Why I Hate Mozart—and So Should You

Confession time. I have never really liked Mozart, and at many a moment have even counted myself a Mozart hater.

I dislike all of the hype surrounding his name. The last time I was in Vienna I was horrified by the plethora of Mozart bon bons, cakes, and other kitsch. There was even a flag with Mozart wearing the national football team colours.

G.B. Shaw once lamented the "scandalous neglect" of Mozart's music. I have always lamented that his music is not more neglected. Or at least that he be counted as only one highly interesting composer amongst many others.

Mozart did little to nothing to develop music. There is practically nothing new or of interest that could be ascribed to him. Bach, on the other hand, married the contrapuntal-imitative tradition with the newly emerging diatonic-homophonic style, and even composed in every imaginable key—a complete novelty at the time. Both Haydn and Beethoven came up with substantial innovations and developments in both form and style.

As far as the First Viennese School goes, I have always preferred Haydn to Mozart. Haydn is a much more skilled composer in his mastery of counterpoint, dialectic, form, and structure. You particularly notice this in Haydn's breathtakingly virtuosic handling of sonata form structure, which leaves Mozart quite in the shade. Mozart would have agreed with me. When I hear a professional musician confess to preferring Haydn to Mozart, I know that this musician is someone whose views demand respect. Only the bon bon worshipping masses blindly accept that Mozart is the Musical Messiah.

We live in an age where things have gone to the other extreme from that of Shaw's time, and Mozart is scandalously overvalued. Nor is it in any way "traditional" to worship Mozart in this way. Over the centuries, academics in musicology regarded the central pillars of Western music to be Josquin and Palestrina. While in some ways, I like Obrecht as much as Josquin, and the diabolical Gesualdo as much as the angelic Palestrina, I prefer this more staunchly traditional view to the modern overvaluation of the Austro-German school.

So with that I listened recently to the latest recording by Nikolaus Harnoncourt of Mozart's final three symphonies. I must admit, I have always admired Harnoncourt's Mozart. It is a very different world to the saccharine bon bon and rococo cupcake world that we stereotypically associate with Mozart. Instead of sweetmeats, we are hit with a startlingly austere monumental sound lead by timpani and brass that more resembles Bruckner. It sounds like the Stone Guest has not merely visited but decided to stay. Gone are the twee bon bons.

While this has always been a characteristic of Harnoncourt's Mozart, in the latest recordings, he takes this to even further extremes than on either of his previous recordings with the Concertgebouw and the COE. The sounds hits you from the very opening with a dramatic and brazen impact that is almost alarming. The remarkable sound quality by the Sony sound engineering capturing the Concentus Musicus Wien at the peak of its form too is something to marvel at. Never have I heard this orchestra sound so aurally scrumptious.

As always with Harnoncourt, there is no long lined fluidity here, nor mindless smoothness cultivated as an end in itself. It is all drama, angularity, bite, impact, and, ultimately, great vision. It brings tears of joy to an old Mozart hater like me. After all, it is only the kitsch Mozart bon bon worship I dislike intensely. If Mozart were indeed neglected, as he was in Shaw's day, I would be the first to sing his praises. For I fear that despite all of the blind worship, these mindless Mozart fetishists don't really understand Mozart anyway. Instead they lazily lapse into tedious stereotypes about their Musical Bon Bon Messiah. To truly love Mozart it is important to learn first to hate him.