Was Mozart rude?
Sir: I wonder if I might refer to a small matter which I think would be of interest to readers. As keen Mozartians, my wife and I are regular patrons of the monthly concerts of the excellent London Mozart players conducted by Harry Blech at the Royal Festival Hall. Some years ago we saw in a pro- gramme note on the D Minor Piano Concerto (probably the greatest of all concertos) a refer- ence to a short theme showing that Mozart did not mind writ'ng the occasional rude theme even if it did offend Highly Respectable Persons (in caps. in the pro- gramme). This was rather puzzling as neither we nor our musical friends could tell us how the com- poser was being (or inde.-d could he) rude in music so I wrote to Mr Blech who sent me a pleasant reply explaining that it is a custom of
British players, at rehearsal, to sing out, when this theme comes along : 'Stick it up your jumper!' (I use a euphemism, of course.)
Now I have not the slightest objection to orchestral players lightening the heavy load of re- hearsal with a bit of boisterous humour (and of course it would make no difference if I had). Furthermore, I am sure that Mozart, who was a long way from being a prig, would enjoy the joke as much as the players. What I do object to is paying Is 6d for a programme which gives wrong in- formation and misleads readers into thinking Mozart wrote some- thing rude when in fact he did no such thing. The rudeness was in- vented by players hundreds of years later, Mr Blech referred me to the compiler of the notes, the eminent musicologist Michael Whewell of Belfast University, but to no avail as each time the con- certo is played (including at the last concert a week or two ago), the programme insists on repeating the same puzzling—and quite wrong—information. I know that there are greater issues worrying the world (and I have myself had letters in the paper on such matters as Biafra and racialism in sport), but I think there is a principle involved here and clearly only ventilation in a paper like the SPECTKI OR can hope to get the wrong note silenced.
L. E. Weidberg 14 Templewood Avenue, London Nw3
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