Mozart the Playful

Mozart was 250 on the 27th. To those of us who know him as "Wolfie," it is not so surprising to stumble across this abstract of a paper by Peter Presic. Here's a taste:

"Plato considered play as fundamental to art, and the leap as the primoridal form of play. Among Mozart's near contemporaries, the philosophers Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Schiller, Christian Gottfried Körner, and Hans-Georg Nögeli reflected on the importance of play in art. Though he does not mention Mozart explicitly, Schiller's description of the play-impulse is particularly important and has not before been fully mined for the insights it can give into musical practice. The concept of 'deep play' discussed by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz in the context of Balinese gambling is also helpful in this musical context. Play is dynamic and must "deepen" itself or cease. These insights are the starting point of a close discussion of the finale of Mozart's Piano Sonata in B-, K. 570."

Thanks to Janine Fron for the find.