Quote:

An eminent musicologist and conductor responded to an earlier draft of this article by saying that for him, what would be even more interesting than the article itself would be the discussion and correspondence it would provoke. But though I would be happy if the article were noticed in this way, I want to be clear that discussion and correspondence is not primarily what I am after.

I want the response to be in the creative register of today's performers. I am suggesting that they first consider, and then investigate, the implications of changing one aspect of the way they think about the music. I don't necessarily want to persuade them to try to copy the details of what some performer of a previous era said they did, or what they said other performers should do. In fact — and this is crucial — what may be more important for us is what performers of the time took for granted, and therefore did not say.

In this spirit, I suggest that reading Leopold Mozart (for example) is different, and probably more useful, if we read it against the background of the simple structure I propose.

But of course, in a way reading Leopold Mozart is a minor issue. As a pedagogue, Leopold Mozart — perhaps more able than some of us, perhaps more important as a composer and musician — is nevertheless, like us, hogtied by his particular task.

Much more to the point is the effect on how we read, and therefore play, the 'other' Mozart — Wolfgang Amadeus.