by Stephen Fry
So, it's official, then. Into the warm, cheek-shaped indentations left on the twin thrones of music by Bach and Handel move the young and younger new frames of Haydn and Mozart. Baroque is now long dead and classical music is the new classical music.
TAME TIME TEAM TOME
T
he Time Team. Don't know about you, but I'm a big fan. Massive. Phil, Carenza, Tony, and Mike of the Strange Pullover, all enthusing to the point of moistness about a two-inch shard of clay: or a different colour line in the trench, which, the computer-generated picture can reveal, is actually the remains of a building the size of Lincoln Cathedral. Honestly. I love it. Absolutely love it. In fact it was here, on this programme, that I first heard about an incredible device that has been developed, in conjunction with ICI, which can extract the previous sounds secreted within walls. It sounds amazing, I know, but the device, if put to proper use, would allow us to recreate all manner of previously lost events, aurally. Concert performances, great speeches, criminal conversations, the applications are endless.© Right now, though, I want to put it to use to let you hear the sounds retrieved from a piece of parchment, thought to date back to 1785. It appears to have picked up the sounds of two people, evidently gossiping. It's patchy, and it all comes out as one general stream of consciousness, but still, let me show you a transcript of what it says: 'Anyway 1785 wen yes would you believe it America then eh we repealed all those taxes for them didn't we glass paper dye admittedly we kept tea well you've got to keep a hold on tea haven't you well they just don't know how to make a good cuppa out there I KNOW they had some sort of tea party yes tea party yes in Boston yes well I KNOW I wasn't invited either no and yet I do an awful lot for them Independence I'll give them independence all that no taxation without representation I mean who thought of that eh? who thought of that it hardly rolls off the tongue does it doesn't scan well or rhyme or anything ooh did you hear about that Louis the fifteenth DEAD as true as I'm sitting here with this haircut Right as rain one minute giving it grand with the old nobles next minute DEAD no word of a lie Olive's gone as well yes well I said he'd never survive after that India thing ooh it was a mess wasn't it I told him I said Clive of India I said that was my pet name for him I said Clive of India I said you're better off out of it I said Leave it to 'em I said Besides you burn too easily you do Oh aye he was never one to go brown wasn't our Clive Ooh that reminds me did you see in the papers that Cook fella has discovered somewhere new again I KNOW that's what I said I said It's only more mouths to feed He should just turn right round again leave them to their beach volleyball and just go and Undiscover it again I said
Anyway wasn't it sad about Mr Pitt wasn't it ooh he was a lovely man lovely he was I met him when he was campaigning Sat on my chaise-longue he did Ooh he was so polite he was insisted I called him Elder for short Goldsmith he's gone too ooh I loved that play of his you came with me didn't you She stoops for conkers ooh I did enjoy it Never did see the conkers mind modern production probably eh have you seen this the Daily Universal Register it's new yeah not bad actually it's got adverts and everything look Mr Broadwood's new improved pianoforte now with pedals dynamics guaranteed or your money back I don't know it's got sports pages too look that's about that new race that Lord Derby started it's really getting popular I KNOW I KNOW I still prefer the St Leger even if you do have to go to Doneaster ISN'T IT JUST page three has got a great pair of balloons look it says Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier are not all hot air these Gallic goons are frying high after completing the first successful balloon trip at Annonay who knows maybe they'll make it as far as Cook's new island next time then it would really be a case of up up and Hawaii ooh that's awful this paper will never survive…' And that, sadly, is as much as they've been able to extract, but, I think you'll agree, it does provide a fascinating and perhaps more accurate insight into the real goings-on of 1785. What isn't recorded there, though, is anything about Mozart in 1785, so let me fill you in.
