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?
The Requiem

Why?
No composer has ever reached as near to the sublime as Mozart did in his last piece. If he had written nothing else this unfinished (alas!) opus alone would have placed him in the pantheon of the greatest. In fact, "Confutatis maledictis/ flammis acribus addictis/ voca me cum benedictis./ Oro supplex et acclinis/ cor contritum quasi cinis/ gere curam mei finis" (When the wicked are confounded/ Doomed to flames of woe unbounded/ Call me, with Thy saints surrounded./ Low I kneel, with heart submission/ See, like ashes my contrition/ Help me in my last condition.) is the summation of all life and its mysteries.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
More than having affected me, Mozart's music continues to affect me every time I hear it, play it or just think about it. A noted wag once said that when the great composers get to heaven they must be disappointed to realize that the music they have composed is like nothing compared to the music of the angels. I contend that Mozart must have been the least disappointed: surely his music comes as close to the divine as any.

Denis Crnkovic
Mankato, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
The Requiem, "Don Giovanni," "The Magic Flute," Symphony No. 36 in C, K. 425, and on and on

Why?
In 1994, I was a 28-year veteran teacher in Worthington, MN. I applied for a National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar in Vienna to study Mozart, thinking I didn't have a chance. I was accepted. I spent a phenomenal month that summer with 15 other American teachers. I went back in 2003 to help work with teachers, and I'll be going back this summer to work with more teachers.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
We studied operas, symphonies and concertos in the fourth floor of a monastery in Vienna. Our teacher is a professor at the University of Dayton and considers Mozart one of his best friends. We got to study and listen to the music, go to operas, walk the streets of Vienna, and study the architecture, the monarchy, and more. Of course, we also had the luxury of time to drink coffee and talk about Mozart.

I am trying to recruit Saint Paul teachers to apply for this summer's seminar so they, too, can understand and feel the magic of an unbelievable experience.

Mary Beth Blegen
Farmington, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
Overture to "The Abduction from the Seraglio"

Why?
Because it is one of my favorite pieces to play on the violin (2nd violin part)

How has Mozart's music affected you?
Mozart's music has always been a part of my life. At the age of five, I started playing the violin; the first song I learned was "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star."

Mozart was my introduction to starring on stage in a play in the sixth grade. My class put on a play called "Of Mice and Mozart," and I got to play the part of Costanze Weber. Mozart was also my introduction to opera. When I was in the tenth grade, I went to my first opera, "Don Giovanni," performed by the Minnesota Opera. I look forward to seeing it performed by the Minnesota Opera for the first time in 10 years this March.

In junior and senior high orchestra, I got to play a few of Mozart's works. The most memorable was the overture to "Lucio Silla" because Ms. Armwood made us work so hard on it. I now play second violin with the St. Paul Jewish Community Center Orchestra and the Minnesota Philharmonic Orchestra, and have enjoyed playing Mozart repertoire the most. It's the most challenging, yet relaxing and fun repertoire to play.

Mozart's music relaxes me at the end of the day, and inspires me when I am cooking and baking in my kitchen.

Sarah Kempf
Saint Paul, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
Too many to choose from

Why?
I love almost everything of Mozart's.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
It's inspired me more than any one artist in my life. I first became "turned on" to Mozart in 12th grade humanities class. We watched "Amadeus." That's all it took. I had never considered listening to classical music until I saw "Amadeus." After we watched it, we went to our high school's planetarium, turned on the stars, and our teacher told us to find a comfortable place anywhere in the planetarium, and listen. If we felt relaxed, even enough to sleep, we could. That's what his music (and all classical music) is meant to do: to relax, to allow one to escape and drift away in the music. Since then, I've been hooked. Thanks, Mr. O'Brien, and thank you, Mozart. My life is richer because of you.

Patrick Dentinger
Mankato, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
"Ave Verum Corpus"

How has Mozart's music affected you?
I've loved classical music since I was about six. I had no family history or influence, and no formal schooling. But I was, even at that age, totally entranced by pieces I heard, and they captured my heart.

