Interestingly, in contemporary German we tend to say "am Arsch" instead of "im Arsch".
Mozart's version seems even more offensive, referring more to the inside than the outside of said body part.
I was very confused by the popular "Schiesser" brand of underwear when living in Germany until I noticed that "Scheisser" had the e and i in a different order.
Mozart's great compositions such as Le Nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, the piano concertos and choral works send me off into an eatherial world that only another devotee would understand. I put them amongst the greatest works of Western art of all time.
With that in mind I don't hold Mozart god-like on a pedestal as many do. I see him as an ordinary guy with one supreme talent. The fact that we still have instances of Mozart's profane utterings is a reminder to me that in many respects he's down at my level of thinking -- and thus human like the rest of us. For that reason I'm truly glad that we've not sanitized these particular works and sayings of his from history.
The great Swiss theologian Karl Barth was reputed to have said of Mozart that "God overdid the goodness essence when he created Mozart".
My take on that would be to exchange 'goodness' for 'talent'.
I'd add a rider to that however and that's that Mozart is widely and lovingly remembered for the sheer joy that his music has brought to millions of music lovers over the past 23 decades since his death. If that translates into 'goodness essence' then so be it.
I remember there was another post a while ago discussing Einstein’s racist (certainly so by modern standards) world outlook. The simple thing to realize is of course that all the so-called “great” people are also flesh-and-bone human beings with their flaws (at least judging by the mainstream morals of a particular era). The personalities of any one single human being are always complex and multi-faceted. The way Thatcher said “he couldn’t have been like that since he wrote great, refined music” is a perfect example of the denial and the (conservative) deification of people that the mainstream has deemed to have to be “immaculate”. I mean you can somehow create religious and literary figures to such effect, but if anybody seriously believes that an actual human being would be literally “god-like” in character, they have some serious reckoning with the reality to do. Fortunately most people in the modern era seem to get this, and modern art productions are also depicting characters in mostly realistic lights.
I, for one, am heartened that while Mozart and Wesley Willis are completely different musicians in terms of sound, they both have compositions which touch on similar subject matter. I imagine if the two men could have met and conversed, they might eagerly exchange ideas.
At the See Also section, there is a link to "Mozart and scatology" explaining it. Definitely not a particular aspect of his life that they teach you in primary school Music class.
I've always enjoyed the duality of Mozart's supposed personality. We will never truly know the person so we can mostly only judge him by his works and boy can he craft a divine sound. But when you apply a personal lens to your own work I have realised that it's perfectly reasonable to distance your personality from your craft so why not also Mozart?
In any case, a reminder to check your snobbery at the door when following classical music - the musicians and composers are usually quite ordinary people with special gifts.
"...musicians and composers are usually quite ordinary people with special gifts."
Right. It's not only musicians and composers but I'd suggest that many great and famous people have stains on their characters that 'proper' society would rather disdain or not know about.
For example, Einstein's personal life was anything but harmonious given his misogynistic treatment of his wife and others. Despite the fact that we're likely not to agree with the way he conducted his personal life, those facts do not lessen any objective analysis of his scientific works.
There are several different manufacturers of these balls and the original variety is the best. When I was living in Austria I could get them almost anywhere. Now that I don't, I've never seen them except with one exception. My local Aldi store had them one Christmas except they were made in Germany and not original Salzburger Mozartkugeln.
Despite that, those who I gave some to try loved them to the extent that they whinged that Aldi only had them as its once-off special deals, so again they quickly became unavailable.
"...Vienna, where the real music scene was located."
However, even Vienna turned an eye away from Mozart's salacious Don Giovani which Prague took up the cudgels for. Even today, Prague claims itself home to the famous work (which one soon realizes after visiting there).
Duh, you'd think I could spell 'Giovanni' correctly by now. Bloody predictive spelling on smartphones is a curse. This stuff-up isn't too bad but I've posted some monumental nonsense from having missed grossly inappropriate words. (I keep telling myself to turn it off, the trouble is that it's so damn convenient, isn't it?)
It's funny that his love of poop and butt jokes might be the most accurate part of the film.
A lot of people are shocked when they learn about Leck mich im Arsch, and would probably be bowled over if they knew just how many of his pieces either have it in their titles, or in their lyrics. History has rewritten a lot of his lyrics as a result.
It seems that Robert Spaethling's book 'Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life: Selected Letters' says most of it: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/sep/24/biography.musi.... I've been meaning to read it for ages and ages, reckon this story has spurred me on to add it to my next book order.
Amadeus was certainly entertaining albeit annoying for its inaccuracies. It's saving grace was F. Murray Abraham's wonderful Oscar-winning performance of Salieri.