MOZART OF NOISE
M
ozart had a weird life. He was born into an already musical family with his dad, Leopold, the Kapellmeister for the Archbishop of Salzburg. Leopold was clearly one of the sharpest quills in the drawer, and he quickly realized that his son had an awful lot of potential. Mozart's sister, Anna - who he called Nannerl - was pretty useful on the piano, but, fairly early on, Leopold recognized that Wolfgang was an all-rounder. He taught him everything he knew, schooling him in harmony, counterpoint and all the finer points of composition. At some point, he must have decided that the world should see his son, too, because most of Wolfgang's early years on the road were spent not so much touring as 'being toured'. The Mozart Family roadshow hit most of Europe, with dates in Paris and London. In fact, if you are ever in London and you happen to be standing in the queue for Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, take a look upwards and opposite - there's a plaque on the wall commemorating the building where Mozart stayed.
When he was nineteen, Mozart went on tour in his own right, taking his mum along for company. He took in Munich on the way, and it was during his stay with the family of the music copyist, Weber, that he that fell in love. Big-time. Her name was Aloysia and he fell wig over heels for her. Sadly for him, she didn't reciprocate his feelings at all. In addition, his mother fell ill and died on the trip, and so he left Paris doubly broken-hearted. Before long, back in Salzburg, he parted company with his and his dad's employer, the Archbishop of Salzburg from his letters, it looks as if he jumped virtually seconds before he was pushed - and upped and moved to Vienna, a place which very soon became the city of Mozart's dreams.
From here on in, he would not only write all his best stuff, but he would also find love again - and in the weirdest place. In fact, this is one thing he shares, spookily enough, with Haydn: they both ended up marrying the sister of the woman they had originally courted. For Haydn, it was the biggest mistake of his life. His wife was a complete beast for whom he felt no love whatsoever. She, in turn, had no love for him and would reputedly use the manuscripts of his beloved compositions to line her pastry tins, or as curlers for her hair.j5
Mozart, on the other hand, landed on his feet. When Aloysia went to the trouble of becoming a nun in order not to marry him©, Mozart married her sis, Constanze, and they got on like a Strauss on fire. Very happy, they were. And even though money was up and down, he was writing prolifically and coming up with the goods - the symphonies, string quartets, sonatas, serenades - lots of goodies.
SIGNIFICANT BIRTHDAY NEXT YEAR
W
e join Mozart again when he's twenty-nine. Twenty-nine! Remember, by his standards that's almost bus-pass time. He's really motoring, too. He's doing very well with his operas - the crowd just love them - although the first real belter, the first one that will really stay around for ever, has yet to come. He's already done the Haffner Serenade - a bit of background music, to be fair, written for one of the weddings of the powerful Haffner family - as well as The Abduction from the Seraglio, Idomineo and the? minor Mass, the latter just a couple of years ago. fi That's always baffled me, that one, cas curlers for her hair'. I mean, it's true, I'm sure, but how do you use, say, the score of the Clock Symphony as hair curlers7. Or maybe it wasn't the whole symphony, just the highlights. JUST THE HIGHLIGHTS!!!! Suit yourself.
The big things now, though, for Mozart are his piano concertos. Piano concertos for him were more or less party pieces, for when he stopped off on his travels to visit dukes and emperors and things. They were pieces which not only made him sound - and I imagine look -great, in that they were often technically difficult to play and yet had slow movements to die for. The slow movements, alone, had great, heart-rending tunes which had the genteel folk of the 1780s weeping into their snuffboxes. In one sense, they were the '45s' of then-period?", if you like, and, in another, they could be said to be the sort of 'spinal cord' of the body of music Mozart left behind - twenty-seven piano concertos, each one a chapter in the musical diary of his life. Each one can tell you a litde
bit more about what was happening to him at the time. A little snapshot of him of that moment.
