The Mozart Delusion
January/February 2013
It dawned on me with great relief the other day that, unless I’m still writing strong in my nineties, I will never have to observe or partake of another Mozart anniversary so long as I live. Yippee!
I say that not to disparage anniversaries or, indeed, Mozart. Both have a recognised stall in the marketplace and neither is likely ever to be dislodged. However, each has the power to distort mass taste. Put together, they can—and do—wreak untold harm on the world’s cultural values.
The Nazis understood this all too well when, in 1941, they launched a jamboree in the 150th year after Mozart’s death and his nameless burial in Vienna. “A nation that forgets its great sons does not deserve to own them,” cried Joseph Goebbels, claiming that Mozart’s music embodied the supreme German quality of relentless clarity (and we all remember the consequences of relentless clarity).
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