Another aspect of the film worth noting was the fact that it was filmed in Prague before Communism finally fell, this really added to the visual character of the film. The reasons for filming there were mainly that there were no advertising billboards or hoardings anywhere to be seen across the city and the fact that under Communism there had been very little modern development in the old city which meant that its architecture was still authentically of the Enlightenment period—it'd been preserved par excellence (which was amazing given the ravages of war and the onslaught of the 20th Century).
I can attest to that, my first visit to Prague was before Communism fell and it really did look like like that. Some years later when I visited again after Communism's demise there were billboards and hoardings everywhere. The visual change came as damn horrible shock. If you want a lesson in how to make a city ugly in one easy lesson then Prague's the quintessential example.
My favourite part is when Mozart was messing with Salieri's piece.
"The rest is just the same, isn't it?"
And that laugh... I'll never get that laugh out of my head.
Salieri was painted in quite a negative light in the film, though. He was actually a decent musician and a very good teacher. The portrayal as a bitter, envious composer was probably created just to provide a meaningful villain against Mozart in the film.
Ready for bonus trivia about that scene? The Salieri March is actually a Mozart piece “Non piu andrai”[0] from Marriage of Figaro that the film makers “dumbed down” to make it a simple little tune that Mozart could fix in front of the emperor (and show off Mozart’s improv skills). It was a clever way to sneak another Mozart piece into the movie. One of my favorite scenes too!
Yeah, that part was accurate, Mozart was a brilliant improvisor.
It's fascinating to see that when you look at the score for ' Non più andrai', it looks so deceptively simple in that anyone could sing or play it. I remember this is not the case from me attempting to learn to play it on piano decades ago; my teacher would continually screech 'play Mozart's timing not yours' (which means I never got the timings fully correct). This apparent ease is so very characteristic of Mozart's music, it seems so effortless but to play it well it's anything but that. This isn't an isolated case either, one finds this apparent simplicity everywhere† throughout his music.
It's funny isn't it that if 'Non più andrai'—one of the most famous arias in all of opera—were written today then it'd be considered a politically incorrect war mongering jingo, for that is exactly what it is. No doubt Cherubino was a troublesome PIA but sending the young guy off to war just to get him out of the way is a pretty rotten idea by today's standards but nevertheless we all love that aria and the Marriage wouldn't be the same without it (when I was a kid I had an LP set of the Marriage and I recall waiting eagerly for 'Non più andrai' to arrive as it was within the last half inch or so of the end of first 12" record).
One of the great things about the Mozart-Da Ponte operas is that the vivacity and exuberance of the libretto matches the music in perfect harmony, the characters are so real and they fit the parts so well; they're all characters with great spirit. We often forget that Lorenzo Da Ponte wrote the words for 'Non più andrai' and the collaboration between these two great masters was a match made in heaven so to speak. In my opinion, this is important nowadays as, unlike so many other operas where the libretto is just a framework for the music; the Mozart-Da Ponte collaboration really does come up with a product that enables us, a 21st-Century audience with very different sensibilities, to enter the zeitgeist of the late Enlightenment. These operas aren't just a means to listen to great music, they're also full of dramatic interest and are truly entertaining to watch.
Nothing exemplifies this more than does Don Giovanni. Here, Mozart and Da Ponte are at their absolute pinnacle, they brilliantly combine and contrast The Don's terribly flawed character in that he's both a rapist, murderer and ultimately an unrepentant sinner with his charming and beguiling attributes—ones that many, perhaps most, men would admire—that of being a ladies' man who can easily charm women and ultimately score with them.
Don Giovanni is a violent, racy and sexy opera that shocked 18th Century audiences as it still does with us today (in fact, today, much of it wouldn't be written at all as it would be politically incorrect to do so). That's the simple view but the undercurrent runs much deeper, as ethics and morality raise their heads wherever one ventures to look. This is further complicated from our own modern perceptions of morality that, in some ways, are more nuanced than they were in the days when the opera was written, on the other hand, the reverse is true for others. The Don is probably the most complex and ambiguous character in all of opera and he has always been so; on the one hand we hate him and on the other we can't help but admire him—but at the end when he repeatedly and stubbornly refuses repent his sins before the ghost of the Commendatore who he murdered in Act I, then we bid him farewell and good riddance as he descends into Hell.
Don Giovanni by general consensus is one of the greatest operas ever written and I'm personally of the opinion that it is the greatest because not only is the music simply stunning throughout—in fact its quality is so consistently brilliant that it's almost overwhelming in that one cannot take it all in at one sitting, but also because Da Ponte's libretto is just so brilliant and fitting (it's probably the finest libretto ever written for an opera).
