What contact even most informed listeners have had with the music of Leopold Mozart is usually limited to his Schlittenfährt and the so-called Toy Symphony, accredited to and partly compiled, but not composed, by him. Based on such highly enjoyable, though lightweight, pieces it would be easy to conclude that Papa Mozart wrote the kinds of things little kids might like, not serious, heavyweight music like that written by his son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. From occasional references made to his own music found in letters, it ...
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What contact even most informed listeners have had with the music of Leopold Mozart is usually limited to his Schlittenfährt and the so-called Toy Symphony, accredited to and partly compiled, but not composed, by him. Based on such highly enjoyable, though lightweight, pieces it would be easy to conclude that Papa Mozart wrote the kinds of things little kids might like, not serious, heavyweight music like that written by his son, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. From occasional references made to his own music found in letters, it is clear that Leopold Mozart viewed himself as a "modern" composer, and Arte Nova's disc, Leopold Mozart: Four Symphonies, bears this out. Featuring the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra led by Georg Mais, these four symphonies are distinguished, and independently conceived efforts of the 1750s and 1760s. Overall, these pieces are more ambitious than the type of symphony common during that time, which still had one foot in the "opera overture" stage of development. The elder Mozart's...
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