He did, though, once write a symphony where he instructed all the orchestra members to walk off the stage at the end, one by one, after their bit had ended. So you had the effect of, one by one, a gradually emptying stage, with the music being played by just the last person remaining - he wrote diem a special 'staggered' ending to do it. Eventually, the last person left the stage and stopped playing, too. It was meant to be a bit of a gende dig at his boss, who hadn't let the composer or the musicians have a holiday in ages. He labelled it his Farewell Symphony - farewell in the sense of the orchestra buggering off, not in the sense that it was the final time he was going to play Wembley. Mmm. Interesting stuff, eh? I don't know, these musicians. Have you in stitches, wouldn't they? It's his 45th symphony. 45! Can you believe that? And before he's finished he will have more than doubled that count. Of course, he is, by then, forty-one years of age. W(»lfgang Amadeus Theophilus P. Wildebeest Mozart©-", his partner in crime in the Classical-R-Us® chain, was only coming up to seventeen at this point.
Still, youth never held Mozart back, and in 1773 he came up with the simply exquisite three-movement slice of heaven, Exsultate, jubilate. It's for soprano and orchestra - well, that's not strictly true: it was originally for castrato and orchestra. Mozart had, not long ago, made the acquaintance of one Venanzio Rauzzini, a noted chanteur sans balswho had taken a starring role in one of his early operas, Lucio Silla. Mozart was clearly impressed and set to work on a new piece using Latin text. It includes one of the most gorgeous bits of composer showing off since Hildegard of Bingen learnt to play mouth organ while riding a bike. It's the last movement. Mozart decides that he can set the entire last movement to just the one single word -Alleluia. Clever clogs, he is. In fact, this gives us a perfect chance to take stock and survey how far we've come musically.
Because if you think about this one-word setting in the last movement, and you think of someone like, say, Johann Sebastian Bach when he wanted to do some showing off, then you realize just how poles apart they are. If Bach had done some showing off on this scale - and he frequently did: setting his name as the theme of a piece of music; working out double and quadruple fugues which then went back on themselves^ fi - well, it would have come out as a largely academic exercise. Superbly executed, correct down to the 78th decimal point and yet somehow… not particularly… emotional, as it were. I know I'm on dodgy ground here, for some, because Bachophiles''^ love their favourite composer with a passion - no pun intended. And I, too, love the man to bits. But with Mozart, working only some twenty-odd years fi amp;This is only partly a joke. Mozart's full name - the one that would have appeared on his birth certificate - was Johannes Chrysostomus "Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (the 'Amadeus' was a later substitution, a Latin finessing of the Greek word Theophilus). So I wasn't simply making a gratuitous benny Henry reference. fi fi Which, I believe is called a 'crab' formation. fi fi fi Bachophiles are not to be confused with the wrappings for cooking turkeys, which go by a similar name. after the death of the great man, you get a joyous, uplifting movement that sounds like… well, that sounds like freedom, in a way. It sounds as if Mozart is just improvising on paper - 'Ooh, I could go here, now. I know what, I'll go there after that', a bit like you imagine the mind of a jazz player to work - whereas, only twenty or so years earlier, you could almost smell the working out. Am I making sense? I hope I am. And if I am, then it just proves there's a first time for everything.
So, it's official, then. Into the warm, cheek-shaped indentations left on the twin thrones of music by Bach and Handel move the young and younger new frames of Haydn and Mozart. Baroque is now long dead and classical music is the new classical music.
TAME TIME TEAM TOME
T
he Time Team. Don't know about you, but I'm a big fan. Massive. Phil, Carenza, Tony, and Mike of the Strange Pullover, all enthusing to the point of moistness about a two-inch shard of clay: or a different colour line in the trench, which, the computer-generated picture can reveal, is actually the remains of a building the size of Lincoln Cathedral. Honestly. I love it. Absolutely love it. In fact it was here, on this programme, that I first heard about an incredible device that has been developed, in conjunction with ICI, which can extract the previous sounds secreted within walls. It sounds amazing, I know, but the device, if put to proper use, would allow us to recreate all manner of previously lost events, aurally. Concert performances, great speeches, criminal conversations, the applications are endless.© Right now, though, I want to put it to use to let you hear the sounds retrieved from a piece of parchment, thought to date back to 1785. It appears to have picked up the sounds of two people, evidently gossiping. It's patchy, and it all comes out as one general stream of consciousness, but still, let me show you a transcript of what it says: 'Anyway 1785 wen yes would you believe it America then eh we repealed all those taxes for them didn't we glass paper dye admittedly we kept tea well you've got to keep a hold on tea haven't you well they just don't know how to make a good cuppa out there I KNOW they had some sort of tea party yes tea party yes in Boston yes well I KNOW I wasn't invited either no and yet I do an awful lot for them Independence I'll give them independence all that no taxation without representation I mean who thought of that eh? who thought of that it hardly rolls off the tongue does it doesn't scan well or rhyme or anything ooh did you hear about that Louis the fifteenth DEAD as true as I'm sitting here with this haircut Right as rain one minute giving it grand with the old nobles next minute DEAD no word of a lie Olive's gone as well yes well I said he'd never survive after that India thing ooh it was a mess wasn't it I told him I said Clive of India I said that was my pet name for him I said Clive of India I said you're better off out of it I said Leave it to 'em I said Besides you burn too easily you do Oh aye he was never one to go brown wasn't our Clive Ooh that reminds me did you see in the papers that Cook fella has discovered somewhere new again I KNOW that's what I said I said It's only more mouths to feed He should just turn right round again leave them to their beach volleyball and just go and Undiscover it again I said
Anyway wasn't it sad about Mr Pitt wasn't it ooh he was a lovely man lovely he was I met him when he was campaigning Sat on my chaise-longue he did Ooh he was so polite he was insisted I called him Elder for short Goldsmith he's gone too ooh I loved that play of his you came with me didn't you She stoops for conkers ooh I did enjoy it Never did see the conkers mind modern production probably eh have you seen this the Daily Universal Register it's new yeah not bad actually it's got adverts and everything look Mr Broadwood's new improved pianoforte now with pedals dynamics guaranteed or your money back I don't know it's got sports pages too look that's about that new race that Lord Derby started it's really getting popular I KNOW I KNOW I still prefer the St Leger even if you do have to go to Doneaster ISN'T IT JUST page three has got a great pair of balloons look it says Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier are not all hot air these Gallic goons are frying high after completing the first successful balloon trip at Annonay who knows maybe they'll make it as far as Cook's new island next time then it would really be a case of up up and Hawaii ooh that's awful this paper will never survive…' And that, sadly, is as much as they've been able to extract, but, I think you'll agree, it does provide a fascinating and perhaps more accurate insight into the real goings-on of 1785. What isn't recorded there, though, is anything about Mozart in 1785, so let me fill you in.