An Interview With W. A. Mozart of Salzburg, Vienna, and Other Places With Germanic Names
by Tom Dempster

Last time I fomented anger among the ranks of people in the music community. I received a number of terrific (and by terrific I do not mean the general common everyday sense – I mean it as horrifying. Terrifying. The grammar of some of these missives borders on the shocking, the content egregious in its own right, and I am loathe to reprint most of them) emails about my prequel to the interview with Mozart. There were those who dug deep into my soul, questioning my integrity as a new music supporter. One of the most rampant and flawed arguments was that I should support all new music – not just avant-garde art music or electroacoustic music or what, but new pop, new reggae, new folk, all that jazz. Let me set something straight here: I said nothing about those genres being any lesser or greater than anything else out there on the aural buffet line, but there are, as I alluded to, so many hors d’oeuvers on the feed table that are filled with empty calories, some unwholesome, and some that are plainly terrible. Am I a snob? Yes. An elitist? Maybe. Show me one professionally trained artist in any field that isn’t to some degree picky or discriminating, and I will wax your bum and make it shinier than Wednesday morning. What I am saying is that the dead are being honored without being among the undead, that classical music in this country – and many others – is a field inhabited only by corpses, people who have not touched pen and paper in decades – and in some case centuries – but yet get treated as though they are the outright messiahs of all things musical. I could also elaborate on another point, one that caused such a torrent among the reading masses: instead of pumping the plate of music full of fattening nothing, bland and tasteless top 40, we could put some fulfilling, delicious, exquisite things on the table just by making music smarter in general and training the populace to recognize what it means to have smart music. Think on it for a second: music is one of the few art forms that has regressed since the intellectual and artistic heydays of thirty-plus years ago. There are a number of exceptions, of course, but on the whole, mental dust has covered up whatever progress was being made. And Mozart shares this concern from beyond the grave.

TD: Thank you very much for taking the time –
W A Mozart: Ach, it war nussink. Ich hab’ all day für speaking mit you. Ich bin dead, you know.
TD: Yes, I’m quite aware. But thank you anyway for taking the time out of your busy schedule –
WAM: Bizzee? Bizzee? Ach, come on, Herr Tom. I war only playink fooßball mit Cselaw Milosz. I owe some money to Borges – I bet against Brazil and I owe him some Geld. But, you are ferry velcome. Ist mein pleasure to be hier.
TD: The pleasure is all mine. So, the first time I contacted you –
WAM: Mit your – um, um – wie ist gesagt – Neck-ro-komm-oo-nee-cay-tur?
TD: Yes. Necrocommunicator. The first time I contacted you, you had just finished reading my column from the September issue. In your esteemed opinion, am I anywhere close to being correct?
WAM: [lights up a Meerschaum filled to the brim with opium] Ja, ja… I ssink daß, daß you are ferry close to being correct – oder you are at least in za right neighborhood. That Fred Rogers can drink bier, ja?
TD: I wouldn’t know, and thanks for ruining my childhood memories for me. Pass that fucker over. [Mozart willingly passes the pipe] Well, any general comments on the column? I made the statement that there were others of your generation and of other generations that deserve, if not demand, equal airtime, so to speak, alongside you and the other so-called masters of the art forms.
WAM: Ach, ja… Ich agree kumpletely. I mean, I was not zee only komponist alive betveen the year of our Lord Ein Tausent Sieben Hundert Sechs un Fünfzig und –
TD: -- and 1791. I don’t have all day, Wolf.
WAM: You lazy Americans. I ran into Washington in 1801 in the third circle and he was already scheissing himself over your fate.
TD: Yes, we’re all lazy and ignorant and dumb. Anyhow. Continue.
WAM: -- un Ein Tausend Sieben Hundert Eins und Neunzig. There war many gut komponists liffing betveen zat time az vell. My good friend Salieri, and mentor, for instance. He geschreibt gut musik, und he iz neffer ahn ze radio. Novhere! Zees makes me feel ferry uncomfortablischer. His musik was at least as gut as mein musik, und he has been – wie ist gesacht – blackholed?
