Tribute to M.D. Ramanathan - Poem
Unforgettable Gangubai - A Tribute
Tribute to Vechoor Harihara Subramania Iyer
MURALI and Me - A Tribute
Unsung Genius - Tribute to M.D. Ramanathan
Vishwa Palam Shri Padmanabham!
Tribute to the Legendary Kishore Kumar
The Natural and Unnatural in Art
Kalpitham and Kalpana in our Music
The Queen of the Travancore Kitchen
A Tribute to Madurai Mani Iyer on his 40th death anniversary
A brief and practical introduction to South Indian Classical Music
As a teenager I went through a horror movie phase. I shivered and shook my way through all the classic horror films of the time such as Exorcist, Omen, Dracula (several versions including the classic one starring Christopher Lee who was himself a trained opera singer incidentally) and so on. But I found that the very same terrifying movie became far less so when viewed at home on video in the company of friends, during the day, with the sound switched off. This made me realise rather early on just how vital a role it is that the background music plays in creating the appropriate mood for any kind of situation, be it suspenseful, funny, horrific or romantic. Perhaps because of this generous exposure to films at an early age I have since had a "Soundtrack" for each event or situation occurring in my imagination too. I have had the privilege of studying South Indian Classical Music under some of the best teachers in the country and also I have had the good fortune to listen, to understand (To a certain limit) fall in love with (Without any apparent limit) various kinds of music from all over the world. Artists as diverse as K.L.Saigal, Kishore Kumar, Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, Eartha Kitt, Maria Callas, Jacques Brel, Fairuz and M.D.Ramanathan, not to mention my own beloved and revered teachers adorn my pantheon of musical Gods and Godesses. But whenever I imagine heaven it is unfailingly the music of a young man from
Born at
Leopold Mozart was a composer in his own right, but became most famous (other than for fathering THE Mozart of corse!) for his book on the techniques of playing the violin which is referred to by students of the instrument to this day. He was an excellent teacher and had soon groomed Nannerl and her miraculous Little Brother into excellent violinists and artists on the key board. We get a taste of Mozart's skill on the violin from the five Concertos for the violin that he has left us ... as opposed to a single Violin Concerto each composed by all time greats such as Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and others .... and several lilting Rondos and Adagios. Mozart was originally christened Wolfgangus Theophilus; the latter word meaning "Beloved of God" in Greek. He later changed it to the Latin word with the same meaning: Ama Deus.
When one listens to the childhood compositions of Mozart one realizes just how much God must have loved him. He was as much loved by the public of the time as he was by God apparently. Father Mozart took the children on several highly acclaimed tours of
The tales about Mozart as a child are legendary. Once he wrote a piece for the harpsichord as an eleven year old and submitted it to the Prince. When the court musician played it he found that at one point he got stuck because one would have to have eleven fingers to play it instead of ten! He smiled condescendingly at the child Amadeus and pointed out the mistake. Little Mozart jumped on to the stool and started playing it furiously. And when he reached the controversial note, so to speak, he suddenly dived down and struck the note with his nose, much to the delight and amazement of all the people around. On another occasion the fourteen year old Mozart and his father visited the Sistine Chapel in
At this point Leopold sent Mozart off to
The next few years spent in
The public, fickle as the public always has been all over the world at any time, found other composer to idolate and Mozart's fortune started to wane. The fact that both he and his wife spent money like water did not help either. Soon he was borrowing money left, right and centre to make ends meet somehow. The other means of making money was, naturally, composing. During the last eight or nine years of his short life, Mozart composed some of his most brilliant masterpieces. He made his mark in Symphonies, Operas, Concertos, Quartets, Quintets and Sonata, maintaining a consistently high level of musicianship that is yet to be equalled by anyone else before or since. He was the first one to make a social statement with his Operas. Firstly he dared to oppose the great Italian lobby (The musical equivalent of the present day Mafia) by composing Operas in German so that the man on the street could understand the lyrics too. Secondly he even challenged the ruling class with operas like the "Marriage of Figaro" which was a runaway success in
Those days there was a despicable tradition among the aristocrats that the Elector or Prince of each area had the right to deflower newly married women from their jurisdiction on their wedding night. The story of The Marriage of Figaro revolves around this theme and this was one of the initial small but significant steps that finally culminated in the French Revolution. During his last days Mozart continued to drink, play cards, play billiards and make merry with his friends, but thoughts and images of death seemed to haunt him almost perpetually.
These dark thoughts started to reflect in his music too with his sinister opera "Don Giovani" being one of the finest examples in this genre. At this unfortunate juncture a self important aristocrat commissioned a Requiem (A Mass for the Dead) from Mozart, with the intention of publishing it as his own work. (This is a tradition which continues all over the world to this day when not just Requiems, but articles, music, stories, and even whole books are Ghost Written.) For Mozart this was the worst thing that could have happened, in his death obsessed frame of mind. He kept repeating he was writing his own Requiem and finally he breathed his last a few months before his 36th birthday, dictating the music in a frenzy to his disciple Sussmayer, who later completed the work himself. Many a legend has sprung forth about his having been dumped like a sack of potatoes in an unmarked pauper's grave, but that in itself would easily make enough material for another article.
A wonderfully assiduous gentleman called Ludwig Kochel set about tabulating all the available compositions of Mozart chronologically. Thus we find them numbered K or KV, beginning with the tiny little minuets he scribbled in his sister Nannerl's notebook as a child and ending with the magnificent incomplete Requiem.
Mozart widow remarried and her second husband was the first to bring out a complete biography of Mozart, utterly distorted by the romantic imagination of Constanze. But later studies have revealed more and more facts about him and information about his life and his music is being discovered day by day especially since the iron curtain over
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik
His symphonies no 25, 40 & 41
The five violin concertos
The Great Mass in C Minor and the Requiem
The Clarinet concerto which is incidentally my all time favourite
The Piano concertoes No 20 to 27
His Operas The Magic Flute; Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovani
A statement on Mozart will not be complete without mentioning Salzburg's Sweet tribute to its magnificent son, The Mozartkugel, one of the best chocolates in the world with a marzipan centre, surrounded by layers of the most exquisite milk chocolate and dark chocolate.... the closest equivalent to the Glorious Music of Mozart itself and my own first encounter with Mozart when I was a fat and greedy nine year old who was much less musical than Mozart. One might wonder how much more he would or woundn't have composed had he lived a bit longer. But as long as his music is played and enjoyed and loved and cherished, he continues to live ...... and it would be a miracle if he ultimately doesn't end up being the single musician from any part of the world with the longest life ever.