Light On Dark Water

Mozart: Flute and Harp Concerto, 2nd Movement

Weekend Music

I believe it was Monday night that I was listening to a Velvet Underground album, their third and self-titled one, and thinking I had noticed something pretty significant about it, and that I might do a post about it as the weekend music post. But dang: who wants to listen to the Velvet Underground so soon after a miserable experience such as this election has been? Here, instead, is something healing, one of the sweetest things Mozart wrote. Regular classical listeners may be tired of it, but that's not the music's fault. 

 

And for something a bit sprightlier, some Scarlatti. I had pretty bad insomnia a couple of nights this week, and when I had given up on sleep for a while I listened to some of Mikhail Pletnev's brilliant Scarlatti recording (which I thank my friend Robert for introducing me to).

 

Maclin Horton

15 responses to “Mozart: Flute and Harp Concerto, 2nd Movement”

  1. Grumpy

    Those paintings on the Mozart video are a real tonic for the soul. Thanks!

    Reply
  2. Mac

    That’s funny–I hardly noticed the paintings. But you’re welcome.

    Reply
  3. Grumpy

    Actually I think I have recovered sufficiently to dig out my Velvet Underground CD and listen to it tonight

    Reply
  4. Marianne

    Would I betray my basically brutish nature if I said that I actually much prefer the paintings to the music?
    Don’t answer that. 😉

    Reply
  5. Grumpy

    I didn’t put it like that Marianne, but for me the music is a pleasant background to some great paintings. But everyone here knows how unmusical I am. Especially with regard to Mozart! I have tried him drunk and I have tried him sober … The favourite composer of BXVI and von Balthasar, and … he bores me.

    Reply
  6. Mac

    I read Marianne’s comment first as “my basically british nature,” which was pretty funny.
    I admit that I find Mozart a slightly odd choice for favorite composer. 3rd or 4th favorite, maybe. Bach seems more profound. But I also admit to having trouble understanding how y’all could not be entranced by this particular selection. It was one of the first classical pieces that I ever loved, at age 19 or so.

    Reply
  7. Marianne

    Maybe it comes down to not being enthralled by flutes and harps. Or it could just be that I’m pretty darn limited in my appreciation of good music because of lack of exposure. Or because I have no musical training.
    I do like Eine kleine Nachtmusik, though. But maybe that’s because I can hum it and wave my arms about while listening to it.

    Reply
  8. Mac

    Well, you could do a whole lot worse than Eine Kleine Nacthmusik.
    I just played the video with the sound turned off so that I would pay attention to the pictures. Reaction–sort of a shrug. Some of them were nice…. I am to the visual arts as the two of you are to classical music.

    Reply
  9. Grumpy

    A Little Night Music is one of the least bad Mozart pieces, and also the Papagena songs in The Magic Flute have hummable tunes.

    Reply
  10. Janet

    I like them both, particular the Mozart, although I can imagine much better conditions for listening to it than while you are trying to find the commandments in Spanish online, which is being difficult. For this reason, I did not get to look at the pictures.
    AMDG

    Reply
  11. Mac

    No need to bother with the pictures.:-)
    Grumpy, you might try the Requiem sometime, if you haven’t already. It has less of that slightly frou-frou quality that much of Mozart has.

    Reply
  12. Janet

    Well, I did run through the pictures, and while I like art, that’s not my favorite kind. I was thinking , though, about you and visual arts and wondering if it wasn’t more a question of type, because, of course, there is a certain type of image that you like very much. Also, you have posted so many really nice pictures.
    AMDG

    Reply
  13. Mac

    That’s true, and was why I said “classical music” specifically. I’m pretty much at the “I know what I like” level with visual arts, and I think an awful lot of what I like is to classical art as pop music is to classical music. Not that it’s no good, but it’s not on the same level of complexity…or whatever.:-)

    Reply
  14. Rob G

    I don’t really enjoy the flute much as a solo inst. in classical music and I’m not a huge Mozart fan, but I do think that his last 5 symphonies are really good (36, 38-41; there is no #37).

    Reply
  15. Mac

    I listened to #25 on my drive yesterday. I was not much taken with it. I agree, the last ones are in a different class. Although I got sick of 41 as a result of studying it in a class. Flute is not my favorite instrument either (or harp for that matter) but the melodies in this concerto are so wonderful.

    Reply

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