Did Mozart Hate Flutes?

Scholars do not believe Mozart hated flutes ... and speculation that the 18th-century flute was unreliable is also unfounded.

In a letter to his father, February 14, 1778, Mozart complained about the flute, which given Mozart’s love of composing, has confused many who have written about him. When Mozart commented about an instrument (“I can’t stand”), he’d decided not to go to Paris with the flutist Johann Wendling. But not because he hated the flute.

Mozart wanted to travel to Paris with Aloysia Weber, his landlord's daughter in Mannheim. Fortunately, for Mozart music lovers, that never happened.

Spaethling said that Mozart’s primary excuse about Wendling’s lack of religion did not fool Leopold. Documented clashes between Mozart and his father, Leopold, are well known. But Mozart did not flee with Aloysia to Paris as planned—Aloysia left without Mozart. Despite this, however, Aloysia became a successful opera singer (Mozart went to Paris with his mother). 

Writing for “Wonders and Marvels,” Stephanie Cowell said that had Mozart married Aloysia, we’d all be missing a lot of Mozart’s remarkable music today. 
 

According to Cowell, Mozart married Aloysia’s sister, Constanze, whom his father, oddly, rejected also. Leopold did not like Aloysia, Mozart’s first love, nor her sister Constanze. Given this, it is easy to see why Mozart could have been angry about his father telling him what to do with his life. But hateful feelings would have been difficult to express, if not impossible. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart loved his father (this is clear in his letters home), but certainly, his dad’s meddling wore him down.
 

After his father’s tantrum, Mozart did not want to go to Paris. He sincerely believed that by helping Aloysia, they both would prosper financially. Wendling’s religion, or lack of it, was just an excuse so he could be with Constanze after her sister, Aloysia, left without him to Paris. Mozart just wanted to get away from his father’s meddling.

Lovesick pleas, which began with “faux hate,” foretold a real tragedy: The death of his mother in Paris.

“One isn’t always in the mood to write,” Mozart told his father in a letter best understood as passive-aggressive, a reaction formation, as Freud called it, to circumvent anger and resentment. Thus, Mozart exaggerated and adopted a superficial idea to hide his true feelings. He sought refuge in opposition to his knowledge and understanding of composition.

The flute plays a vital role in many of Mozart's works (for example, his Piano Concerto No. 27). If there is any instrument he did not like, it would probably be the harp. Mozart's Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra in C major is the only work written for a harp. 

 

It is true the harp is missing in every other composition, but Mozart loved to write. “I could scribble all say long,” he told his father in the letter about the flute, “and scribble as fast as I can, but such a thing goes out into the world; so I want to make sure that I won’t have to feel ashamed, especially when my name appears on that page; besides, my mind gets easily dulled, as you know, when I’m supposed to write a lot for an instrument I can’t stand....”

Why this quote has puzzled so many is because “most flutists would agree,” Spaethling wrote, “Mozart composed some excellent flute music, not only the flute quartets and two concertos he wrote, but his Flute and Harp Concerto, K. 299 (shared above), the Andante for Flute, K. 315, and, of course, the flute music in Die Zauberflote.”

Mozart did not want to go to Paris, and it can be argued he had a premonition.

In the flute and harp concerto the flutist soars, and while at first the harp seems to pluck along, it soon becomes clear this “minor” composition for the the harp (and flute) is remarkable in its depth and beauty.

The concerto, Spaethling said, commissioned for flute and harp, was written in the style of French salon music, but, as so often in his compositions, Mozart far transcended the formal requirements of the commissioned work and created a masterpiece of precision and lyricism.”

Today, scholars do not believe Mozart hated flutes, and speculation that the 18th-century flute was too challenging or worthless as a musical instrument, is also unfounded. Many regarded the flute negatively in its earliest centuries, it is true. The Vienna Symphonic Library said some saw it as a common man's instrument, but this belief had faded by the 18th century.

Unfortunately, Mozart’s heartbreaking, lovesick pleas, which began with a “faux hate” of flutes, foretold a real tragedy. Yes, he complained about the instrument on February 14, 1778, but by July 31, 1778, he was writing home about his mother’s death in Paris. Mozart was frightened, alone, resentful, and still chained to Dad:

 

“What annoys me most is these stupid Frenchmen think I am still just seven years old...” It is not difficult to fill in the blank: Just like you dad!

Mozart did not want to go to Paris, and it can be argued he had a premonition. Then, to add insult to grief and guilt, Adrien-Louis de Bonnières (Comte de Guînes), would not pay him for the flute and harp composition. Mozart's anger and frustration is easy to understand, and hear: “What annoys me most,” he wrote, “is these stupid Frenchmen think I am still just seven years old....” 

It is not difficult to fill in the blank: Just like you dad!

Word-Event

At the Flume Burger Factory, in Chico, California, Joe Montana was front and center.  Customers could not miss “Cool Joe" painted on the wall, and especially while munching a delicious Flume Burger.  During the big game there was plenty of beer and fries too — and, of course — 49er football.

For the restaurant's uninitiated, however, there was just the burger and fries. Those folks did not watch football.

 
The restaurant, housed near Orient and Flume, is gone now. (The mural too.)  The wall painting, with the look of a freshman about it is not missed much.  But Joe is, for sure. Many still remember his performance in Super Bowl XIX. The San Francisco quarterback made it look like ballet.  But back in the day, during Super Bowl XVI, a reporter, a then-member of what could be called the "burger-and-fry guys," was not a fan. But he was for Super Bowl XIX:

“Go 49ers!” the repentant burger-and-fry guy yelled to another burger-and-fry guy after the team won.
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“You’ve got to be kidding,” a burger-and-fry guy said.

