526. Mozart: History's Greatest Prodigy LIVE at the Royal Albert Hall
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Hello, everyone. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and we have two festive treats coming up for you today and on Thursday. These are two halves of a show that we recorded at the Royal Albert Hall on the 18th of October with a full choir, a full orchestra.
MUSIC PLAYS
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Good evening, and welcome to The Rest Is History.
And, Dominic, ladies and gentlemen, I think you'll agree that was quite something. We've had many great musical moments on The Rest Is History. One thinks of Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend, sung by me. And more recently, Don't Cry For Me, Argentina, which was also sung by me. But I think, I mean, that wasn't bad. That was kind of up there, wasn't it?
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It was played by the brilliant orchestra that I have behind me, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. We have the Philharmonia Chorus. And above all, the most important person who's on the stage tonight, the person whose idea for this evening this was, the person who has made it possible, and that is our majestic conductor, Oliver Zeffman.
I've been a fan of the podcast since the beginning. Actually, in a past life, I have a history undergraduate degree, but not anymore. I got in touch with Tom and Dominic because there are so many interesting, exciting stories in classical music. People know music a little bit, but actually, if you don't... go to concerts, or you don't have much exposure to it, how do you get into it? And so this was a perfect opportunity to talk about two of the most important composers ever, probably two of the most important cultural figures ever, and their lives obviously found a very interesting point in history, which I'm going to talk about. So I got in touch. They were keen, and we're here today, so thanks. Thanks for coming.
Actually, the piece you just heard now, you might recognise from the opening of Amadeus, the film. And actually, the orchestra here on stage, and even some of the players on stage, were in that recording, so...
Thank you, Oliver. Thank you. Now, those of you who've seen the film Amadeus will know that it is the story of a brilliantly talented man who is hounded to his death by a mediocre rival. Yep. That's what it's about. And Tom, this is very much the dynamic. at Goldhanger Podcasts, is it not?
No, I mean, this is not a dynamic that we have to worry about on The Rest Is History, is it? Yeah, so we wanted to open with a kind of a tipping of the hat to Amadeus, because here we are in the Royal Albert Hall, one of the great music festival centres in the whole world. And so we thought that Mozart and Beethoven would be absolutely ideal themes, because... they are probably the most celebrated, the most iconic composers in the whole history of music. But I think, as Oliver hinted, they're not just iconic, they are also the embodiments of a particular moment in cultural history. So the key thing about Amadeus is that people sitting down to watch this film, they know that Mozart is a genius. If they don't know that, then the film doesn't work.
And the sweep of history that is covered by the lives first of Mozart and then of Beethoven, it witnesses the onset of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of the Romantic movement. And, Dominic, this is the period that... kind of enshrines the idea that an artist can be a genius, isn't it?
A genius with a capital G. Absolutely, and that's why the lives of Mozart and Beethoven are a brilliant window onto the world of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. We'll be exploring in this show the emergence of the idea of the genius and the idea of art with a capital A, and the way in which that reflects political and social change, and also, frankly, the way that people make money. So it's a continuous story that we've got for you tonight, but we're going to tell it in two halves. We will be coming to Beethoven in the second half. Now, can I just ask, are there any members here of the Rest Is History Club? Very good. So you can listen to that second half right away.
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