AccessMyLibrary : Search Information that Libraries Trust AccessMyLibrary | News, Research, and Information that Libraries Trust

AccessMyLibrary    Browse    T    The New Yorker    SEP-04    WARHORSES.(The Marriage of Figaro)(Sempre Libera)(The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I)(Sound Recording Review)

WARHORSES.(The Marriage of Figaro)(Sempre Libera)(The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I)(Sound Recording Review)

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 27-SEP-04

Author: Ross, Alex
How to access the full article: Free access to all articles is available courtesy of your local library. To access the full article click the "See the full article" button below. You will need your US library barcode or password.

Bookmark this article

Print this article

Link to this article

Email this article

Digg It!

Add to del.icio.us

RSS

COPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

The breathtaking profanity of Mozart's letters--"Whoever doesn't believe me may lick me, world without end," and so on--has led one British researcher to conclude recently that the composer had Tourette's syndrome. What's interesting about this theory, which has become the goofball classical-music news item of the season, is that anyone would actually need a far-fetched medical explanation for the fact that a young male with healthy appetites swore a lot and liked to talk about sex. Mozart, like Shakespeare, moved with equal ease through the most refined and most raucous circles of his world. Only if classical music is confined to the fleshless end of the spectrum does Mozart's exaltation of the body become a psychological anomaly crying out for interpretation.

Rene Jacobs's recording of "The Marriage of Figaro" (Harmonia Mundi), the most startling and perhaps the best classical recording released so far this year, reconciles man and music, sacred and profane. The first bars of the overture serve notice that the "divine Mozart" is coming lustily to earth. Sforzandos land like sucker punches, legatos become greasy slurs. The four-minute overture is an event in itself: you sense the creation of a new political and cultural stage on which...

Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.


More Articles from The New Yorker
GHOSTS.(The Motorcycle Diaries)(Shaun of the Dead)(Movie Review)
September 27, 2004
OCTOBER SURPRISES BY ARNOLD ROTH AND ANDY BOROWITZ.
September 27, 2004

What's on AccessMyLibrary?

31,263,045 articles
in the following categories:

Arts, Business, Consumer News, Culture & Society, Education, Government, Personal Interest, Health, News, Science & Technology


© 2008 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning  | All Rights Reserved | About this Service | About The Gale Group, a part of Cengage Learning
                                            Privacy Policy | Site Map | Content Licensing | Contact Us | Link to us
      Other Gale sites: Books & Authors | Goliath | MovieRetriever.com | WiseTo Social Issues