Under [his father Leonardo’s] guidance Mozart began playing the piano at age four, was a skilled musician at age six, and was subsequently propelled through Europe, visiting Vienna at six in 1762, Paris in 1763, London in 1764, and Italy in 1769 at the old age of thirteen. As a young child in Rome, he wrote out the entire score of a nine-voice religious work after hearing it twice. He played the piano brilliantly, he read concertos at sight, he improvised, and he composed from the age of six; his first symphony came at eight, his first oratorio at eleven, his first opera at twelve. At fourteen he conducted twenty performances of that opera. The Pope decorated him, Empress Maria Theresa took note of him, he heard Haydn’s string quartets in 1773 and wrote his own first six that same year, at age 17. (Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and their 1,000 Greatest Works, Phil G. Goulding, P121
That all sounds a little Elon Musky, if you ask me, a contrived ‘great’ man, a product of publicity and deception.
Continue reading “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: An early version of Elon Musk?”
Manuel Noriega
The next two “Get out of jail free” card holders were the central focus of two of the most traumatic events of our time, the supposed deaths of Robert F. Kennedy, Nicole Brown-Simpson, and Ron Goldman. It does no good for me to sit here and taunt the reader, saying “Look again how you’ve been fooled!” I’ve been fooled often enough myself, and know that awkward feeling of coming to grips with reality. I do not imagine I possess some greater wisdom, and hope as you read this that you are not insulted by my “superior” knowledge. I too merely want to understand things. Once we break free of the grip of “news,” fraud is easy to spot. But before breaking free, it is quite difficult.
Leona Helmsley was painted in the media as a shrew, and was branded that for supposedly having said “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” This goes back to 1989, and so may not be fresh material for most readers here, but is still useful to try to understand.