TD: Blackballed?
WAM: Dass not funny. My good violinist freund died of blackballs.
TD: Blackballed means to be blacklisted, overlooked. Not the brain-rot and warts.
WAM: How much zings change im zwei hundert Jahre… Anyhoo, ja – [drags off the pipe] [coughs] [drinks a glass of Port] – I war not zee only music writer alife in dose täge, und zo many people seem to think I was! Can you velieve it? Iss ridiculous!
TD: So, are you ungrateful that you are so posthumously famous?
WAM: Vell, I’d be lying eef I said nein. I am ferry happy, ferry happy indeed, dat people are höring my music und dat zey haff been for lo the time of your Victrola and what not. Of course, people like you are overshadowed by me and Beethoven and Hugo Wolf –
TD: Uhh, Wolfgang, Hugo Wolf is not exactly a household word. In fact, many trained musicians – non-singers, mostly – have no idea who he is.
WAM: Zat bastard! He told me he was the leader of ze Wien Philharmonischer! Anyhow, ze recordinks have vitevasched any possible future of komponists. Wir haben all ziss musik by Wagner und Strauß und mich – und it zeems like people get zo trapped in their radios und TiVos und CDs that live musik und neue musik geht am the wayside. Ist sad für mich, für if I hab known daß mein life voot haff wrecked die futures, Ich voot haff broken free.
TD: What do you mean, broken free?
WAM: You haff zeen dat awful, awful movie – Amadeus? Ja?
TD: I have. It shows you as someone who wrote prolifically and effortlessly and showed you as being a patron of the wench-for-rent. And very decadent.
WAM: Vell, [coughing from the pipe] as you can zee, Ich bin ferry decadent. I happen to enjoy the pleasures of the taste, der smell, der sight. If meinen Augen und Näse un Hände are not freutlich, Ich bin freutlich nicht.
TD: You’re slipping back into German. Exactly one reader of this can speak German.
WAM: Ach, es tut mir Leid. Sorry. Ja, ich bin decadent, ja… But zat movie is fillt mit nonsense! I didn’t just pull pieces ausser mein ass! And I never, never wrote at a billiards table! You see? Ziss is vat happens ven people overlook your shitty life und elevate your musik to etwas – something – it is not meant to be.
TD: What do you mean, shitty life? Could you reflect on your childhood a little bit for us?
WAM: Vell… From my earliest memories im childhood, I can say dat ich never hat ein childhood like you may haff hat. I war maybe three oder vier Jahre alt, und all ich can remember is practicing der piano from after breakfast to midday, eating a sensible lunch with some wine midday, taking a short nap, and writing all afternoon and night. Wenn mein vater war takink me all around Evropa, I did ze same tink on ze road. Wir voot shtop im Kathedrale in morninks, and mein Vater woult ask if ihr sonne coult practices on ein organ or on ein klavier. Klavier is your piano, yes.
TD: Jawohl.
WAM: Ja. So, sometimes I didn’t eat until late at night, especially if I had a performance – und I hat many of them and saw most of vat ist now Germany und France und Österreich und Italia before I war zehn jahre alt. Wenn Ich war alt enough, wir stopped tourink zo much, but the schedule war maintained. I practiced all morning und composed into der small hours of ze nacht. Mein vater never let me take breaks, never let me have tobacco until I hat finished something each night… Vitch meant ich hat ferry little room für ein zocial life. I war im mein mid-tventies before I even managed to have a girl take off one of her corsets im bett mit mir! Vater war ferry strict mit mir, und mein work ethic stayed mit me all my life. I punished myself, toiled, all to die early and leave a rotten corpse.
TD: So, composing was something that was not second nature? Or did it become so over time?
