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If Mozart were still alive, his birthday cake would be blazing wildly Friday, when he would turn 250.
In honor, the music of Wolfgang Amadeus is flooding the marketplace --- in CDs, DVDs, radio, books and performances. In concerts tonight through Saturday, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra celebrates the Austrian genius's birthday with wall-to-wall Mozart.
ASO conducting fellow Laura Jackson makes her subscription series debut, with acclaimed pianist Stephen Kovacevich as the invited guest (information: 404-733-5000, www.atlantasymphony.org). We asked them their thoughts on the composer ... Jackson: "I'm awed by Mozart. In almost all his music, it's very pretty and feminine at one end, and extremely gutsy and powerful at the other, and in between there's so much operatic drama. It's easy to latch your ear onto his music, but as a musician, he's really difficult to pull off, to do him justice." Kovacevich: "Mozart was my first love, starting when I was 5. His basic grammar, the way he puts notes together, speaks to you more clearly and directly than almost any other composer. One of the amazing things about Mozart's music is how even the most abstract moments hold a deep, luminous quality. He was in touch with something really quite profound."
Copyright 2006 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
