Mozart is my Homeboy

After more than 200 years in obscurity, the last unreadable pages of an opera by Italian composer Luigi Cherubini have been deciphered with the help of one of the most advanced X-ray machines on the planet.

sebsational:

Since I know classical music is boring, let me sum up.

1. Asshole’s phone rings during the dénouement of a very dramatic symphony.
2. Conductor Alan Gilbert notices.
3. Cell phone does not stop.
4. Alan Gilbert stops the music (which almost never happens.  I have seen people carried out of operas on stretchers while the show was still going on uninterrupted).
5. Alan Gilbert finds out whose phone it is and refuses to continue until said gentleman confirms that he has, in fact, turned the phone all the way off.
6. Audience cheers.

Symphonies are the BEST, you guys.

electricshoebox:

’”Virtuosic.” “A prodigy.” “Genius.” These words were written in the 1760s about Mozart—Maria Anna Mozart. When she toured Europe as a pianist, young Maria Anna wowed audiences in Munich, Vienna, Paris, London, the Hague, Germany and Switzerland. “My little girl plays the most difficult works which we have … with incredible precision and so excellently,” her father, Leopold, wrote in a letter in 1764. “What it all amounts to is this, that my little girl, although she is only 12 years old, is one of the most skillful players in Europe.”

The young virtuoso, nicknamed Nannerl, was quickly overshadowed by her brother, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, five years her junior. But as one of Wolfgang’s earliest musical role models, does history owe her some measure of credit for his genius?’

An intriguing article about Mozart’s older sister - it sounds like, had she had the same opportunities as her brother, she might have become just as much a musical legend. Pretty interesting to contemplate. What was lost to history? 

ALTERNATE REALITY FANTASY THAT WILL HAUNT ME UNTIL THE END OF MY DAYS

fuckyeahpolishpoets:

That Mozart aria up there, which floor? Ten? 
which window, sixteenth from the left? Empires 
were tumbling down and rising up again.

That “Non so piu,” that lucid lion’s den 
that frail fortress’s flight, that friendly fire, 
that anapestic pulsing from Floor Ten

had to be heard precisely there and then, 
claiming its makeshift right not to expire, 
though empires were rising up again

and our consent had mixed with their cement, 
one Mozart tape may still salve the entire 
globe’s pain—if played in time on some Floor Ten.

As if that long-dead hand still tried to lend  
us all its wealth—us, those cheats and rogues for hire, 
rubble from whom empires rose again,

but who held, too, a prayer with no amen, 
who hoped this aria will never tire 
or err, the Mozart aria from Floor Ten. 
Empires fell down and rose up again. 

bestofwikipedia:

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had a strong interest in scatological humor. This interest is reflected in his letters and in a few recreational compositions. The scatological material has long been a puzzle for Mozart scholarship, and there have been two main responses. In one view, the scatology was the result of a condition from which Mozart is claimed to have suffered, particularly Tourette syndrome. The other view deals with the scatology by seeking an understanding of the role of scatological humor in Mozart’s family, his society, and his times. (via zargap)

Thereby proving my theory that MOZART IS THE SHIT, Y’ALL