Norman Lebrecht eviscerates the "Mozart industry," which is replete with radio stations dedicated to his oeuvre, pseudo-scientific claims about the effects of playing his music to infants, and massive anniversary celebrations remembering his birth. Lebrecht's peroration:
Once we invest music with supernal qualities, once we maintain (there are learned papers to this effect) that Mozart can ease childbirth pains and stimulate brain cells in laboratory rats, it ceases to be music at all and becomes a part of humdrum mundanity, along with unemployment statistics and the football results. Sooner or later, you will read that Mozart can cure cancer.
The challenge for my working life is to rescue music from such tedious misconceptions and restore its gift to elevate us above the irksomeness of everyday life. We have just under three decades left to reclaim Mozart from mass media and market economies before the next anniversary reduces his music to a pinball on the political-industrial table. There’s no time to lose. Save Mozart Now.
The Dish 