__________
† This footnote is for diehards only, and what follows isn't the words of a professional musician but rather a listener with a little musical knowledge. It just so happened that in a newsletter that I wrote to friends during the lockdown earlier this year I added a comment in response to an article that appeared in The Spectator titled "The Marvel of Mozart’s letters. 'Composers’ letters can make frustrating reading. But with Mozart, you get the whole personality—candid, perceptive, irresistibly alive and packed with filth": https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-marvel-of-mozart-s-l... ".
Here's a part of that correspondence (it's abbreviated as I cannot include the score which I did in the newsletter, and I've also omitted comments that refer to annotations that I made on the score). What I intended to show here was how something so seeming simple as a repeated note tutti that Mozart uses to conclude his work is nothing but simple. In fact with subtle changes that you and I would likely never think of it becomes a work of genius in Mozart's hands. The only part I discuss here is the last 14 seconds which starts at 00:11:56 and concludes at 00:12:10 (which you can hear on the YouTube link). I quote:
"…This is one’s just for me. Right, this addendum is my dalliance, it's for my pleasure and indulgence—and has nothing to do with the article in the above link or about Mozart being a filthy little bastard—so what, most males are filthy-minded bastards anyway! Naturally, it's all about his music. Here, on YouTube, is the third (last) movement, the finale, from Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-Flat Major, K. 482, III Allegro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyK_ZrCocTI, [total time 12m 20sec]. I adore the piano concerto form and this is one of my favorite Mozart piano concertos (and having the link here gives me an excuse to hear it again).
For as long as I can remember, I've been amazed by the way Mozart brings many of the finales in his major works to a conclusion; his technique is just amazing and wonderful to hear. They have a sense of elegance and 'completeness' about them that leaves the listener completely satisfied when the work is finished in ways rarely equalled by other composers. Yet, on first glance of a score, the final moments of the last few bars look deceptively simple and almost boring—seemingly anyone could have written them (as here in K. 482’s Allegro). As even a musical neophyte can see, there's many repeated notes in the second and third last bars with some even spilling over into the last bar. Being a tutti, all these notes are played by all instruments in the orchestra except the piano, thus it just looks so very simple.
Nonetheless, this simplicity is deceptive: as the piano finishes its last ha-rah (which starts at 00:11:56 and ends at 00:12:02 with two crotchets in the home key of E flat Major), a little timing and rhythmic self-contained masterpiece from the orchestra begins the next bar [00:12:02] and lasts slightly less than eight seconds. It's a six-measure tutti in compound 6/8 time that includes beats of six semiquavers; a quaver and quaver rests followed by another six semiquavers then a measure of two quaver triplets, then that’s followed by those two beats of triples, which are the repeated notes I mentioned earlier. Then to conclude Mozart uses the violins to take the concerto back to its home key of E flat Major—and in the last two measures he makes maximum use of 6/8’s compound rhythm and timing to brilliant effect. This isn’t the work of any old hick but from the hand of genius."
[If you got this far it's probably best you download the score which is easily found on the Web.]
The first guy who allegedly said that was a "robbery knight" (Götz von Berlichingen) to a collector of his castle, and he said "er kann mich im Arsche lecken!" Mozart and Goethe (1) just took that...well because their where Mozart an Goethe :)
Right. This tension between developing Enlightenment values, which were becoming more liberal among Enlightenment cognoscenti, Beaumarchais, Goethe, Rousseau, Diderot, et al, and traditional values is quite evident at that time in writings and plays of the period. Ideas coming forth from these Enlightenment intellectuals spread like wildfire across Europe and elsewhere despite what today we'd consider a primitive and slow communications network.
For instance, Pierre Beaumarchais' 1784 play, 'La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro', was not only considered frivolous, almost salacious, by much of Viennese society at the time but also controversial by the fact that in 1786 only two years after Beaumarchais' play was first performed in France, one of their own, Mozart, had not only adopted the play into an operatic version, 'Le nozze di Figaro' (The marriage of Figaro) but also managed to have it staged.
Even today, we wouldn't expect readoption of a work to happen with such great speed. In an age when things and ideas usually moved at a much slower pace, it's little wonder Mozart was at the center of controversy.
(In my opinion, it's not only Enlightenment ideas and values that are interesting but also the enormous speed that they spread across both countries and languages. This makes the 20 or so years before and after the French Revolution so interesting from an historical perspective.)
this seems like a placeholder, some kind of lorem ipsum of mozart where the final text was never delivered for some reason - you know like those companies nowadays which use, instead of lorem ipsum, any number of profanities before the real text drops in (at least until the customer finds out).
Leck mich im Arsch ('Kiss my arse!', or literally 'Lick me in the arse') is a canon in B-flat major composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, K. 231 (K. 382c), with lyrics in German.
