Friday, January 27, 2006

Happy Birthday, Wolfie

"The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse - bassoons and basset horns - like a rusty squeezebox. Then suddenly - high above it - an oboe, a single note, hanging there unwavering, till a clarinet took over and turned into a phrase of such delight!"

The above dialogue is my favorite moment from Milos Forman's "Amadeus". Such a poetic and precise description. And to think these words come from the mouth of Salieri, Mozart's arch-rival!

If you can't rent "Amadeus", listen to some samples from the film here.
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A disturbing thought: had Mozart not died in 1791, he would have been a 250-year old child prodigy today.

And a troubling question: if Wolfgang and Ludwig arm-wrestled, who would win?