On the Mozartian Legacy

[In his music], Mozart...invites us to share his emotional world; he takes us by the hand, as it were, and leads us, ultimately requiring us to follow wherever he goes. Hence his joys are our joys, his sorrows our sorrows; and the hauntingly beautiful autumnal world of the music written in 1791 [Mozart's last year], where the sun's rays are slanting sharply and are soon to turn into sunset and twilight, is peculiarly our own, perhaps on a massive scale (given the world's present situation). Mozart probably did not intend to portray this, but it seems to accord better with our pessimistic view of life than the optimistic self-enclosed comfort of Haydn, or the life-asserting triumphs of Beethoven. Like Wagner's Ring cycle, which becomes more important to humanity every year, its truths more compelling (possibly because Götterdämmerung is a closer reality than it ever was before), Mozart's music becomes increasingly an essential part of our lives. The drama in his operas, his revelation of truth and beauty, has always been perceived in Figaro and Don Giovanni; now it is also strongly felt in Cosi fan tutte and La clemenza di Tito, while The Magic Flute's mystery and majestic solution of seemingly incompatible stylistic elements appear to us with ever greater relevance. The Mozartian legacy, in brief, is as good an excuse for mankind's existence as we shall ever encounter, and is, perhaps, after all, a still small hope for our ultimate survival.

—H.C. Robbins Landon, 1986, from the Preface to his, Mozart's Last Year