What is this piece of music?

This actually appears in the Zauberflöte? I really need to listen to it again. I've heard/seen at least four performances of it and I still didn't remember it from there. It's been some time since then though.

Originally Posted by Gardener

This actually appears in the Zauberflöte?

The armed guards in the second act.

wow! this was boring from beginning to end!

I like Mozart.
I actually like Busoni.

this was just dull. sounded like some obscure organ piece by some obscure baroque composer.

I'm sure that the Mozart version is far more interesting.
Come to think of it, I'm sure Busoni is capable of far more interesting things as well (Mephisto, anyone?)

Although this is not a terrible piece of music, in my opinion it isn't upto Mozart's usual standard in fact is nowhere near it. Nobody is musically infallible!

I'll give your piece a listen and critique Seraphim, but remember that as I havn't studied Fugal writing in much detail, my opinion will be slightly uninformed! I am off out right now, but I should have time to listen later today.

Originally Posted by almacg

Although this is not a terrible piece of music, in my opinion it isn't upto Mozart's usual standard in fact is nowhere near it. Nobody is musically infallible!

Absolutely. Mozart wrote a lot of music that he had absolutely no interest in and it showed. Some speculate that he even mocked the lack of music understanding and sensitivity of some of his clients in the music he wrote for them. He has actually written some genuinely terrible sounding pieces as well.

In this piece, however, he was using to set a mood (like background music) in the opera and it works extremely well in that context. This piece was never intended to be heard by itself which is why I used it for this challenge.

I'll give your piece a listen and critique Seraphim, but remember that as I havn't studied Fugal writing in much detail, my opinion will be slightly uninformed! I am off out right now, but I should have time to listen later today.

Thanks!

My first Prelude and Fugue

I think everybody who writes literally thousands of pieces of music will inevitably write some absolute stinkers! This isn't one of them, but I do find a few of Mozart's pieces to be a tad lacklustre.
On a personal level, for somebody to write music that even in 200 or so years time would be considered masterful and beautiful is absolutely awe inspiring. Culturally speaking, the lives of the people alive at the time of Mozarts life (what a terribly constructed sentence!) seem utterly ridiculous to us, yet his music continues to inspire. His music will probably never fade.