Silly Little Country

Mozart-Mania!

Just saw a nice little report on the local CBC newscast, reporting on Angela Hewitt performing Mozart sonatas in London (I assume England because of what comes next here). Ian McEwan is interviewed, describing his pleasure in the music and one of his comments jumped out at me, "It's almost like people talking".
I have a Glenn Gould recording of several Mozart piano sonatas and the one thing that I loved about hearing them is that it made me feel as if I were sitting at a dinner table, with many voices darting in and out, with multiple moods, emotions, inflections, etc.
I don't know whether this says more about Mozart, or possibly the playing styles of Glenn Gould and Angela Hewitt, or perhaps about Ian McEwan and me.

UPDATE: Tyler Cowen cites some interesting comments by Donald Tovey. He includes this quotation from Tovey:

“Mozart’s whole musical language is, and remains throughout, the language of comic opera.”

Maybe it is Mozart after all.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:58 PM