We burger-and-fry guys didn’t think much of football back in the day. 

Yes, Joe Montana and the 49ers (and let’s not forget Jerry Rice) were great fun — and it was great football, watching the San Francisco 49ers kick, well, you know what. But there is more to northern California than football, Giants’ baseball, and other stuff. The burger-and-fry guys and gals (one female student, anyway) had nothing to do with sports. They were into Paul Ricoeur, and were huddled down in a campus building watching a guy at a chalkboard.

Of course, "Norm," the above mentioned football hating, burger-and-fry guy, wasn’t in the class at the time, but a handful of other burger-and-fry guys (and gal) were, and they were doing wondrous things. They were learning how to study, read, and interpret the Bible (or at least one was). They were learning about hermeneutics and stuff.

In the book of over 350 pages, translated by Robert Czerny, Paul Ricoeur (Chair of General Philosophy at the University of Paris, la Sorbonne), helped put it all together (the book’s cover and table of contents is shared below, after this primer on the art of metaphor).

While Joe was out there at a playoff; or perhaps, during a local football game (a reporter forgets), the burger-and-fry people were at their desks, huddled against the darkness in an evening class. Charles Winquist, a Religious Studies instructor at Cal State, Chico (who had required us to read Freud, Jung, and an eclectic group of writers, including Robert Funk and Rafael López-Pedraza), outlined his understanding of Paul Ricoeur's chapter on the chalkboard.

What Winquist was lecturing about this night, however, was impossible to understand, but among the geniuses one brave soul spoke up and asked: “What are you talking about?" 

If you have ever read a translation of Paul Ricoeur, or even looked at his work — the book is seen below (follow this link to read actual text) — you will understand the angst.  But there was more to it than this. Holt Hall was empty. Everyone on campus, and in the world, was either talking about football, watching football or playing football that school year.  The entire campus atmosphere was electrified with the 49ers and, of course, the burger-and-fry guys (and gal) could not accept this. How could the campus ignore what really mattered?

Dear reader, please be patience.  What happened next cannot understood without quoting “The Rule of Metaphor.”  On page 299, Ricoeur said, “(that) the metaphorical utterance functions in two referential fields at once....”  Thus, there is a tension between the literal and the metaphorical.

Ricoeur said there was a  tension between the “terms” of statements as a whole.  Thus, the given tension between a literal interpretation and a metaphorical one creates a tension in the reference (or “meaning”) between what is, and what is not.

The duality, he said, explains how two levels of meaning are linked together in the symbol.  The first meaning relates to a known field of reference.  The second meaning, the one to be made apparent, relates to a referential field for which there is no direct characterization — a characterization people are usually unable to make because of the actual meaning of the word.

In Holt Hall that night, however, this was not sinking in. Or at least not in the difficult lesson on the chalkboard. Then something happened. Charles E. Winquist began dissing football (all in relation to “superior us,” of course). Football was a waste of time and stupid, Winquest said (to paraphrase). People are out there jumping up and down, and for what?  It is ridiculous....

The lecture, and what was written on the chalkboard, has mostly been forgotten, but the anti-football "explanation" is not.  It went on for another minute or two. The person who asked the question stared slack jawed.

Metaphorical reality is hidden in words and symbols. "Word-events" alter contextual relationships, and how they affect us.  This is what he was talking about: language is a reflection of culture, self and history.  We shape it and we change it.

Metaphor becomes the power to re-describe reality,” a student read yet again, trying to figure it out. “Earlier analyses are not abandoned, however; we can still detect metaphors in the literal absurdity of statements and point to the words in which the metaphorical action is focused….  The metaphorical word, par excellence, is the copula: the “is” of the metaphorical statement contain(ing) an “is not...."

Take garbage, for example.  Garbage is trash.  Yet it can also mean how a person feels about another person's statement.  This is easily understood by all (and may have been felt by more than one student at that lecture), but not the context.  The lecture was as difficult after the question as it was before the question, but reading Ricoeur was not.

Still, no one went for a Flume Burger after class that night. There was another chapter to read....  But football took on renewed meaning.  Joe Montana could throw a football; and so could Charlie Winquist. ¹

Footnote
 ¹  Everyone probably received an “A” grade (the questioner did, anyway).  It is worth noting that Campus Security had to unlock the building; the students, and Professor Winquist, wandered Holt Hall looking for an open classroom (many rooms, including the lecture hall, were locked that night). There were only 5 or 6 of us.  We found a tiny room open on the south side of the building.

It had been frustrating — the fact that classes were scheduled, and buildings were closed….  Did the instructor hate football lovers?  Of course not, but at least one did.  An equation (found on page 205) was not shared that night from the textbook.  Words linked by arrows and diagrams probably filled the chalkboard, but a’ over b’ — (which is equal to “a” prime over “b” prime) — represent unknowns, and are ever present in communication.  This was yet another “tension” revealed in the lecture that night; metaphors divide human communication and understanding.

Individuals, and communities, still struggle to find meaning in shared words. Understanding metaphor can help stop communication from descending into meaninglessness, frustration and despair.  The lecture was brilliant, as was the man sharing it.

In Memory of Charles E. Winquist