Tuesday's Trivia.

“My great-grandfather used to say to his wife, my great-grandmother, who in turn told her daughter, my grandmother, who repeated it to her daughter, my mother, who used to remind her daughter, my own sister, that to talk well and eloquently was a very great art, but that an equally great one was to know the right moment to stop.” Mozart.

We do a lot of music round here thanks to Ditz & everybody seems to think we should know something about the great composers. Understandable but you know, all the books drag out the same old drivel: Born at such & such, did this, did that, died of this, got buried here & that is seriously dull stuff. Dead boring.


That stuff gives you no idea of the man which is why I dragged out Amadeus for Ditz when she got her first Mozart piece. Yes, I know it's not terribly accurate but it is fun & gives some idea of the period & the music & the feel of the culture. So with that in mind here's all the things you don't need to know about Mozart!


He played billiards. Not only did he play billiards he played well. He not only played well he often played all night & composed while he played. He did the same while playing skittles. No, he's not a role model I'd want for Ditz. I think he was seriously ADD.


He was very good at both math & languages. He was so good at languages he could talk backwards ~ fluently!


We've all heard an infinitum what a genius Mozart was; it's serious genius when you can identify a pig's squeal as being in G sharp when you are only 2!


He also had pets. His dog was named Trickster but Mozart always called him Sugar. The starling was another story entirely. Mozart taught it to sing some of his works! You have to wonder where he found the time because he was a serious workaholic.


Mozart could write music notes before he could write words & confessed all his best ideas came to him while travelling in a carriage, or after a good meal or at night when he couldn't sleep. He was terrible with money but could play the piano with inverted hands & used to play in a string quartet that included Hayden, Vanhal & Dittersdorf.


As for that laugh...well, Mozart's own sister described his laugh as sounding like metal scraping down glass.