MPR: About Us: 250 Years of Mozart

As part of Minnesota Public Radio's celebration of 250 years of Mozart we asked, "How has Mozart's music touched your life?" and you shared. Read about people's favorite pieces and how Mozart's music has affected their lives!

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
Any of the piano concertos

Why?
They lift my spirits. There is a joy of life, a sparkle in Mozart's work. (It also turns out we share the same birthday.)

How has Mozart's music affected you?
Forty years ago when I was in college, a friend's dad loved Mozart. I, a sophomore knowing everything, said I thought Mozart was "heavy" music. He staunchly defended Mozart and did it so passionately that the next time I heard Mozart, I paid attention. It changed my life. Thirty years later I called him to thank him. He'd had some tragedy in his life, and his son, my friend, had died. But he was a happy, satisfied man.

Mark Peacock
Luck, WI

How has Mozart's music affected you?
On a fast trip down the shore to Beaver Bay, a Mozart piece started playing on the car radio. I was entranced, turned up the volume on the radio and fully entered into the music as I sped down the shore.

Too late, I noticed the car approaching me was state trooper. I watched the car in my rear view mirror. Sure enough, the brake lights came on and the car did a U-turn. I knew I was busted. So I simply pulled over, turned down the radio, turned off the car, put my hands on the wheel and waited for the officer to arrive.

He walked up to my open window and in a perplexed tone of voice, asked why I didn't even try to slow down when I spotted him.

How could I tell this officer that I was so fully emerged in the Mozart piece that I didn't even notice him until too late?

Yes, I did get a speeding ticket thanks to Mozart's magic.

Val Littfin
Grand Marais, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
"Amadeus" soundtrack

How has Mozart's music affected you?
I was in college when "Amadeus" came out. I bought the soundtrack on tape, and every day I would go to the library, with the soundtrack blaring in my ears, to study. I got 4.0 that semester. I don't know if Mozart helped or not, but I think it did.

Lynda Gradert
Minneapolis, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
G minor String Quintet

Why?
It is so brilliant a piece that it seems effortless. Plus, it has the richness of inner voices.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
I conducted the E-flat Wind Serenade once with players from my college wind ensemble. We did not have enough oboes or bassoons, so I used a flute player on the top oboe part, and wrote the second bassoon part out for bass clarinet. In the slow movement there is an A-flat major chord that sounds like sunlight intensifying an already bright day. I remember conducting it in rehearsal and thinking, "How does he do that? It's just an A-flat chord."

David Williams
Dunbar, WV

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
25th Symphony in G minor

Why?
It is dynamic. It reverberates throughout the senses and incites total devotion to the sound.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
The music has accompanied me through days and months of military deployments and foreign wars. It has kept my mind energized. It may have saved my life by not allowing my mind to stray or go blank. It fills the gaps one may feel at certain points in life. In this music, I have found a partner, a companion who would share the day and the fortunes.

Mehran Faalzadeh
Woodbury, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
"The Magic Flute"

Why?
It reveals both Mozart's serious side and his sense of humor, in some of the most beautiful music ever written.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
I first heard his music while in college, and then started collecting recordings of all his music that has been recorded. (I think that I have at least one recording of every piece that has been available so far.) His music is enjoyable, his story is fascinating. And the collecting for 50 years was a great hobby.

Jack McGowan
St. Paul, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
Piano Sonata in C minor

Why?
It always surges. It's always the surge of the notes in this piece that wakes me up. It sounds like a chicken getting fluffed up when you pet the feathers and they awaken.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
I get on music kicks. Before Mozart, it was Atmosphere, and before that, Coco Rosie's deep brooding every day. But Mozart? I listen in my car a lot, on the way to school, and it's impossible not to wag my arms around, conducting and enjoying all the power. There's more power in Mozart than in whole nations.

Kathryn Miller
Richmond, MN 56368

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
40th Symphony

Why?
Mozart's 40th Symphony has special meaning because of an incident that happened in college. I was a music major, and we were required as part of our degree to take a general music appreciation course in our freshman year. Our professor's assignment was to listen to five or six symphonies by different composers and to learn the individual movements so thoroughly that should he drop the record player needle anywhere in a movement, we would be able to name the particular movement, the symphony, and, of course, the composer. The test day arrived, and the professor proceeded to drop the needle on various movements. When he dropped the needle on Mozart's 40th Symphony, the first movement, one of our male classmates with a beautiful voice, sang from the back, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, is it Mozart? Yes it is, yes it is, yes it is." To this day, each time I hear Mozart's 40th Symphony, I crack a smile and usually sing the "Oh my gosh" words, unless of course, I'm hearing it in a concert hall in person. Then I just come out with the smile. By the way, our professor cracked up laughing with all the rest of us in class, and gave us all a "free" correct answer!

How has Mozart's music affected you?
Mozart's music is light-hearted, bouncy, and full of life. That is why I like it so very much. Could he write melancholy works and movements as well? Absolutely. But it is the joyful and uplifting pieces and movements that give me the greatest joy and zest for living.

Barbara Herzog
Apple Valley, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
I'd be hard pressed to choose just one

Why?
My favorite Mozart piece varies with my mood, which is part of why I think Mozart is so fabulous. I have yet to hear something by Mozart that I didn't like.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
I grew up listening to and playing Mozart, but my real "aha - now I get it" moment with Mozart came when I was working at the Ordway as an usher. The Minnesota Opera mounted a production of "Don Giovanni," and I fell in love. The soaring music, the amazing voices, the set (which I still remember vividly), costumes and the over-the-top plot all came together, and I was awestruck. I finally understood what all the fuss over opera was about; why my mom tuned in to "Live from the Met" ever Saturday. I have been an opera fan ever since. And "Don Giovanni" is still one of my favorite operas.

Anna-Maria Bliss
Minneapolis, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
Anything - aside from the operas

Why?
I'm not a music historian or theorist, so I can't say why the work is so intriguing. But I know it when I hear it. I can recognize the spirit of thought made audible that always perks up my senses when I hear Mozart's music. (My opera hesitation stems from unfamiliarity, largely, combined with the distractions of narrative and staging.)

How has Mozart's music affected you?
It gives me hope for insight. Its intelligence is combined with tremendous vivaciousness. It carries me along and inspires me to believe that the two - brains and beauty - can co-exist in a creative work.

George Slade
St. Paul, MN

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