1884-1886: Diary Notes of August Göllerich’: Edited by Wilhelm Jerger: translated,
edited, and enlarged by Richard Louis Zimdars: Indiana University Press: Bloomington
and Indianapolis.
MOZART
Life
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1757-1791) is one of the four great classical composers, the
others being Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert. He is also one of the major classical
composers for the piano.
Mozart was born in Salzburg, but spent most of his adult life in Vienna. His output of
over 600 compositions includes works widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic,
concerted, chamber, piano, operatic and choral music. Mozart is among the most
enduringly popular of classical composers and many of his works are part of the standard
concert repertoire.
Mozart effect
Classical music, in the sense of serious music, increases brain activity more than other
kinds of music and listening to certain kinds of music may induce a short-lived (fifteen
minute) improvement in the performance of certain kinds of mental tasks known as
spatio-temporal reasoning. This theory is called the ‘Mozart effect’.
Two pieces of Mozart’s music, his Sonata for two pianos in D major K 4 48 and his Piano
Concerto no. 23 in A major K 488, were found to have this effect, giving it its name.
Later research also suggested that K 488 can reduce the number of seizures in people
with epilepsy. Apart from K448 and K 488, the composition ‘Acroyali/Standing in
Motion’ by Greek composer Yanni was also found to have the effect apparently because
it was similar to K 448 in tempo, structure, melodic and harmonic consonance and
predictability.
The 2004 Classic 100 Piano Countdown surveyed all piano pieces by all composers and
four Mozart piano pieces made it (the rules apparently excluded works for two pianos):
21 Sonata in A major K331
42 Sonata in C major K545 (‘Sonate Facile’)
74 Fantasia in D minor K397*
83 Variations on ‘Ah vous dirai-je Maman’ K265
The 2006 Classic 100 Mozart Countdown surveyed the favourite moments from all of
Mozart compositions and found:
2 Piano concerto no. 23 in A major K488 – Adagio [middle movt]
8 Piano concerto no. 23 in A major K488 – Allegro assai [3rd movt]