"The man that hath no music in himself," says Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice as he tries to woo the winsome Jessica,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.
Alas, in general, I fit the facts, though not, I hope, Lorenzo's harsh conclusion. My taste tends more to coincide with Charles Lamb who, with an emphasis on the second syllable, remarked that:
Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart,
Just as the whim bites. For my part,
I do not care a farthing candle
For either of them, nor for Handel.
But still! Today is Mozart's anniversary, and proper meteorological honours must be done.
Mozart lived at the height of the golden age of music in Vienna. Europe in the late 18th century was slowly emerging from the rigours of the Little Ice Age, but although the average temperature of the region was increasing, the climate of the time was most erratic. It was an age of extremes, with harsh winters often alternating with long, hot dry summers which brought drought and famine.
Perhaps it was this very volatility which gave the weather its fascination for the Viennese composers. In any event, they were adept at its portrayal through their music, and used the transition from one type of weather to another to enhance the dramatic impact of their renderings.
Three near contemporaries of Mozart stand out in this respect. Perhaps the best known "weather-work" is The Four Seasons, written in 1725 by Antonio Vivaldi. These four concertos bring to life the effervescence of the new spring, followed by a hot and humid summer, played adagio; later passages suggest the shivers of the wintertime, before the final allegro portrays fun and games on ice in a chill and boisterous wind. Haydn also wrote about The Seasons, describing musically the brash renaissance of the earth from winter, the hot and sultry breezes of midsummer and the hunting festivals of autumn. And Haydn's pupil Beethoven, who came to Vienna some months after Mozart's death, vividly records, for example, a summer thunderstorm in his Sixth Symphony, the Pastoral.
But Mozart himself, it must be said, was not a meteorological musician. Unlike many of his fellow composers, he made few attempts throughout his 769 opera to play the weather in a major key. But even he was not totally resistant to meteorological temptation: his Contradance K.534 is called The Thunderstorm, and fulfills all the lively promise of its name.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, died 107 years ago today, on December 5th, 1791, aged 35.