My introduction to Mozart came when members of my high school choir prepared for an all-state sing in my native Ohio. "Ave Verum Corpus" was one of the selections we would sing. I will always be grateful to the educator who selected it, because it's one of the most simple, prayerful, yet profound, choral pieces ever written. A recording was made of the sing which I still have -- 1,000 or more young voices experiencing one of life's beautiful mysteries. Ever since then, no matter what I'm doing, whenever I hear its strains in the choral version or in Tchaikovsky's adaptation, I stop and receive the blessing its sound bestows.

Diane Sprague
Minneapolis, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
The "Haffner" Symphony

Why?
It's a mature, balanced work that gives a hint of what kind of music Mozart might have written had he lived longer.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
As a college student majoring in music, I wrote a senior paper on each of the Mozart piano concertos. Of course, I learned a lot about each one and about Mozart in the process. But what sticks with me is the observation that one of my sources stated: No composer before or since has ever achieved the perfect balance of solo instrument and orchestra that Mozart did. He seemed to have a unique gift of knowing how to have the orchestra accompany the solo instrument without overshadowing it. He could create a transparent, even delicate, back and forth interplay of themes and dynamics while fully showcasing the characteristics of the solo instrument and the orchestra without ever having one dominate the other. Over the years, I have enjoyed listening to Mozart concertos (piano, oboe, flute, whatever) with that thought in mind.

Dave Nickel
Minneapolis, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
All the music from "The Magic Flute"

Why?
The music calls forth the fantasy in the story for me.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
The patterning in Mozart's music reveals a blending of order and creativity that opens my own creative possibilities in a calming way. His music has the unique quality of truly creating harmony and excitement.

Mary Dulany
Dover, DE

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
Symphony No. 25 in G minor Allegro con brio Why?
I love the movie "Amadeus." I own it, and it's very relaxing to me to listen to. I played the cello for six years and remember playing Symphony No. 25 in orchestra. It became one of my most favorite songs.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
Mozart's music affects me almost everyday. When I'm in my car after a hard days work and just want to relax from the world, I put on my Mozart CD. His music really helps me to relax. When I get over stressed over something, I will just turn on his CD. And I'll also listen to Mozart while I'm studying or doing my homework.

Sarah Riesebieter
Milan, IL

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
The horn concertos

Why?
In the early 50s, I played French horn with the 49th & 149th Army bands stationed at Camp Truscott, which was about 5 km from Salzburg, Austria. We played retreats (flag lowering ceremonies), parades, concerts and ceremonies for various visiting dignitaries.

At that time, Vienna, Austria, was a liberated city and divided into five zones: French, English, Russian, American and an International Zone. As an Army band, our main function was to partake in a formal honor guard to take or handover control of the International Zone from one power to another. One month we would take control of the zone from the British, and the next month relinquish control to the Russians. It was an honor and a pleasure to be a part of these ceremonies and to pass the reviewing stand with our American MP honor guard with literally thousands people cheering. But the greatest thrill in Vienna was to attend all the concerts and operas. I enjoyed all the Mozart music I could in Vienna, because, unfortunately, it was impossible to get tickets the Salzburg Festspielstad.

Although I'm not all that religious, and certainly not Catholic, I tried to attend mass as often as I could. One of the big churches had an orchestra and chorus, and would perform a different Mozart mass every Sunday. What a thrill! And, of course, like every good tourist, I visited Mozart's birth house (Geburtshaus). I saw his small violin, his piano and all the other memorabilia.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
I am a self-taught musician, and, at the time of my Army experience, was a neophyte classical music aficionado. I was lucky. The Army needed a French hornist in Austria, and I had just completed my band training at Fort Riley, Kansas. So along with an alto sax player, I was sent to the best duty I could possibly hope for. The rest of the trainees went to Korea - bummer! And, again in Austria, I was lucky. In addition to other good, regular soldiers, the band drafted great, professional musicians and had several college-level people, many of whom had joined the Army to take advantage of the GI bill. At my urging, they took me under their collective wings and began my classical musical training. And what a better place to learn. Here I was in the virtual shadow of Mozart's genius, the originator of the musical chord progression used by him and introduced to his contemporary composers. Even now, in my opinion, all music utilizes his progression. I was there; I studied him. I enjoyed him, and I enjoy him still.

James Conner
Hutchinson, MN

What is your favorite Mozart piece?
"Ave Verum Corpus"

Why?
It is the perfect match of music and words.

How has Mozart's music affected you?
I find it both inspiring and relaxing.

Dan Erwin
New Brighton, MN

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