Take the one from 1785 itself, Piano Concerto No 21. A beautiful PC, with possibly one of the best power ballads of its type. Or should that be slow movements? It was written just weeks after Mozart had put the pen down on his previous Piano Concerto in D minor - he really was knocking these out - and it was not long after his marriage to Constanze. The outer movements are light and fluffy and full of the joys of spring, but the inner slowie has become justifiably famous not only in concert halls, but also in adverts and movies. In fact, it's often known as 'the Elvira Madijjan' concerto, just because someone used it in a Swedish film of the same name in 1967. Poor Mozart, I say. Although I suppose it could have been worse. The It Came from the Swamp! concerto is marginally less appealing, especially if it becomes 'your' tune.
GOETHE HEAVEN
O
ne year later and Mozart is still reigning supreme. Globally, 178S is an interesting time. The flavour of the month seems to be coming from the literary world and goes by the name of Robbie fiMmm, what a great essay subject: 'Mozart Piano Concerto slow movements the power ballads of their day. Discuss.' Extra points if you can compare and contrast Piano «loncerto 21 with ''Ihe Power of Love' by Jennifer Rush. Burns and his Poems Chiefly in a Scottish Dialect. This is the year that sees seemingly everyone doing the Scottish thing - throwing Scottish parties, having Scottish theme nights, failing to qualify for major sporting events, the lot. Elsewhere, Goethe, the toast of Germany -not to mention future Chas and Dave song - is currently attempting to become the toast of Italy too. He's on tour there for a couple of years, taking in the culture, networking, that sort of thing. Other than that, very litde of major future significance to impart for 1786, apart from the fact that someone discovered uranium.
Mozart's year is going from strength to strength. For him, it's the year when all his opera experience really begins to pay off, in terms of the 'annals of time' and 'posterity' and all that nonsense. (Remember how we said opera would have its day again?) He's been writing opera for yonks now, of course, but, all of a sudden, he premieres an opera in which everything just seems to gel. Everything manages to just… come together. Right now. It's pardy due to the fact that his 'words' man, a new librettist for Mm called Da Ponte, is coming up with some great 'books' for the operas in the first place. (Very often, just as in musicals, the libretto to an opera is simply called the book.) As a result, it's in Italian - not Mozart's first, but certainly his first for a while, and appeals to the Viennese audience who, for some reason, like their operas in Italian - and it no doubt does no harm that it's a comedy. Da Ponte had taken the story from a play by Beaumarchais, written just a couple of years ago. It was called then, and indeed it is called now, The Marriage of Figaro.
Its first night was the 1st of May, 1786, in Vienna, and it is said that its opening night was twice as long as it should have been because virtually every aria had to be encored immediately it was sung! In fact, its popularity led to the introduction of a royal order stating that opera houses were not allowed to do over-long encores - just the odd aria.
AMADEUS AND SO'S MY WIFE
T
alking of all things Mozart, I make no apologies about staying focused on him for a litde while longer. In fact, despite the fact that we've got almost another 220 years to cover in only the next 208 pages, I'm nevertheless going to throw caution to the wind and dedicate the next nine pages… to only four years. Four years, ladies, gentlemen and undecideds, four years. Without the aid of a safety net. But these are no ordinary four years as far as music is concerned. These are the last four years of Mozart's life! To do these four years justice, you would need many more pages that I have here, but I can, at least, draw the magnifying glass a little closer and set these forty-eight months apart. If we were a film, these next pages would be in slow motion. But first, let me just place Mozart's last four years in their context of world events. And, fittingly enough, it wasn't just for Wolfgang that this time was to be world-changing. Elsewhere, as well, it was a cataclysmic time.
In 1787 America is beginning to enjoy independence, with both the dollar and the constitution making their debut. In fact, like buses and bridegrooms on a Moonie wedding night, these things all seemed to come at once. France, in particular, is beginning to feel distinctly edgy, with its parlement demanding a summit of the three estates: the nobility, the clergy and the commons. Louis XVI is filibustering madly. Well, I suppose you would, wouldn't you? In war, Turkey throws a six, meaning it's their turn, so they choose to declare war on… Russia, please, Bob. Of course, back in the land of Eng, the turmoil, sturm und drang of the entire world pales into insignificance when set against matters closer to home - that is, the MCC has been founded. Cue lots of lovely handshakes, handlebar moustaches and an immediate move to Lord's. Jolly good show, I say, catch that, can you? Well done, Wolfgang.
