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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000068.txt from 2005/11

From: Oboeeee@-----.com
Subj: [DR-L] Quote of the Day...Why Mozart Didn't Get Tenure
Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 20:10:54 -0500

Why Mozart Didn't Get Tenure

Dear Dean:

This is in response to your suggestion that we appoint Mr. Wolfgang Mozart
to our music faculty. The music department appreciates your interest, but the
faculty is sensitive about its prerogatives in the selection of new
colleagues.

While the list of works and performances the candidate has submitted is very
full, it reflects too much activity outside academia. Mr. Mozart does not
have an earned doctorate and has very little formal education and teaching
experience. There is also significant evidence of personal instability evidenced
in his resume. Would he really settle down in a large state university like
ours? Would he really be a team player?

I must voice a concern over the incidents with his former superior, the
Archbishop of Salzburg. They hardly confirm his abilities to be a good team man
and show a disturbing lack of respect for authority.

Franz Haydn's letter of recommendation is noted, but Mr. Haydn is writing
from a very special situation. Esterhazy is a well-funded private institution
quite dissimilar from us and abler than we to accommodate non-academics, like
Mr. Haydn himself. Here we are concerned about everybody, not just the most
gifted. Furthermore, we suspect cronyism on the part of Mr. Haydn.

After Mr. Mozart's interview with the musicology faculty, they found him
sadly lacking in any real knowledge of music before Bach and Handel. If he were
to teach only composition, this might not be a serious impediment. But would
he be an effective teacher of music history?

The applied faculty were impressed with his pianism, although they thought
it was somewhat old-fashioned. That he also performed on violin and viola
seemed to us to be stretching versatility dangerously thin. We suspect a large
degree of dilletantism on his part.

The composition faculty was skeptical about his vast output. They correctly
warn us from their own experience that to receive many commissions and
performances is no guarantee of quality. The senior professor pointed out that Mr.
Mozart promotes many of these performances himself. He has never won the
support of a major foundation.

One of our faculty members was present a year ago at the premiere of, I
believe, a violin sonata. He discovered afterwards that Mr. Mozart had not
written out all the parts for the piano before he played it. This may be very well
in that world, but it sets a poor example for our students. We expect
deadlines to be met on time, and this includes all necessary paperwork.

It must be admitted that Mr. Mozart is an entertaining man at dinner. He
spoke enthusiastically about his travels. It was perhaps significant, though,
that he and the music faculty seem to have few acquaintances in common.

One of our female faculty members was deeply offended by his bluntness. She
even had to leave the room after one of his endless parade of anecdotes. This
propensity of his to excite the enmity of some is hardly conducive to the
establishment of the comity to which we aspire to maintain on our faculty, let
alone the image that we wish to project to the community at large.

We are glad as a faculty to have had the chance to meet this visitor, but we
cannot recommend his appointment. Even if he were appointed, this is almost
no hope of his being granted tenure. The man simply showed no interest in
going to school to collect his doctorate. This is egotism at its zenith.

Please give our regards to Mr. Mozart when you write him. We wish him our
very best for a successful career. All are agreed, though, that he cannot
fulfill the needs of this department.
We wish to recommend the appointment of Antonio Salieri, a musician of the
highest ideals and probity that accurately reflect the aims and values that we
espouse. We would be eager to welcome such a musician and person to our
faculty.

Sincerely yours,

The Chair and Faculty of the Department of Music

P.S. Some good news. Our senior professor of composition tells me there is
now a very good chance that a movement of his concerto will have its premiere
within two years. You will remember that his work was commissioned by a
foundation and won first prize nine years ago.

Warm Regards,

Janie
Vice President for Development
Atlanta Baroque Orchestra
John Hsu, Artistic Advisor
_www.atlantabaroque.org_ (http://www.atlantabaroque.org)

*blowing out 250 birthday candles

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