Happy Birthday Mozart!!!

It’s hard to know where to start with Mozart. In such a short life he created such a multitude of glorious music! His birthday truly deserves much more of a tribute than any one post will allow. I happen to love his String Quintet K. 593. Written fairly late in his life it combines virtuoso string writing with youthful spirit! A wonderful viola player himself, I have an image of his own childlike enthusiasm that inspired him to say, “Hmmm, if one is good, two is better!” He certainly puts the two violas to excellent use in this piece. I also hope that somewhere in the afterlife, Mozart knows how much he influenced the world. How many children have started learning an instrument to the tune of the Twinkle Variations? (I can count hundreds of my own, and I am only one teacher!). How many times have we all enjoyed the Requiem, piano sonatas and concerti, Symphonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, countless violin concerti, to say nothing of some of the most amazing operas ever written. He must have felt as though his mind and soul would burst if he did not get all of this music out to share with the world! Certainly hundreds of thousands of the worlds best musicians, millions of audience members have enjoyed his music for two hundred and sixty five years! An impressive accomplishment, however I really believe that Mozart lived in the joy of the moment, creating, composing, performing… certainly with a knowledge of the past, and possibly with an glimpse of where the wings of his music would carry it into the future, but ultimately for the joy of living it himself and sharing it in the moment!