Ah yes, Wolfgang. Let's catch up with him, shall we? For he's currendy in a rather bum-punchingly uncomfortable coach, en route from Vienna to Prague. Going through his head must be all manner of things. It's now October and he only lost his father in May. Now losing your father is always a big loss, but remember, this is the father who, genius aside, more or less made Amadeus what lie was, in every respect. And Wolfgang had already lost his third child, Joli.iiui Thomas, just the year before. He must have been such a mass of different thoughts and feelings on his way to Prague. He's going, with Ins wile Constanze, to rehearse and premiere his latest opera, at die Prague National Theatre. It's important for Mozart. Despite the fact that someone with a brain like his must have known the importance of the work in a, sort of, global sense - that is, in terms of its place in history - despite this, he knew it was important in other ways too, chiefly monetarily.
The Mozarts are managing to keep the Wolfgang from the door, but money is at a premium. A good premiere here means that it not only does well in Prague, but that it will also have doors opened for it in a number of other cities, too. Indeed, Mozart received this commission as a direct result of the success of The Marriage of Figaro. He was soon to get the top job in Vienna of 'Kammermusicus' -which translates as 'big music cheese' - but, for some reason known best to themselves, the powers-that-be-" would agree to pay him not even half the salary which the previous incumbent, Gluck of the Mildly Amusing Middle Name, had been paid. So, for just a minute, try and put yourself in Mozart's shoes.
Think of that crowd behind you in the Prague National Theatre. They haven't heard the opera that's been in your head for months. They haven't sat through the rehearsals over the past two weeks: the shouting, the endless repeats, the tantrums, even. They don't know that until the night before, Mozart hadn't written the overture, in fact had to be reminded by friends and then produced one literally overnight/* They don't know that so much time, energy and personal tragedy have been invested in the work they are about to hear. Don Giovanni.
Or to give it its original title, II Dissolute Punito, or 'The Punished Rake', although this is never used now. Don Giovanni is considered by some to be one of, if not the, greatest moment in classical music, and, certainly, the Frymobile would subscribe to that point of view. It's set in Seville, and is one of dozens of operas to use the story of Don Juan, lothario and rogue, who strays between the opera's comic and serious faces, laughing in them both. It's full of great music, not least that speedily written overture, the Catalogue aria, 'La ci darem la mano', and the Champagne aria. Gorgeous stuff. fi Do you think, in Cornwall, when you cease as one of the 'powers-that-be' you become a 'power-that- baint'? ji fl Some say he started writing at midnight and had finished it by 3 a.m.
Thankfully, the good people of Prague gave it a resounding thumbs-up. It would eventually transfer to Vienna, too, a much more important audience - where it opens on the same evening as an all-night sitting of the British Parliament to debate William Wilberforce's motion for the abolition of slavery - and it then has a good run of some fifteen performances a
t the National Court Theatre. Just a month later, though, Mozart loses his fourth child, Theresia. No doubt the whole family are hoping that 1788 will play itself out with no more tragedy. Thankfully for Mozart, it does.
1788. If ever there was a calm-before-the-storm year, this was probably it. Louis XVI is in deep doodoo - or du du, as they would say there. The French parlement have presented their dull list of grievances to him and, amid streets teeming with crowds rioting over bread, he promises to call a meeting of the three estates by May '89. But will that be soon enough? In England, George III has succumbed to a bout of mental ill-health, but, on the bright side, the MCC have codified the rules of cricket. All in all, it's a funny, uneasy sort of year and for Mozart, it's a question of: can he put his bad patch behind him and come up with some great music? Well, of course he can. Come on, this is Mozart we're talking about here!