Despite the stories, the gossip, the incessant photos, and the never-ending hype, Britney Spears is not the hottest thing in music. Mozart is. Dead for over 200 years, the composer born in Salzburg, Austria, in 1756 is burning up the Internet this week.
On Tuesday, the Salzburg-based International Mozart Foundation (IMF) released a complete collection of Mozart's works online.
How complete is complete? In his lifetime, the composer penned more than 600 works consisting of more than 24,000 pages. He was not only one of the most gifted composers of his age -- or any other, for that matter -- but also one of the fastest.
All Mozart, All the Time
The Web site (http://dme.mozarteum.at) has been so hounded by Mozart fans that, as of Wednesday, its owners had posted an apology for any delays due to overwhelming traffic. In a Reuters interview, Ulrich Leisinger of the IMF claimed the site had 45,000 hits in the first two hours after its launch, much to his surprise. "We would not have expected that," he said.
The site is a digital version of the Neue Mozart Ausgabe (New Mozart Edition), a compilation of Mozart's works that took scholars and musicologists some 50 years to complete.
But even at five decades in the making, the project is perfectly timed: 2006 is the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth, and around the globe, symphonies, societies, museums, and exultant musicians have devoted the year to performing everything from Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to The Magic Flute.
Behind Every Great Man
The IMF's site, whose interface is not for the faint of heart, nonetheless offers the sheet music for all of Mozart's works -- along with critical studies and other commentary -- in PDF.
No doubt Wolfgang, baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, would be pleased. But his wife would be more pleased still.
Constanze Mozart returned to her husband's native Salzburg after his early death at 35. And while she later remarried, she began an avid and even dogged campaign to keep Mozart's name alive.
She met with and greeted fans, urged publishers to print and reprint her former husband's work, and held concerts, including one where a Mozart concerto was performed -- no doubt flawlessly -- by an up and coming but little known contender to music's highest throne.
His name? Beethoven, of course, the only man ever believed to rival Mozart as music's finest mind.
|
Rackspace: It makes a difference when you focus on support.
House Lawmakers Push Ban on Peer-to-Peer Software
GAO: Los Alamos Computer Security Has Weaknesses
Computer Security Firm Fortinet Plans IPO This Week
Flat Shipments Hurt Dell Despite Increased Earnings
New Pogoplug 'Personal Cloud' Does Social Networking
Apple Tablet Rumored Delayed as Publisher Gears Up
Smartphones: A Bigger Target for Security Threats
FBI Says Hackers Targeting Law Firms, PR Companies