{"id":22,"date":"2009-08-04T14:55:43","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T13:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/?p=22"},"modified":"2009-08-06T13:22:57","modified_gmt":"2009-08-06T12:22:57","slug":"new-mozart-old-hat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/08\/new-mozart-old-hat\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mozart, Old Hat?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, apparently 2 “new” pieces of music by Mozart<\/a> have been “discovered”. Is this the latest case of “I was looking in my attic and guess what I found…”? Well, no – the attic in question was the archive of something called the “Mozarteum Foundation<\/a>“, and they knew they were there all along. But now that they’ve decided they were by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (and not, say, his Dad), suddenly they’re really interesting.<\/p>\n

Now, I’m not saying they’re rubbish, but isn’t this a bit like saying “It may just be a doodle on a napkin, but I’ve just discovered it’s Picasso’s<\/strong> doodle on a napkin, which makes it Important”? Or, contarily, “I’ve had this great painting for years, but I didn’t know who it was by, so I didn’t put it on my wall…” Either it’s good music, in which case it should be performed regularly whoever it’s by, or it’s not, in which case it’s of interest only to music historians.<\/p>\n

It’s a bit like art forgers who produce new<\/em> works in the style of<\/em> famous painters – if it’s the skill, and the style, and the end result we’re valuing, those works deserve as much recognition as the “real thing”. But somehow the fact of who created something is important, too.<\/p>\n

I suppose the other comparison is extreme Modern Art – you know, paintings so abstract they’re just one colour, that kind of thing. It’s the story behind them<\/em> that makes them art – which is fine, if what you admire is the story behind them. I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the idea of staring at the end result – a video of the process, or a book describing the idea, makes more sense to me.<\/p>\n

Which, again, makes these Mozart pieces primarily of interest to music historians – in which case, why are we all being asked to listen to them?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, apparently 2 “new” pieces of music by Mozart have been “discovered”. Is this the latest case of “I was looking in my attic and guess what I found…”? Well, no – the attic in question was the archive of something called the “Mozarteum Foundation“, and they knew they were there all along. But now […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,15],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-music","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/25"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rwec.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}