Mozart’s Genius

NOR do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell! all this inventing, this producing takes place in a pleasing lively dream. Still the actual hearing of the tout ensemble, is after all the best. What has been thus produced, I do not easily forget, and this is perhaps the best gift I have my Divine Maker to thank for.

But why my productions take from my hand that particular form and style that makes them Mozartish and different from the works of other composers, is probably owing to the same cause which renders my nose so, or so large, so aquiline, or, in short, makes it Mozart’s and different from those of other people. For I really do not study or aim at any originality; I should in fact not be able to describe in what mine consists.

abridged

Abridged from ‘The Life of Mozart: Including his Correspondence’ (1845, 1878), by Edward Holmes (1797-1859). Additional information from the correspondence of Mary Sabilla Novello in ‘The Musical World’ No. LXXV Vol. VI (August 18, 1837), and ‘The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’ (1866) translated by Lady Wallace.
Précis
Mozart described the joy he felt in being able to hear in his mind a whole composition, not instrument by instrument but as a whole, though hearing it performed was even better. He never tried to be original, he said; the Mozart style, whatever that may be, was no more deliberate than the shape of his nose.
Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Mozart enjoyed hearing music in his head. He enjoyed hearing it performed even more.

See if you can include one or more of these words in your answer.

IJoy. IIPublic. IIISurpass.

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