Genesia said:

From my experience most people know who the temptations are especially if you mention my girl. and EVERYONE knows who Mozart is they know his name and I'm positive they have heard these songs


http://www.youtube.com/wa...Z7aY3Ev49o
http://www.youtube.com/wa...maQDMdMyrs

and if they haven't heard these they've heard this

http://www.youtube.com/wa...31zhpTc9gI

All I have to say is that the comparison is ridiculous. Where would Prince get that he is anything like Mozart?


Ps; I too recomend the film "Amadeus". Although just keep in mind that it's a very hearsay-gossipy version of how he really was. They portray him as this self-centered, egotistical, vain short guy with daddy issues that everybody put up with just cause he could write a good song.

spelling
[Edited 1/30/09 18:57pm]

Rockability said:

Did Mozart play funk?.....then the question is does Mozart stand up 2 Prince.
[Edited 1/30/09 21:09pm]

golfgolfmark said:

I've watched the movie and saw a LOT that reminded me of Prince. Is there a modern composer/musician that is more similar to the mozart portrayed in the movie? The instruments and kind of music has changed, but you have two self taught, rebellious, arrogant, prolific, brilliant artists who hear the finished music in their head before they play the first note.

One writes the notes down, the other plays the tracks one at a time and has a finished product like Seven when he's done.

Also, it was director Peter Sellars - who is famous for directing mozart operas among other things, who first said Prince was a modern day mozart, not prince himself.



http://query.nytimes.com/...A965958260
[Edited 1/30/09 23:09pm]
[Edited 1/30/09 23:12pm]
[Edited 1/30/09 23:13pm]

It's not fair to compare the two. I think they are the same. they are both supreme musical geniuses. If Prince had grown up in the classical era when that was the thing to be musically, he would have written great operas and symphonies etc.
And if Mozart was around now, he would have been great at whatever he grew up studying and emulating.
They both have the gift of being able to create anything they hear in their mind, to bring it to life.
Mozart did it with a pen and with a keyboard.
Prince does it with anything at all. As a performer there is no contest. Prince is the best, but as composers, I think they're both just as a good as it gets.

"the instruments and kind of music has changed, but you have two self taught, rebellious, arrogant, prolific, brilliant artists" Andaill

See self-taught below.....

First off, prolific in the classical sense and pop sense are 2 different things. Basically, Mozart could have written the equivilent of 4 Prince single albums over a couple day period (in the sense of writing down that many notes). In fact, as regards to notes Mozart probably could have written down notes to last a decade to Prince's self-proclaimed genius one year.

Mozart did compose Don Giovani in a four day span which is considered one of the greatest operas. He also composed the London Notebook starting at age 5.

Mozart was the furthest thing from being self-taught. In fact, his father was a seasoned composer and trained him from birth, which is why Mozart was as a trained monkey playing two instruments (piano and violin) around Germany.

If you are interested in self-taught, try looking up Satie. He also eclipses Prince,but that's another story. I'm only here to educate.

Mozart's father taught him keyboard, mozart taught himself the violin.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozart

And what do you say to the expertise on the subject of director Peter Sellars, who is the one who first referred to Prince as the modern day mozart.

And are you honestly suggesting that the number of notes is a way to measure music. Isn't there a scene in Amadaus that makes fun of this very idea?
[Edited 1/30/09 23:51pm]

alandail said:

That's a great point - alandail

The quote suggests the Mozart took it upon himself to "compose" for the violin, which you are mistaking for learning the violin.

And are you honestly suggesting that the number of notes is a way to measure music. Isn't there a scene in Amadaus that makes fun of this very idea? - quote



No. I'm saying that the only real data to compare past to future as far as "prolific" is concerned is notes.


You could subtract notes or add them re: style. Mozart would still have a massive amount of more works (disregarding notes), not to mention he only lived to 35.
[Edited 1/31/09 0:01am]

it's pretty hard to compare total output because most of Prince's work is inaccessible in a vault.

This

http://www.amazon.com/Moz...B000BLI3K2

says Mozart's complete work takes 170 CD, which if you assume an average of 60 minutes/CD is about 7 days worth of music played straight through. My own Prince collection, which is nowhere near his complete works, is over 4 days worth of music. I suspect that if someone had all of it, it'd be 10-15 days.

This, from an artist who has his output constrained, both by artificial marketing reasons as well as by the massive amount of time spent touring and promoting his music.

Rockability said:

I believe P's music does stand up to Mozart. If man lives another 250 years I believe P's music will stand amongst composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and the like even though P's music is a different style and genre. James Brown and Hendrix, from my point of view should also be held in that standard.

cherrymoongirl said:

I don't think mozart was portrayed like that, i think he was portrayed as childlike, sheltered, and vulnerable

There are other artist who are WAY more like Mozart than prince

I think they are both so different it isn't easy to compare them.

I don't know a lot about Mozart but I have seen Amadaeus and I was blown away. He seems to be in a league of his own.

Could he write poetry though? Could he write lyrics?

I think they are both very different and it is hard to judge.
[Edited 1/31/09 13:13pm]

alandail said:

This assumes that every note ever written by Mozart is known. I suspect there are many, many Mozart pieces that did not survive - particularly pieces written when he was younger. His own vault, if you will.

