reveals that the composer sometimes began a piece, set it aside, and resumed it months or years later; rewrote troubling sections several times in a row; started movements from scratch when a first attempt failed to satisfy; and waited to finish an aria until a singer had tried out the opening."
If Mozart wasn't an idiot savant, then no one was or ever will be as far as art is concerned. I'm not denying Mozart's musical talents, but I believe that many others out there have had/are having/wll have the equivalent of Mozart's talent. What they don't have is his enthusiasm, his passion for his work. And no, you can't will yourself to be Mozart even if you match his talent. The desire to be a great artist is not the same as the desire to create great art. The former has much to do with ego, while the latter knows of nothing but the work at hand, will create for the sake of creating, will create even if it's possible no one will ever experience this work of art, will create even if it's possible that the creation will never be completed.
Then there's that Shakespeare fellow, who claimed never to have blotted out a line in his life, at least according to John Aubrey's seventeenth century jottings. Though whether Shakespeare ever made this claim is irrelevant, as it's well known that Shakespeare wrote none of the plays attributed to him. (The plays were in fact written by an infinite set of monkeys working under less than ideal conditions in a workhouse near Bristol.)
posted by PDG9 | 6:13 PM
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