WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart; 27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791) was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. Born in Salzburg, he showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty. He composed more than 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is among the most enduringly popular of classical composers, and his influence is profound on subsequent Western art music. Ludwig van Beethoven composed his own early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote: “Posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years”. (More from Wikipedia)
The Under Appreciated Rock Artist for this month is Nick Freund, a Catholic priest who joined the faculty at the St. Pius X Seminary, in Galt, California (near Sacramento) where he taught for 8 years as an English teacher and headed the band and choir. He worked on choral music and an amazing acid-folk Christian album by a group called the Search Party.
Much as happened with the priest who oversaw the creation of last month’s UARB, the Holy Ghost Reception Committee #9, his students were resistant to the classical composers like Mozart and Beethoven and told him: “Father, you ought to check out a place in San Francisco called The Fillmore.”
(September 2014)