LazarusHeart said:

African music has been at the core of American popular music since it's inception. Zepplin, Rolling Stones and the Beatles are commericial variations of the blues. Prince has an extradinary musical vocabulary that has reshaped all types of African-American musical idioms. Rock/guitar-based music is basically sped up blues.

This discussion has a particular western bias and elitist slant. Classical music has it's own unique characterics and history. The blues and jazz are equally influential musical styles. The reason Mozart's music has endured for 250 years is because of the culture of classical music which reworks the same piece of music over and over again. Jazz music is about improvisation.

To say that Mozart is more important than Charlie Parker, Miles, Aretha, Louis Armstrong and Prince because their music is based on the drum is dishonest. Since when does the quanity of musical notes and charts equate to genius? Let him try Housequake, Papas Got a Brand New Bag or Kind of Blue.

Miles walked away from Julliard so he could create some of the most important music in recorded history. And I like his Prince comparison to Duke Ellington better than the Mozart tag.

It's very hard to compare, because the timeframes are so different. It would be hard to even compare Prince to the Beatles (although not impossible).

Put it this way: there are a ton of grade-school kids out there now who can play Hendrix songs perfectly and solo better than Eddie Van Halen. That doesn't make them better than Jimi or Eddie though . . . there's a lot to be said for pioneering/originating a form of music.

I think Mozart was part of that pioneering movement.

There's no point in comparing the two as they operate(d) in totally different genres and are very talented at what they do. What Prince does share with WAM is the ability to visualise a whole piece of music in his head (apparently P played the drums on the first 4 tracks of Parade all the way through in one take) and not to second guess his instincts on many occasions. Also, don't forget that although WAM was undoubtedly gifted he received a lot of formal training and was pushed by his father. Apparently, Mozart's sister was just as good as him but the father thought that being a musician wasn't suitable for a girl so she took a backseat to her brother, virtually dropping music altogether to support the tours of Wolfgang.

Personally, I always thought P resembled the tortured genius of Beethoven more as his music is more emotional/spiritual and richer than Mozart's and sounded fuller (ushered in the Romantic period with a bigger orchestra). He was a genius but also a perfectionist who some feel overworked his pieces (sounds like P overproducing some of his material?). On a personal note, the pathos of some of Beethoven's work is emphasised by his tough upbringing at the hands of an abusive father (When Doves Cry?)and dissatisfaction with life (The Ladder). He died rather poor but ultimately changed the direction of music as opposed to Mozart's polished perfectionism which largely remained true to the conventions of the 18th century.

I'm going to get hammered for this but oh well.

If anybody should be considered a modern day Mozart it should be Michael Jackson

bigbrother said:

I agree with this. Well put!

jdcxc said:

How does classical music, aside from possibly Baroque music, rework the same piece of music over and over again?
I doubt Mozart or Beethoven would have had difficulty understanding modern genres based on improvisation. Many of their piano pieces were designed for improvisations of which both masters excelled at.
Mozart was able to improvise and spin wild variations of his contemporaries on the spot, and Beethoven dazzled people with his ability to interpret music scores with improvisation that added life to them. Improvisation is not a modern concept. But obviously the comparisons between the genres makes it difficult to say whose better. It would be like comparing a famous drummer with a famous guitarist and asking which one was the better musician.
Likewise, it's difficult to pin down a comparison between Prince and Mozart. And if Prince wasn't joking when he said he considered himself a modern day Mozart, he certainly was a fool to think it.
Sure, we have no rock 'n' roll pieces of Mozart's to compare to Prince. But we do have Prince's Opera to compare to Mozart's.
Either way, it's unfair to compare Prince to Mozart. And by virtue of the fact Mozart isnt alive today to experience the current swath of musical genres, it's unfair to compare Mozart to Prince.

jdcxc said:

Somebody always gotta make it about race.

Genesia said:

This is true. Composers back then were 'work for hire' and Mozart was extremely prolific. He wrote a great deal of 'filler' to for this reason.

It was Beethoven who brought about the paradigm shift that a composer or person of the arts was something 'above' the common workman. Beethoven even saw himself as being more important than nobility because of talent alone. Mozart, as arrogant as he was, would not have thought to think this way about all the music that he wrote, so there's bound to be several musical pieces out there undiscovered or lost.

nastyarse said:

This is exactly what I was trying to explain but I was called a "mozart amateur". Oh well.

Prince and many musicians today also do "work-for-hire" but a lot of times they are the ones hiring themselves!

berniejobs said:

apples to oranges... OK now compare them...

Could Mozart sing? .....case closed.

How about Mozart compared to Seasick Steve? Oh really what's the point? So could Mozart do Princeand vice versa? Not a fucking clue.

pplrain said:

I watched a video recently of a girl with some oranges. I'm not sure but I reckon she could have hidden apples just the same way although I doubt so many.

There was a video years ago called Apples and Oranges with a girl who popped one up her front-bottom and as she did so one popped out of her botpot. Yet on closer inspection it turned out that they were both oranges and not one apple and one orange as had been suggested by the title. Never did know who to forward the complaint to.