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The great composer is my current obsession, and it isn’t the first time. I’d written a draft of a post for this blog in October that I never finished and, consequently, never posted, that was about the motion picture Amadeus. Which is about, of course, Mozart.
And a little over year before that, I went a solid nine months without listening to any music except Mozart — not on my car CD player or at home on my computer media player or living room stereo. And to think that when I was a child, taking piano lessons that I absolutely detested, I had to play ... and practice ... so much Mozart. Such began my hate-love relationship with this fascinating composer.
Before I go further, in case you’d like to get in sync with me musically, the music I’m listening to while whistling is “Mozart: The Piano Quartets,” featuring instrumentalists Emmanuel Ax (on piano), Jaime Laredo (on viola), Isaac Stern (on violin) and Yo-Yo Ma (on cello).
An acquaintance from a classical music discussion group at the business networking site LinkedIn pointed me to this recording about a month ago, and it’s been difficult for me to listen to anything else since. I absolutely adore it, which I’m sure explains why I’m whistling along right now.
Which gets me back to the point: love-hate relationships, or hate-love relationships.
Which gets me back to the point: love-hate relationships, or hate-love relationships.
Most people, when they use or grasp that phrase, think of things that are simultaneous. You know, there’s someone you really love ... for reasons that developed over time in your interaction with him/her/them, but these also are people who tend to hurt you in ways they (and possibly even you) don’t fully understand or appreciate, so ... you keep distance between you and them, whether that distance is physical or emotional.
With me, and in the context of this post, the phrase refers to a “former/current” thing, and hence why I call it hate-love instead of love-hate:
** I used to hate Mozart, but now ... I adore him.
** I used to hate the Electric Light Orchestra’s song “Evil Woman” (and yes, there’s a bit of a story there, too); now I really like it ... and a lot of what ELO has done.
** I detested hip-hop music when it first hit the scene; now, I can abide some of it ... most of it, even. Recently, I even spent an hour plus watching a cable channel documentary on Tupac Shakur and another on one of the HBO channels, the 2009 motion picture “Notorious,” a biopic about the late Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls, real name Christopher Wallace). B.I.G. and Shakur were the coastal focal-point stars of the much-written-about East Coast/West Coast hip-hop feud/war.
** I used to think gardening was something for people who had nothing better to do; for the past five years, however, I indulge the activity quite earnestly in warm weather months.
** I used to detest spicy foods, but now I put black pepper on lots of things, I season my frozen pizzas with hot pepper flakes, love cajun spicing and put hot mustard (if I have it) on my Chinese meals. I will note that despite this turn-around, I still cannot stomach foods prepared with or containing very strong or high concentrations of garlic (e.g., garlic bread) or raw onions. At all.
** I used to think reading fiction was a waste of time. You know — it’s fake, so why bother? So whenever I’d look to find reading material, the books I’d line up would be only non-fiction — history, biographies and such. Alas, for the past 15 years, it’s been largely the other way around, and it opened my door to John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, Clive Cussler, Lawrence Sanders, Daniel Brown and their ilk. In that 15-year period, I've probably read fiction to non-fiction in a 15:1 ratio ... a ratio that might have to slip a bit because of my reading material of late. The last two books I finished — and the one I'm reading right now (“Open,” retired professional tennis player Andre Agassi's autobiography) — are non-fiction.
With me, and in the context of this post, the phrase refers to a “former/current” thing, and hence why I call it hate-love instead of love-hate:
** I used to hate Mozart, but now ... I adore him.
** I used to hate the Electric Light Orchestra’s song “Evil Woman” (and yes, there’s a bit of a story there, too); now I really like it ... and a lot of what ELO has done.
** I detested hip-hop music when it first hit the scene; now, I can abide some of it ... most of it, even. Recently, I even spent an hour plus watching a cable channel documentary on Tupac Shakur and another on one of the HBO channels, the 2009 motion picture “Notorious,” a biopic about the late Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls, real name Christopher Wallace). B.I.G. and Shakur were the coastal focal-point stars of the much-written-about East Coast/West Coast hip-hop feud/war.
** I used to think gardening was something for people who had nothing better to do; for the past five years, however, I indulge the activity quite earnestly in warm weather months.
** I used to detest spicy foods, but now I put black pepper on lots of things, I season my frozen pizzas with hot pepper flakes, love cajun spicing and put hot mustard (if I have it) on my Chinese meals. I will note that despite this turn-around, I still cannot stomach foods prepared with or containing very strong or high concentrations of garlic (e.g., garlic bread) or raw onions. At all.
** I used to think reading fiction was a waste of time. You know — it’s fake, so why bother? So whenever I’d look to find reading material, the books I’d line up would be only non-fiction — history, biographies and such. Alas, for the past 15 years, it’s been largely the other way around, and it opened my door to John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, Clive Cussler, Lawrence Sanders, Daniel Brown and their ilk. In that 15-year period, I've probably read fiction to non-fiction in a 15:1 ratio ... a ratio that might have to slip a bit because of my reading material of late. The last two books I finished — and the one I'm reading right now (“Open,” retired professional tennis player Andre Agassi's autobiography) — are non-fiction.
You get the idea. I’m sure there are others. Again, characteristic of each item on the list above is that they are all hate-love situations — things I once disliked but I now like a lot. Are there any love-hates I can site, you might ask? Sure.
Foremost are professional sports, with baseball, football and basketball right up there at the top ... primarily because of how the business and commercialization sides of them have transformed the importance and relevance of each into something astronomically beyond what they deserve and, as a result, have warped the reality of so much of our populace.
The sad part is that the vast majority of people can’t and don’t see it. Collectively, these sports-as-a-business have sucked valuable community resources from areas where such resources are far more deserving and needy — education, welfare, education, infrastructure, education, public safety, education, and the arts, to name a few. Oh, wait. Did I mention education? If not, I apologize. Please add that to the list, and send it to the top with a bullet.
Which kind of gets me again back to point (yeah!). Mozart struggled financially in his short life (35 years and 11 months) on this earth. And yet, he amassed a voluminous, and quite stunning, body of work in operas, symphonies, concertos, minuets, quartets, sonatas and liturgical works. Unfortunately, he never enjoyed the wealth that should have come with such profoundly meaningful art; tragically, he was buried in a pauper’s grave. But I bet he would be pleased to know that there are people like me — some 200+ years later — sitting at a fancy, high-tech piece of equipment like a computer and listening to his works on a media player.
Obsessing, enjoying his music ... and whistling while they work.
Note: All of the images in this post are in the public domain and can be found at Wikipedia’s entry for Mozart.
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