Mozart Fans Only

No discussion of Mozart's chamber works would be complete without mention of his Serenade No. 10 for winds in B flat major ("Gran Partita"), K. 361. Amazing music that as Salieri is purported to have said is "like listening to the voice of God". Of special note is his use of a pair of basset horns; a seldom heard instrument, member of the clarinet family, which is essentially an alto clarinet in the key of F. A beautiful sonority that perfectly fills in the harmonic "gap" between the clarinets and the bassoons. The Charles Mackerras/Orchestra Of St. Luke's recording on Telarc is very fine on all counts. Highly recommended!

BTW, on the subject of insanity and the power of Mozart's music: I swear that only Mozart can get my pet parrot to sing along.

Frogman, I have a Shetland Sheepdog named Wolfie after you guessed it, Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart himself. Short of stature and a rather large nose. The dog that is. Now this dog loves music, especially Schubert's chamber music, as evidenced by his propensity to sing along with the violins. Only on rare occasions will he sing along with anything other than Schuberts late quartets. Even if he doesn't sing along, he usually wanders into the music room when he hears the music start. Ironically, my wife wanted to name him Schubert. I just had to name him Wolfgang.

Brownsfan, I once had a Bassethound, rather passive as is their wont, who would awake from a dead sleep and come 'a running whenever I would play Scubert chamber music, he would actually get teary over the op99 and 100 trios!

I had named him Schubert as a pup, so help me God.

Schubert, wow, amazing. What is it with dogs and Schubert?

Dogs have big hearts, Schubert has the most "heart" of all the great composers. Also like dogs, Schubert had not a phoney bone in his body or in his music.

God loves us and knowing dogs are "mans best friend",
he had to let them in on his greatest earthly gift to us, serious music, and of course Schubert came to mind.