Mozart or Shakespear

But as great as Mozart's operas were, it's his symphonies, concertos, and chamber works that are what draw me to him.  Meanwhile, those are two killer plays.  In this case, against my own grain, I go with Shakespeare.  

In Peter Greenaway's PROSPERO'S BOOKS there are moments that are just incredible and amazing ... and one of them is listening to Sir Gielgud do his thing with words ... he makes it sound so smooth and easy, that understanding them is not an issue, something that is really hard to put together when you and I are reading Shakespeare. We can make sense of a sentence or two but all of a sudden the continuity into the next set of lines and words is ... ??? what happened? ... all of a sudden, you do not have any questions what is being said.

My thoughts are that you have to get off the pentameter and this and that in poetry, and just enjoy the flow and freedom of the words and thoughts ... 

It's not "better" than Mozart ... it's almost similar, in that your imagination can easily fly left and right ... and that is always my favorite stuff in any literature.

True....there are only 3 examples of his actual handwriting and in all 3 he himself spelled his name differently.

Go figure....

Hi,

And ... did she have arms, or not?

jamesbaldwin wrote: As a writer, possibly Shakespear is better but... I'm not a fan of his. Instead, I love Mozart, expecially his Requiem, so... Mozart. ...

Not surprising ... in a different language than English, Shakespeare is very tough and difficult. Even my dad translated a couple of plays into Portuguese, and I have to tell you that looking at these later, the feelings and the words, just do not match ... and it makes it very difficult to think that this or that is not as good. Same thing goes for me with Boccaccio and a couple of other Italian writers, which somehow in my reading of it, seems like something is missing and I know it is in the translation of it.

Thus Shakespeare would likely have less of an appeal in other countries, although for many actors and actresses, it still is ... the best, since the characterizations, in general, are very strong!

Mozart, for me, is easy ... if you know how to close your eyes and just flow with the music ... you don't even need to know the words on anything, since the music is very expressive. And so is Shakespeare. Try to get PROSPERO'S BOOKS, and then one day play the DVD and record on a DAW or Audacity, just the words ... and then on another empty night, just listen to the words by Sir John Gielgud ... it will change your opinion, some. AND, believe it or not, this has become one of my favorite ways to listen to a lot of things, instead of seeing it ... for example ... watching MARAT/SADE (Peter Brook's opus incredibilitus!!!) is difficult since they films around the play going on, which was OK for a while, but very confusing otherwise ... because all of a sudden some points of view seem, not quite right. BUT, if you just hear the dialogue, and not having your vision encumbered, this play takes on another MASSIVE DIMENTION ... and it is downright revolutionary, to the point that I want to direct one of these productions with skinheads and such, just to give you an idea! It is an incredible amount of dialogue, and a lot of it has been incorporated subtly in many songs since it was first opened in 1965 ... and it probably was one of the first "psychedelic" productions in London, the other having been the famous version of "MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM", which by all thoughts and ideas is a monster of a dope play! All this before Sgt. Pepper! 

But the words are what made these great, and this was/is the Shakespeare tradition that we love dearly were it not for that stupid Iambic Puta Meter that English Departments continuously think is what defines Shakespeare, which is not true ... the audiences of the Globe would not have known Iambic Pee from Iambic Poo and get a laugh from the gag ... 

In Mozart's case, it is not the words, it is the inflection and the language he created with instruments to define something new in music, that up until that time was metronomic and stupid and repetitious ... something that even a movie points out very strongly ... and all of a sudden, you have someone seeing something else with all these notes, creating new feelings you and I never considered ... in so many ways it is not really different than Shakespeare!