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The last story featured in this IR cafe was about Mona-Lisa, and I am so writing this composition about music, which is somewhat related to art.
Do you like Mozart?
The most popular composer among Japanese people used to be Beethoven, but has changed to Mozart recently. As I am a Mozart-lover, this is good news to me. There are currently many events being held celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth. There also are many special editions of CDs released commemorating this anniversary, which are selling quite well. I have been concerned about the possible disappearance of music media such as CDs from the market due to music publisher's change in their strategy for distributing music, and so I hope that such good sales will continue in the future.
Some months ago, I listened to the 1st movement of Mozart's Violin Concerto No.7 K271a, and heard an interesting story about the music and its authenticity in the community center class I have been attending. It is now an accepted notion that Mozart had composed only 5 violin concertos and that the Nos. 6 & 7 concertos are not authentic. Therefore, the two concertos have almost no chance to be performed or recorded. It is also quite difficult to find CDs featuring these pieces of music. The reason for the relatively few performances of No. 7 to date is not because it was determined to be “fake”, but rather because it is regarded as being somewhat “suspicious”.
In the case of drawing art, arguments center around whether the piece is authentic or fake, since only one authentic artwork can exist. In the case of music, the composers work can only be heard when the music score is performed. There are many different interpretations of an individual music score and therefore each performance has its own value.
The soloist of the performance I listened to was Sir Yehudi Menuhin. He was a renowned violinist who was regarded as a young genius and was only 16 years old at the time of recording an SP record back in 1932. Perhaps you may not have heard of an SP record. It is the predecessor of the LP (Long Playing vinyl record). The general image of an SP, even to those people who are familiar with this type of media, is often times represented by poor sound quality with surface noise. However, when an SP is played back using sophisticated modern technology, it delivers a marvelous, clear sound that resonates with spirit of the composer. I hope that you have an opportunity to listen to music recorded on CDs with the careful remastering of the original recording. I suggest that you take special care, however, when selecting CDs, since there are too many poorly remastered ones that have failed to capture the essence of the artist's music due to excessive noise reduction. I sincerely hope that you do not take such poor-quality music and sound to represents the true quality of an SP recording.
Aside from the debate of whether the music is authentic or suspicious, the performance by young Menuhin was very brilliant and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it is quite a shame to miss out on opportunities to listen to the violin concerto No.7 simply because there is some suspicion regarding its authenticity as a Mozart composition. I personally do not care much about the authenticity of the score. As long as the music is of a good quality and enjoyable, it has some worth for me. I believe that is one criteria of good music. (A)
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