Book Review: ON MOZART by Anthony Burgess

On Mozart by Anthony Burgess
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The complete title reveals everything you need to know: "On Mozart: A Paean for Wolfgang being a celestial colloquy, an opera libretto, a film script, a schizophrenic dialogue, a bewildered rumination, a Stendhalian transcription, and a heartfelt homage upon the bicentenary of the death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart."

It's like something from Dexter's Lab! A literary experiment, something put in words by a fan who wanted to offer tribute, but one whose vanity only permitted him to write a mishmash of pages, with a very small target audience: musicians. (Specifically, those who prefer tonal to atonal music, hehe.)

It's quite novel, of course. I do not deny Burgess' brilliance as a writer. But being a teacher, I wish Burgess had written this in a more simple style, so the book could find a wider audience. (Then again... Burgess and simplicity?! Never the twain shall meet!)

But for those with the requisite music history and theory background, this slim book offers very interesting views on Mozart's greatness, the changing role of music and the artist from Mozart's time to present day, and the importance of Music itself.

Burgess says Mozart's supremacy arises from perfection of Form, the absence of vulgarity, and the absence of sentimentality. I found his analysis of tonality vs. atonality very insightful:

"(Sonata form is...) The composer's complete submission to a prescribed pattern. That pattern was the sonic equivalent of the society which music served... No matter how rigorous the fundamental structure of an atonal serial work, the ear and the brain have the impression that this is the music, of, yes, social breakdown."

Burgess' Mozart was a supreme artist who soared above petty workmanship from rehashed formulas. To those who would deny that Mozart's work was art, Burgess wrote: "Art is a trade that ennobles itself, and the consumer, by giving more than what is paid for. The market is served, but also God."

Yes, the man who seemed to take dictation from God wrote music to pay bills. But what he wrote transcended mere commerce.

At the end, Burgess himself acknowledges that "the symphonization of fiction is shown to be an implausible undertaking, but things have occasionally to be done to show that they cannot be done... The celebration of Mozart cannot be accomplished in words."

Why does Mozart continue speak to all of us today?

"It is not Mozart's function to soothe: he is not a tranquilizer to be taken out of the cupboard. He purveys an image of a possible future rather than of an irrecoverable past... Mozart reminds us of human possibilities. He presents the whole compass of life and intimates that noble visions exist only because they can be realized."

Burgess cries out, in short, for harmony and order in an increasingly dissonant world. And that is something we can all relate to.

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