mozart is terrific, i prefer beethoven as well. Hector Berlioz's - Symphonie Fantastique is my current classical joy.
I absolutely despise Mozart! It's all about showing off his musical nous but there's very little substance to much of his music. If you ask me it's too pretty for its own good. Where as a Bach slow movement is not only extremely cleverly constructed (just as is anything else by J.S. Bach) but truly beautiful as well, Mozart's music is extremely bland and dull to listen to, no matter how many clever compositional tricks he includes in it. I'd also use later composers such as Rachmaninov to compare on the "oh but it's so beautiful" front, but that wouldn't be exactly fair given that they weren't around when Mozart was writing. As far as Bach's concerned though he's got no excuse. I will admit that Mozart's musical intellect was 2nd only to Bach and he certainly was a genius. But he wasted his gift in my opinion writing silly pretty music with very little in it. It's a shame he didn't write the requiem sooner as that really had some promise. If got onto that a bit earlier leaving a bit of room in his life afterwards he might have given us some real gems. Other composers I absolutely despise include Vivaldi (for the same reason as mozart, mainly - I think it was Shostakovich who said "Vivaldi wrote 1000 works, but it's easy to write out one piece a thousand times") and also Benjamin Britten - who like Mozart was just being a clever Dick, and his music is only fun to perform once. Although I did enjoy performing the Young Person's guide to school children, but then we really have to thank Purcell for that. Zen-man. You do realise that it was Holst and not Mozart who wrote the planets don't you? As far as the Classical period goes though, I think Haydn's music is better than Mozart's. It may not be as clever, but in my opinion it's far more tasteful. Mozart pads out extremely simple harmonies with really full textures and it just sounds incredibly dull and bland. Haydn on the other hand never does that - simple harmonies, nice pretty melodies, but then it's all done with a light texture and it sounds fun and light and not to stodgy. A C major triad is a C major triad whether it's played on a String Quartet or a Stravinsky-scale Triple-Wind Orchestra. Haydn seemed to have sussed that one out, but Mozart didn't. Beethoven certainly did like his big full textures but then he made things sound exciting too. Big Full sounds, backed up by some big percussion as well. So yes, I'll admit that what I just said looks slightly self-contradictory at first glance, if you look at the opening of the last movement of Beethoven's fifth which is all tonic dominant chords, but then they'er big and loud and powerful where as Mozart is just trying to be pretty. So there is a difference there. I could go on, but I need to catch a train to work! By the way, none of you have really said why you love mozart.
Mozart for me is essential to study and appreciate, but once you've anylized it, i don't really think it needs listens anymore. after studying it, i just kinda stick with baroque and romantic composers, especially Bach and Beethoven respectively.
Rossini was classical rather than romantic. A dude, nonetheless. Stopped writing in his erly thirties having already made a packet. Died reasonably old of cancer of the rectum I believe. What do you think of Beethoven's early stuff, which is essentially classical music and not Romantic. While his later stuff is what kicked the Romantic period off, rather than being part of it. Can't beat his 5th and his 9th. 6th-8th are disappointingly ordinary though. Still they have much more charisma than anything Mozart wrote.