WAM: Vell, just like anyzink else, I think, I became faster about it. Und I eventually stopped practicing Klavier so much and devoted almost all my time to composing. It took me a great deal of time to produce thinks dat both Vater und I ver in agreement about. Sometimes zee ideas just flowed aus of mich, you know? I’m sure you haff ze same zings happen for you sometimes. But, there ver times, und diese ver more often than ze othes, zat I struggled – labored so painfully – over mein parchment for ten, zwölf hours ov ze tag, und nussink! Just ein few paltry, sorry notes, mocking my very forced profession. Und belief me ven I say dat it was forced. Dass one zing de movie did get right – my relationship mit Vater? Nicht so gut. If I did not please him, I war nussink. Und I often did not please him. [takes a draw of the Meerschaum] But I now hab nicht regrets. Wir alle dead, you know.
TD: So this is what you meant by getting out – rather, “breaking free?”
WAM: Ja, ja, geht ausser frei… I just vanted to studiere law, make money für mein Weib und Kind – ach, sorry, make money for my vife und child. But I couldn’t!
TD: Because of your father?
WAM: Vell, to be honest, he war only about three-qvarters of ze problem. Im mein mid-tventies, I started drinking several litres of wein a day. I know now that doctors say you should drink a glass a day, but our doctors used leeches and mercury, für Christos sake! They didn’t know any better. And I was wasting so much money on payink performers, drinking, tobacco, opium, vatever, zat über time ich hat nussink left.
TD: Wait – you had to pay your performers?
WAM: [laughing] Ach, du dumbkopf, YES! Vat, you zink dat ze opera companies und orchesters paid zemselves? I paid each performer I ever had, and even if I had not been so vasteful mit mein money, there vood not have been enough for meine familie. But I started drinking heavily, ran up large debts mit der Fräuleine des Nachts – I particularly liked the public-haus venches – and my vater actually made me pay him back for all the time he spent trainink me. And good ink und fine paper wer nicht so cheap im doze days, you see.
TD: Indeed. So, is this why you died penniless and were buried in a pauper’s grave?
WAM: Partially. My vater actually hat a familie plot für graves but refused to pay burial für mich. He hat der money – he just war so disgusted mit mein life und mein drinking… [takes a sip of Beaujolais]
TD: But back to your music. Do you think it should have had such an impact on later composers?
WAM: Vell, dat ist ein ferry complex issue you bring forvärts. Let me begin by sayink dass I am only viel freutig dass der menschen im all der verld liebe meine musick soviel. Ach. But – ich muss say dass: Ich bin kein Gott.
TD: You’re drifting into German again.
WAM: Vell, vat do you expecht? I’m fucking Austrian! Anyvay, wass war ich gesagt – ach, so. Ich bin nicht a god to people. Ich never set out to be ein Gott am der menschen. Der var menny menny people, composers, alive durink mein time who kuld write besser dann ich kann. Und dey ver all poor, nicht connected in der verld, und über all, had an iota of shame. They did not believe in demselves and hid behind their pianofortes und deiner hookers und der food.
TD: Wait, wait. You’re telling me that all I have to do is believe in myself and in effect I will become a Mozart?
WAM: Vell, I give you none of dass stupid liburul idiocy. But du musst liebe your musick. And fuck everything in sight in order to get ahead. Or pay zem all off. But if zee komponist ist dedicatabungenden enough, er will übercome all of his woes und trageödies. Er will, wie ist gesacht, rise to super-schtardom im no time. He only needs to network, be a schlimy bastard, and have on kompunction über anyzink. Und people haff done dass time und zeit again. Und yet dey see mich as ein Gott! Err, God! Ja.
TD: And you’re not, of course.
WAM: I don’t mind beink kalled ein Gott. But honestly, people should expand der horizons und see dass der ist mehr muisck out zehr in dem verld. I charge you all mit dass: go listen to sumvink else.
TD: Thank you so much for that, and thank you for your time.
WAM: Vat say ve head downtown und pick us up some of dem Ecuadorian hookers, ach?
TD: Jawohl.

Nächstes Zeit -- Err, next time: We continue our discussion after our downtown jaunt lands us in the Austin City Jail, discussing Top 40 and the endless revolutionary tide of the 1960s and 1970s that came to a screeching halt around the time the Gipper bombed Granada...